Wednesday:
We had class FOREVER. It was our last super long day at school though so that was cool, and I brought my computer and was able to load nearly 400 pictures to facebook during that time (and to think, 400 are just my favorites!). After class me, Hope, and Michael went for ice cream and walked around for a while. Michael found this mall type thing hidden between buildings. We've been here 5 weeks and haven't even known it existed. We invited Louie over for dinner and he brought one of his friends. There were like 10 of us all eating and hanging out, and then we went to O'Cardinals for the Spain-Germany game. After that we walked around some more, some people got ice cream, and then we walked back home. Some people went to bed but Brooke, Hope, Michael, and I hung out in Michael's room for a while. We were gonna watch a TV show or something but then we all just talked. It was good, I really enjoyed it.
Watching the game outside...
Thursday:
We had class with Sabine again, it had been a while! It was good, I don't remember what we did but I do remember being interested the whole time. After class I walked back to the apartments with Jeffrey and Michael while the girls went shopping. I've decided that any clothing that I have bought over here has been just to buy it, not because I really need it...and that's ok for a little but I'm trying to avoid excessive clothing purchases. We ate lunch and then went to meet up with some people at 4. Me and Anna had to buy train tickets and Jeffrey and Michael had to buy train or bus tickets of some sort too. Me and Anna bought our tickets to Italy! They leave a little later than we hoped but we aren't going to Normandy at the end anymore so we have Monday-Saturday in Italy. We could only buy reservations to Milan, we have to wait until we're in Italy to buy our tickets back and between the different cities. Right now we're hoping to go from Milan to Florence to Venice to Verona and then back to France...hopefully it works out! Then we bought tickets from Givors to Paris for that Sunday. Crazy! After that we all went home and napped and showered and got ready. I went over to Anna's around 8 to finish getting ready with the girls. We were going to eat dinner too but my appetite has been super weird lately. I'm stuffy and kind of sick and I just have no desire to eat. I don't feel hungry and even our classic bread dipped in olive oil didn't sound good to me that night. Weird.
We left around 9:30 to go to a concert at the castle. It was SO good! It was completely a cappella and amazing. We missed the beginning of it and it was over way too soon. After the concert we went to Mojito. That was also fun. We hung out and talked and did some Karaoke. Karaoke ended sooner than we expected, we only got one song in (Brittney Spears, Hit Me Baby One More Time) and then we headed over to the club. It was SO fun. Almost every song they played was American music and I'm pretty sure that I didn't even sit down for a whole song the entire time we were there. Amazing, I know! A bunch of us left at 3:45 and headed home, not too excited about having class on Friday...On our way out of the club I fell down the stairs, usually not a big deal, I'm clumsy and fall a lot. It was a spirally staircase and I was walking toward the middle so I could reach the railing and because it's so narrow toward the middle I missed a step and fell. I was fine, but my camera (that was attached to my wrist) took quite the hit. I looked at it, it seemed fine and I didn't think anything of it. But then on the bus on Friday I turned it on and the screen is broken, it got scratched just a little too deep. I almost cried. It still takes pictures, which is good, but I just can't see them. Dangit. And it's not covered by my warranty so until I get working again I have a busted camera. Ugh.
Karaoke
Friday:
In class we had a test. We were warned on Thursday, and in theory the material wasn't very hard but it took every single last ounce of concentration to do it. One of the people said that their professor looked around the room at them and then took a survey of when people went to bed, haha! It's ok though, we all had fun and it was worth it, we made it through the class and then had to meet at 12:45 for our bus to Nice. The bus took FOREVER! It was about 7 hours from the time we left Chambery to the time we arrive in Nice. Which wouldn't have been too awful but the whole route was through twisty roads in the mountains. It was so obnoxious and everyone on the bus got a taste of the motion sickness that I experience every time I get on a bus over here. When we got toe Nice we checked in to our hotel and then we were free. A bunch of us all walked around looking for some dinner. It was kind of obnoxious to do that with such a big group of people, especially when most people were crabby because they were so hungry. We finally had enough of the indecisiveness and Brooke, LaTia, Michael, and I went to KFC while the others went to a too expensive, not very good looking, Chinese food place across the street. After that we all figured out who wanted to do what. Jeffrey had left a while back to see his friend who happened to be in Nice too; Dana and Liz went back to the hostel and slept; Hope, Anna, and Yvonne went back to get dressed to go look for a club (they can't get enough dancing!); and then Brooke, LaTia, Michael, and I went and explored town some. We found this place where there was a foot volley tournament. Basically they play volleyball but, like in "football", they can't use their hands. It was pretty cool to watch. We sat there for a while and then moved over to this area where there were lots of pretty fountains and sat for a little. We eventually made it down to the beach and it was awesome. The Mediterranean felt SO nice. I just pulled my skirt up a little higher and walked in. It's weird here, the beaches are all rocks, not a single beach has sand in Nice. The four of us hung out and talked a while. We didn't leave the beach until almost 2 am. When we got back we all just went to sleep.
Foot Volley
Saturday:
We met at 11 to head to the beach. Some people branched off and went shopping first, but I continued to just avoid them temptation and went to the beach with Brooke, Jeffrey, and Michael. We found a good spot and headed into the water. it felt just as good as the night before. It was the warmest water that I've been in, that wasn't a pool. I could seriously just get in without having to slowly walk and get use to it. Everyone else eventually showed up and it was good. The day was pretty much spent relaxing at the beach. Jeffrey left earlier than the rest and then I left with a couple other people before everyone else. The girls were going shopping again and not only did I not want to spend money, I was wet from the Mediterranean and wanted a shower. After I showered I hung out with Michael and Jeffrey and then we found somewhere to eat while the rest of our group got ready. We went to Monaco last night so everyone was getting all nice and dressed up. We left later than planned and missed the train we had planned to take but luckily there was another one a half hour later. We went to the platform and got on the train, but then about 2 minutes before it was supposed to leave we were informed the train to Monaco was a platform over, they switched it and everyone on the train missed the memo. There was a rush of people out of the train, down the stairs and then back up the other ones, but we all made it.
The Beach
We got to Monte Carlo in Monaco a little before 9:30 and it was just crazy! I wish I had my own pictures to post on here, but they'll get on photobucket from Anna eventually. We walked around and headed to the Casino. Everything in the city was just rich. Like the people who live there, or even spend a night there, have to be completely loaded. We got to the casino and Jeffrey and Michael weren't allowed in because, although they looked nice, they weren't wearing pants. Liz and I just went in to look, we didn't really care to do much else, and it was 10 Euro to get into the main room anyway. We left after a minute and the two of us walked around with Jeffrey and Michael while the other girls did what they wanted to do. We all met at 11 again to check in but then people were being indecisive again so the four of us told everyone to meet at the train station at 11:45 (the last train for the night to nice was at 11:58) and then we kept walking. We walked down around the water. Everything there was beautiful. It was crazy. We got back to the train station at 11:45 and were waiting for the others. Jeffrey and Liz stood right inside the door and I walked around while Michael was waiting on the sidewalk looking up the hill. I went over to look with him and by the time it was 11:50 we started to get worried. Finally when there were only 5 minutes left we realized we had to get moving, even if the other girls weren't there. We walked in the door and Jeffrey and Liz had already left and then we remembered the really long walk we had after getting off the train. Luckily my shoes were off because the two of us were running to get to the platform. I felt like it was a movie or something. Me in the nice dress, holding me shoes, and running through the marble halls of a really nice train station. Two really long hallways and two escalators later we made it to the platform and got on the train. Out of breath, we found everyone else. Apparently the girls we had been waiting for outside went straight in the station and to the platform by 11:45 and we were just outside. Almost a miscommunication gone really bad.
When we got back to Nice I just packed and then went to bed. We had to check out at 10:30 today and after that we went to the beach again. We spent a good three or so hours there and then branched off and did whatever we wanted to until 4:30. Again, I avoided shopping, it's so hard to do when everything is on sale and ridiculously reasonably priced. Michael didn't want to shop either so we just walked around the main Street, going in and out of air conditioned stores, a very nice break from the intense humidity. We eventually ended up just sitting in the mall in some chairs and ran into Jeffrey then. The three of us just sat until a little before 4:30 and then went to meet the others. Some people went to see Twilight, not me, and the rest of us continued to wander Nice. It was kind of Nice to have free time but I didn't know what to do with all of it. After walking around for a few minutes Yvonne decided to go shop on her own some more, and then Michael and I ran into Liz and Sam and asked if they wanted to go find somewhere to eat. They had already eaten so we just went to Quick Burger and sat in the air conditioning and used their internet on my itouch for the rest of the time. At 7ish we all met up again. It was entertaining to hear their take on the movie, it was in French with no subtitles. Ha. Then we went to the grocery store and bought some snacks for the bus home. We all walked some more, and then found a little restaurant that was playing the world cup game. The people who were at the movie ate dinner while the rest of us just ordered drinks or a snack. And the guy gave us free chips and salsa :-) We met back for the bus at 9, left around 9:30 and the journey began...
I'm going to miss this so much. I just can't get over it. This is the most amazing experience and I can't believe how close we've all gotten over the past 5 weeks. Last night when we got back from Monaco, Liz, Michael, Jeffrey, and I walked around and we ran into a guy who looked lost. I asked him (in French) if we could help him, he responded by asking if we speak English and then we walked with him while he looked for his hotel (we were going the same way). He was from Oregon and then asked us where we were from. After we told him all our different places he was shocked to hear that we didn't all know each other before coming to France, he said we seemed like we had known each other a long time. This week is going to be a lot of fun, but I am not looking forward to Friday. But the good news is that we were all talking about it and it sounds like a lot of people are going to come visit Chicago for my 21st birthday in October!!! I'm SO excited. Jeffrey has his fall break then, Hope said she'd drive over from Ohio, Yvonne wants to try to come, Michael said he'd definitely drive from Indiana, Liz thinks it would work, and we're going to work on a fund for Mike to fly in from CA. It will be great :-) Well I have some homework to do, I'll try to be better at updating this but who knows what the week holds!
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