Sur le pont d'Avignon

Long time no post, but I wanted to document our group's trip to Avignon because it was so much fun. I think the best word to describe the trip is intense: our program director is an ambitious tour guide, to say the least, and our trip was packed with activities.

We took a train on Sunday from Nice to Avignon, which is a small city also near the coast. It's mostly famous because the pope briefly moved the Catholic headquarters thing there in the 14th century. So when we arrived we visited "le Palais des Papes" (pope palace thing) which was pretty large and interesting.

Another thing about Avignon is a famous wind that affects the whole region called "le mistral." It was quite something the first day we were there. We walked up a hill to a garden/park area and the wind was a force to be reckoned with. The weather was wonderful though so the wind wasn't too cold, and I actually found it really exhilarating. I think this picture of Liz and Rachel's hair blowing around begins to illustrate:

We stayed in a YMCA there, but it was NOT what I was expecting. The rooms were actually pretty nice, and the food was shockingly good. We had a dinner there that consisted of delicious salmon, some of the best mashed potatoes I've ever had, and ratatouille. It was really fun to spend a lot of time with the group of the 9 of us. We had some great bonding time. Here's a photo of some of us on the famous Pont d'Avignon (from the song, if you know it).

On Monday night we had an interesting experience at a little Irish Pub that we found in Avignon. First we randomly ran into a group of American college students from New Hampshire who were on a choir tour. It was fun, and a weird coincidence since Avignon is so small.

Then we tried calling a cab to get back to the YMCA with the number that our director had given us for a taxi service. We succeeded at first, or so we though, and waited about 15 minutes for a cab. We called again to make sure they were coming because we needed to get back by midnight, and they reassured us that they were coming (all of these interactions are in French, btw). We called one last time, and they suddenly said that there were no taxis anymore, sorry. We then realized that we had been calling the wrong number, called the right one, and a taxi came within 5 minutes. Turns out that there is only one taxi service in Avignon, so the current theory stands that we happened upon some mischievous French people who thought got a wrong number call and thought it would be fun to troll a bunch of clueless foreigners. So that was fun, but it all turned out ok in the end.

On Tuesday (our last day), we went to a giant Roman aqueduct called the Pont du Gard. We happened upon the same group of Americans when we first got there, and they grossly overreacted to the coincidence of seeing us again. We were slightly weirded out when the whole group of them screamed "WHATTTTTTT" and ran over a little too excitedly to see us. It was somewhat reassuring to know that we weren't the most annoying group of Americans there that day, though.

But the aqueduct itself was awesome; it's pretty amazing to think that such epic structures were built so long ago before the advent of many of the technologies that we have today. I think this picture of Martha and I is a winner (I also got new sunglasses from H&M that I am proud of):

Now it's off to Marseilles, Arles, and Montpellier with 5 friends for the rest of our spring break. I love traveling!!!

La randonnée

On Saturday, a small group of us went on a looooooong hike around a small village called Eze that is a little bit east of Nice. It took about 5 hours in all, and we were climbing on rocks and other intense hiking things! I even got stabbed by a thorn and fell over multiple times.

But the main reason for this post is to post pictures of the views, which were AMAZING. The first view we saw was of Monaco from above:

Then there were some great views of the coast:

And then we were walking and we ran into this villa with an infinity pool overlooking the coast. Ohhhhh that would be the life. Maybe one day when I'm rich and famous:

Anyways, this post was mostly inspired by Kelsey, with whom I was skyping when she received a giant container of cheese balls. I wanted to shift the balance of power back to her being jealous of me rather than me being jealous of her for her cheese balls.

Troisième semaine

Highlights of this past week:

1. Last Sunday the group of us went to Monaco to see a symphony concert in the Monte Carlo Casino. It is literally a NARP (not a real place). The weather was pretty bad (cold and rainy) but we walked around a little bit and it was quite a luxurious place. I definitely want to go back when the weather is better, especially since it takes 20 minutes to get there and the bus ride only costs 1 euro (omg). Here's a picture of Jeremy (friend from my program) and I in front of the casino area:

2. On Monday afternoon Jeremy and I didn't know what to do with our free time, so we walked around for more than 4 hours and found some Roman ruins and an old church. It's so cool to live in a place with so much history, and we also got some great views of the city, which never gets old.

3. Tuesday night the group of Americans went to a soirée at the apartment of 3 "French" guys. Turns out that "French" meant one American guy, a Moroccan guy, and another guy who was half-French half-British. It was extremely fun and became even more so when we found out that our Art History class at 9am the next morning had been cancelled! It's interesting because we're starting to reach a balance between speaking French and English, and it's actually pretty fun to mix the two. My "Franglais" is getting really good.

4. Thursday night at dinner 3 of us went to a very authentic Niçois restaurant. I was feeling adventurous so I ordered Beef Tartare (aka raw beef). I knew what it was but I was still surprised when the waitress put down a plate in front of me with what looked EXACTLY like a raw hamburger patty. Likewise, it tasted pretty much exactly like you would expect a raw hamburger patty to taste like. I ate a decent amount of it, but I think my face in this photo sums up my feelings towards this meal:

5. On Saturday I went skiing with two of my friends from the program, Colin and Rachel!!!! We took a bus to a ski resort about 2 hours northeast of Nice in the southern French Alps called Isola 2000. It gets its namesake from the fact that it is more than 2000 meters in elevation: these are some serious mountains, y'all! Considering that the only other time I had been skiing was on a Rice ROPE trip in New Mexico last year (with mostly fake snow and only one small mountain), the Alps were a big change. It was awesome! Even without considering the amazing views of the mountains, the slopes themselves were fantastic. I tend to have no fear going down the mountain despite the fact that I am not an experienced skier, which means that I get going really fast despite my lack of skill. So I wiped out...a lot. But all three of us had a great time, and the whole trip was a huge success.

6. Today I met one of my host family's daughters Tiphane, who is married and also lives in Nice with her 2 year old daughter Nino. It was a fun day: we ate literally hundreds of crêpes for lunch and played a board game together. It was great to see the family dynamic and I had to really concentrate hard to keep up with everyone talking at once! Also, small children who speak French are really cute.

That's my summary for the week!

Au revoir,
Joey