Italy!

Last Saturday, my CEA group had an excursion to Italy. Unfortunately, the weather decided not to cooperate by raining all day. The first city we visited was San Remo. This is where we spent most of our time. Every Saturday, the town has a market which consists of a lot of clothes, some jewelry, and an inside food market. Europe in general has an incredible amount of markets, for example there is one every morning in Antibes with the exception of Mondays. I didn't buy a whole lot of the market, just a puma coat and an umbrella in order to prevent from getting too soaked by the end of the day.

After our free time was up, we headed to a traditional, family-owned Italian restaurant. In total, we got to eat 5 different types of pasta, including some ravioli, gnocci, and spaghetti. After we were full off of that, we got to choose between tiramisu, panna cotta, or creme caramel (which is more of a French dessert). I opted for the tiramisu, and it was heavenly!

Oddly enough, I decided I did not like the Italian language. Maybe I just got the wrong impression of it, I am not sure. I still think that my favorite language I have heard so far is German.

The next town was Dolceacqua, which is a little town made "famous" by a Monet painting of the bridge. It was a very cute, older Italian village.

Menton was our last stop, which is the last French city before entering Italy. It was pretty, but they said it is very incredible when the weather is nice. It is a place I would love to go back to when the weather is better. We had free time here as well, which most of us ended up using by going to a little caffe/bar. Several of us tried the "hot wine"--which I was skeptical of since I am not a wine lover--but it was amazing! I am going to try to make it sometime.

The other day, me and Caitlin had a conversation with Francoise about how French breakfast differs from American breakfast. She was intrigued about pancakes and wanted to try our version. Later that day, she made us crepes. One of them was more similar to a casserole: it had a crepe topped with cheese, ham, and creme fraiche, and then another crepe placed on top of that, multiplied X4. We also had plain crepes that we put nutella, speculoos, jam, etc, whatever our heart desired. Last night, I made Grandma's homemade buttermilk pancakes. Let me tell you what, this was not easy. Finding buttermilk was my first task. They didn't have any true buttermilk, at least down in this region, but more of a fermented milk which I ended up using. But the real issue was finding baking powder and baking soda. I think I found baking soda in the grocery stores, but not baking powder, which I have found trying to find even the most familiar items that are listed in French can be tricky. I ended up going to the British store, and since everything was in English, I found them both there. There were a lot of other American-type things in the store that cannot be found in the French stores, but everything was very expensive. So I finally found the ingredients, but then when I went to make them, we had to convert all of the measurements. This was also very complicated. Nevertheless, Francoise learned how to make buttermilk pancakes. She said she preferred them to her mom's recipe, something about those being too thick/dry/dense, something along those lines. And they even tasted pretty close to the ones I make back home, just with a little less buttermilk flavor.

Snow on the Riviera?

Yesterday when we were leaving our apartment for school, it was pouring rain. But next something unexpected happened: it started snowing. Let me tell you one thing, I did NOT come to the Riviera for snow. I was expecting lows of 50, with improving weather in time. Well Mother Nature, you sure fooled me. The up-side of this though, is the Riviera inhabitants are definitely not used to snow. Even though it melted as soon as it touched the ground, for some reason the busses decided the couldn't run in such "terrible" weather. So...snow day! Several of us went to the girls' apartment right below mine to watch Friends for a while.

One thing about living in a foreign country that speaks a language you don't is the food. Sometimes I order something and have no idea what it is, crossing my fingers that it will be good. Because of their preparation and ingredient differences, sometimes I don't know what I got even after I start eating it. These next 3 1/2 months will sure be an adventure in that respect.

My roommate is really sick, I think she managed to catch what I was fighting off. Hopefully she is well enough to make it to our excursion tomorrow, the Italian Riviera. Stay tuned, I will post more updates following that trip.

First week of school

I have finished my first week of school. I ended up not liking two of my classes, and switched to two other classes. I now have Monday classes :( no more 4 day weekend for me!

The school is in an industrial park, but you would never know it by looking at it. Sophia Antipolis has some sort of regulation of having to have so much vegetation per square meter of building space, so it basically looks like a forest. The student organization group wad handing out alcohol all week--imagine how much trouble you would get in for that in the US!

From what I have seen so far, the french smoke A LOT, manage to stay super skinny while eating a ton of carbs and sweets (such as chocolate filled croissants for breakfast, which are super delicious), do actually shower everyday therefore are not stinky, and are not rude like I had been expecting. On the contrary, they (especially the men) seem to love us.

I haven't been spending my first free weekend how I would have liked. I was sick when I left the states, seemed to get mostly better a day after getting here, then got worse again. I spent all yesterday sleeping and had body aches. Last night, Françoise gave me some medicine similar to ibuprofen and I had an allergic reaction. I woke up with my face super swollen and had a hard time breathing. I stayed up an hour and a half to make sure it wouldn't get worse so I didn't die in my sleep or anything, and eventually went back to sleep. I still have symptoms of it this morning and don't feel well, but the reaction isn't getting worse.

Nice, Eze, and Monaco

Yesterday was a long, exhausting, fun, exciting, interesting, etc. type of day. Our CEA program took us on an excursion to Nice, Eze, and Monaco.

The first stop was Nice. We took a tour around the city via bus, and after a bit, got out to walk. Nice was originally Italian, so the old town of Nice was very Italian looking with narrow streets. I thought it was very pretty. We stopped at a few churches as well. We had some free time at an open air market. I ended up buying a cook olive oil holder thing. We also walked over to the beach, which was very pretty. There aren't many people out on the beach this time of year, but there were a few people on the beach and a couple in the water. Unlike Antibes, Nice has pebbled beaches. I thought Nice was very pretty, but I am glad I ended up in Antibes since it is a bit smaller and easier to navigate.

Next was the village of Eze. It was very cool, made of stones and what not. There were a lot of vines and it looked pretty old. In Eze, we went to the perfume manufacturer. They showed us how they make them. I thought it was interesting that the guy who makes new purfumes can only work for 2-3 hours a day, or he starts to get confused (they said that is why it takes so long to make a new fragrence). We had the opportunity to buy perfume, and one of them was the most amazing smell I had ever smelled in a perfume (I didn't buy it since it was 19 euros for about a half ounce bottle.)

Finally we got to Monaco. I thought it was amazing how small it was (second smallest country in the world). It is also very expensive to buy houses there. I think they said it is about 25,000-35,000 per square meter of house. Monaco seemed a lot like France, just more updated (like the paint on the houses all seemed new, yet the country still looked old). Apparently the country has no direct taxes, which is interesting. We spent some time in the capital, Monaco Ville. When we were done walking around there, we went to Monte Carlo. The drive there was part of the same road as the Formula 1 race. Monte Carlo was the place packed full of super expensive cars. I went inside one of the casinos, but it was quite different than I expected. It was super luxurious, but very quiet. Given the time of day and year, there weren't many people in there. I can now say I have gambled in Monte Carlo, but I lost 5 euros. The tables had a minimum 10 euro bet, which I thought was super high. Later we were told the other casino is more lively and similar to a typical casino.

10 hours later, we finally got back to Antibes. I was super exhausted, and ended up sleeping for 12 hours :)

Settling In

Yesterday we visited SKEMA (our school). I was amazed at how pretty Sophia Antipolis is. It is an industrial park, but you would never know just by looking at it. They have some mandatory regulations on how much vegatation they have to have per sq km of building space, so it practically looks like a forest. The most buildings you could see at a time were one or two. Later, me and my roommate went shopping at Monoprix (a convenience type store with clothes, beauty products, food, etc) in hope for something to eat. We ended up walking away with basically nothing (I only bought a bag of cashews) as everything looked either gross or really expensive (not everything is expensive, but their variety was not very good). We held out in hopes of finding somewhere better today. So for dinner, I ate half a small bag of cashews.

The "stereotype" we have that all the French eat is pastries, bread, etc. is not really a stereotype. I can tell by the end of this, I will never want anything with carbs again. Francoise gives us amazing food, such as homemade bread, pastries with raisins in it, and today she made a chocolate brownie type thing. They are soooo good.

Last night was my first experience at a bar. It was an Irish pub called The Hops Store. It is awesome, very loud and expensive, but still amazing. It wasn't dirty like I had been expecting and I will for sure go back.

Today we went on a tour of Antibes. We saw a lot of cool things, but it still hard to remember exactly how to get to places. I am very excited to go shopping as there are a lot of really cool stores.

I also went out to eat for the first time today at a pizzaria. The pizzas they have here are not even close to the normal ones back home. For example, I had a pizza with pepperoni and egg. It was really good.

Arrival

I arrived yesterday, but it was a terrible trip. When I got to Denver, my connecting flight was delayed, making me not able to catch my connecting flights after that. I was put on a different flight, but it increased my travel time by 9 hours due to an 8 hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany. 26 hours after leaving Spokane, I finally arrived in Nice. Unfortunately, my bags did not. I'm hoping they get here today. I am amazed how pretty it is here. My house mother is amazijt but the communication is an issue. Fortunately my roommate speaks french pretty well. I had a chocolate croissant last night and some other pastries and homemade bred this morning, and they were phenomenal! Tomorrow is a walking tour of Antibes, and I am sure I will get some cool pictures. Today I briefly saw the yacht yard, and it was very pretty. So far, Antibes me of Cali except prettier and cleaner.

Last day in the USA

First things first. For everyone that hasn't heard yet...I'm engaged!

These last couple days have really been hard, especially this morning. I'm in Denver now, but the flight I was supposed to be on got delayed so I missed all my connecting flights. As a result, I have an 8 hour layover in Germany and for a total additional 9 hours of travel time :(  I just wish I was there already!