Soirée and Italy!

The night of the 20th was a fun one, albeit quite American. The Nice group joined us at Club Nautique along the St-Laurent-du-Var beach line. We had a nice French dinner with a live band singing a mix of familiar and unfamiliar songs before heading to the beach for some pictures; then the real fun began--we began dancing, which was quite fun. Still, it wasn't until Cyrielle, a Nice program instructor, plugged in his iPod and sang his heart out to Adele that everyone became entranced in the music. (Cyrielle apparently came in 4th place on X-Factor France!) And then we just started partying and dancing to American songs. It was absolutely a blast, especially since I love dancing, especially especially to music I know. We got home at midnight to get some sleep for the surprise trip of the month... To San Remo, Italy!

Like all other Mediterranean villas, San Remo offers a beach and shopping, palm trees and awesome food. But all in Italian of course. Others were raving and dreaming about Italy but to me, France is just as cool, with just as beautiful of a language and history and culture. Anyway, back to Italy. 

It felt a little weird to be in a foreign country whose language I didn't know. At least in France, I could communicate in French. On the other hand, I don't even know how to say yes and no, hello and good-bye in Italian until today. When we went shopping, I felt a mental barrier when I realized that I couldn't really communicate what I wanted to. In France, I could whip out whatever I wanted to say to store owners, no problem...here, a mere 1.5 hours away...I couldn't. It felt a little weird! Imagine traveling to Washington D.C. and having to speak a different language? Europe is just so diverse. 

At San Remo, I lounged at the beach, ate authentic gelato (pistachio and this black cherry flavor), and, for dinner, ate bread with sauce, pesto pasta and tiramisu. So Italian. And so delicious. Although I'm still a little sad I didn't get to taste the pizza or cappuccino here. But there's always a chance to go back for a longer period of time (rather than just a day.) and I'll definitely be prepared with a guide book and phrase book if I do. 

Ciao!

Cyrielle!

Italy

Lovely pesto pasta

And of course, the delicious tiramisu

Snorkeling

Yesterday, July 19th, was definitely the highlight of the week so far: snorkeling at Villefranche. Nestled away from the foreign tourist crowd, Villefranche offers clear blue water (thus, the Côte d'Azur), rocky beaches, cute old Ville with streets from the 16 century, and such a nice view of houses above the sea. And the fact that we went snorkeling today made my week.  

We hopped on a boat where the snorkeling instructors drove to a place in the sea with a plethora of sea creatures and marine habitats. We pulled on wet skins and goggles and fins before jumping in the azure water below a cliff that housed gorgeous mansions. 

It was pretty breathtaking and I wish I could have taken pictures... But alas, I don't have an underwater camera. But I guess I'll try to describe a picture with words. 

Above the surface, the sun, the sky. Below, a whole different world, inhabited not by humans or insects but by coral, sponges, sea urchins and fish. The water was perfectly clear, unclouded by any sediment or pollution-- if anything was obscured, it was obscured by my huge snorkeling goggles. Fish, the size of my ring finger, dodging and swiveling around.  An octopus, camouflaged into the coral. Purple Sea sponges, the simplest of animals, waving with the current. And the most breathtaking-- when the coral reef drops suddenly so it's just the deep blue sea, a school of silver, slim fish. Thousands and thousands almost at your fingertips. As soon as your hand is just...there...the fish dart away. Nice try, but never going to happen. 

Of course, the best part is being freed of the cumbersome snorkel mouthpiece and diving deep into the sea and swimming down under with the fish. So fun.

The instructors were experts and brought up sea urchins from the bottom of the sea for me to hold and touch...

And while snorkeling, a major nostalgia moment. Made me think of China and when I went to.. Can't remember. But I went snorkeling and scuba diving. People got stung by jellyfish, I saw turtles, the instructors handing out jellyfish cream afterwards. Don't remember much--I was 7. 

Something about the sea attracts me. Just it's vastness and deepness and sense of infinity and surprise. And I'm a swimmer, so that helps. I don't like the beach, but love the sea. 

Monaco and Fragonard pictures

Monaco!

Le palais princier and the changing of the guard (we went inside!)

Beautiful Monaco view

Above the aquarium overlooking Monaco and the sea!

Fragonard and all its goodies

Testing out all the perfume scents...tough decisions.

Quote

Favorite quote I saw when visiting Fondation Maeght:

“Celui qui se perd dans sa passion à moins perdu que celui qui perd sa passion. »

S Augustin

"Those who get lost in their passion have lost less than those who lose their passion."

I love this quote. Love love love!

Classtime

So up until now, I've been pretty much ignoring our classes and focusing on our expeditions and tourist-y stuff. But I don't mean to ignore it- they're interesting and we do it every day. It's just that the expeditions are even more interesting to blog about. 

But I will focus on my classes. I'm in niveau 3, the highest level, with Vanessa. Each day, we have a different topic, whether it's the press, the patisserie, movies, etc. At the beginning, we started off conducting surveys and talking to the people of St-Laurent but it varies a lot now. For newspapers, we each bought a newspaper and read a few articles; we even had to invent and write our own news articles...and at the end we also are writing our own gazette for the Abbey Road immersion program, describing what we did and adding photos. For the patisserie lesson, we first read an excerpt by Proust about him having an out of this world nostalgia moment when he tastes a madeleine, and then we went to the patisserie, bought pastries we never tried before, and wrote our thoughts, emotions and sensations while eating it. Some people thought it was a bored but I thought it was creative. I had a tarte aux citron meringué which was basically a lemon bar mixed with an apple pie and marshmallow. It was quite delicious. But then again, I wanted to try everything. But If I did I would get fat and I would not have any money. C'est la vie.

(side note: I tried an authentic baguette, perfectly toasted.. It was quite delicious)

During my elective, conversation, we usually sit at a café and discuss various topics, like food, fashion, etc. I enjoy just sitting and talking in French because that's what I imagined myself doing here. 

Today, we visited Nice and the Cours Saleya, the famous marché in nice. We went around discovering what vendors had to offer: spices, fresh produce, soap, paintings, confitures/jams, olive oil, etc. in the US, I don't get these open markets, but I absolutely adore them. And there are plenty here so I'm happy. 

So while in class we learn vocabulary and writing, it is mostly during dinner I practice speaking and listening French--I probably already mentioned this, but I laugh and learn at the dinner table with my family, and dinner actually last 2 hours. We talk about everything, and the family likes to joke a lot. Highlights? When M Mulet tries to speak English and we misinterpret it as him trying to say something in French because he has such a heavy accent.

And when they speak French in a Quebecoise accent. 

Monaco et Eze

            On Sunday, we went to the lovely principality of Monaco, and visited the Prince’s Palace (of Prince Albert) as well as the Musée Oceanographique in Monaco; afterwards, we traveled to the small town of Eze, which is perched upon a mountaintop, to visit the perfumery Fragonard.

            Monaco was charming, like all the other cities along the Côte d’Azur, with its tall buildings on high mountain tops. Unfortunately, it’s not very big; around the size of New York’s Central Park. Still, there’s always something enticing about princes and princesses…I mean, I can’t help but draw connections to Prince Rainier and Prince Charles, marrying Princess Grace Kelly and Princess Diana, respectively—both loved, and both who died tragically early in car crashes and leaving children beyond…

We visited the palace which was awe-inspiring, but not as magnificent as Buckingham Palace.  In Buckingham Palace, there’s more bling, more rooms, more history and, most of all, more people.  Perhaps the Grimaldis cannot really compare to the grand Windsors of Great Britain, but they’re still royalty nonetheless.

After that visit, we walked around the small towns before immersing ourselves in the aquarium filled with seahorses, jellyfish, stingrays, and interesting fish…trust me, Damiana got a lot of crazy pictures of the fish and us posing with the fish.  It was fun, but I wish we had taken the time to go to Monte Carlo and seen the casino. Of course, I have seen the casino in Las Vegas, but I wanted to see the real Monte Carlo…ah well.

Afterwards, we also visited the small town of Eze, home to a parfumerie-factory called Fragonard. If you didn't know already, Provence is very well known for flowers. And what do they use these flowers for (besides decoration)? They make perfume with them of course! And that's what happens at Fragonard, a top perfumeries in France. At the factory, we learned about how they get the essential oils from flowers (through steam distillation), their very own "Nose" ("le nez" who can detect over 2,000 different smells--we regular humans can only detect 60 distinct smells if we're lucky, according to the tour guide. And there are only 50 Noses in the world, and they are the only ones who can create new scents. They can't smoke or drink or eat spicy food or else their sense of smell goes away. It's pretty amazing! I wider how much they get paid, what their training is, and how they were discovered or how they discovered their own sense of smell. 

        Anyway, we saw where they made soaps and perfumes, and at the end of course, smelled the perfumes they had to offer. By the end my nose was overwhelmed but I'm sure my body smelled good.

Joyeux Le Quatorze Juillet!

            Happy Bastille Day! Or as the French call it, le quatorze juillet, or July 14^th. (Kind of like the 4^th of July). What is Bastille Day and why do the French celebrate it?

            Okay, here’s a little bit of a French history lesson. As you may know, there was a French Revolution shortly after the American Revolution, which rebelled against the power of the king in favor of the power of the people. Bastille Day commemorates the storming of the Bastille on July 14^th, 1789; the Bastille was a prison which was known for holding political prisoners whose incendiary writings seemed traitorous to the royal government.  Thus, the Bastille was thus a symbol of the absolutism of the monarchy.  Although there were only seven people in the Bastille when it was captured, it marked the beginning of the French Revolution and signaled that the people did not accept the king’s absolutist power anymore.  Thus, it is the birth of the sovereign Nation.

            So it’s kind of like the fourth of July, in terms of celebrations, fireworks, festivities, etc.  And this year, we get to go to two fireworks sessions: one the night of July 13^th at Cagnes-Sur-Mer and one the night of July 14^th at St-Laurent-du-Var. 

 The fireworks and festivities were so fun; it’s night time (around 10pm or 11pm), and both kids and adults are out roaming the closed off streets along the beach. Kids are carrying around fish bubble guns (what happened to the good ol’ days when they had to take the effort to blow the bubbles?), light contraptions, balloons, cotton candy and ice cream…vendors sell churros, socca (Nice speciality—chickpea crepe, basically), and coffee/tea…people stand in incredible roller coaster-like lines to buy this delicious food…there’s a concert with a group singing Black Eyed Peas…so many sights, foods smells. I loved it.  It literally was the best night so far here in France—and why not?