Reflection

It was a long day of flights, 12 hours in the sky, and 5 in the airports going through customs and what not. Apparently the US TSA finds 14 girls bringing back macaroons surpringly funny. Looking back on the past two weeks, I feel like I have lived in a dream. France was an extraordinary experience, and I never could have made it without the help of my teachers and parents, and lastly, the amazing twelve other girls I got to spend time with while over seas. They truly made this a trip to remember forever. France is so much different from the US, that it was hard coming back home. I feel as though I have left a part of myself in France. If it were easier, I would pick up and move there in a heartbeat. I am extremely jealous of all the residents. I don't regret a single thing from that trip, I have only good memories and strong friendships to last a lifetime and I couldn't be more content with that. I'm hoping that leaving France was more of an " a bientôt" than an "au revoir".

French cuisine

Nice&Monaco

This morning we started our day at the Fragonard perfumerie in the small village of Eze. Here they create some of the worlds most famous and well known perfumes. They all smelt wonderful. We were able to sample several different perfumes and colognes as well as learn the procedures that are taken to creat each one. The profession of the creation of perfumes is very prestigious. There are only 150 "noses" (people with the ability to smell 900 different scents) in the world, and of those 150, 100 live and work in France. I bought two small perfumes, they were much cheaper being bought here because they were sold at factory pricing which is 4x cheaper than being bought from a store. After the perfumerie, we made a trip to the country of Monaco. Here we took a brief walking tour of the city and then were given an hour of free time and that's where things got interesting... My friends and I figured we had plenty of time to sit down and have a nice meal, so we went to a small restaurant and ordered our meal. I  wasn't very hungry so I ordered a fruit salad while my friends ordered a three course meal. Twenty minutes went by, and nothing, 40 minutes still nothing, it got to be 1:50 and we needed to be at our meeting spot in 10 minutes which was a five minute walk and still we had nothing. I had already gotten and ate my fruit salad so as my friends were waiting I ran in and paid for our meal, which consisted of going through  a small creepy hallway, passing though the kitchen, and ending up in a random lobby with a weird guy whom which I was told to pay. After I paid, I quickly went back to the table where my friends ate a 3 course meal in 3 minutes. It was hilarious. They grabbed there desserts the minute they were set in the table and we ran through the streets of Monaco. As we were running one of my friends yelled from the back to stop, but we kept running and once we reached the meeting point she slowly comes up and yelled "guys I said stop because I threw up!!!!" Hahaha, it was hilarious, but our teachers weren't too happy with us. But really, there was nothing we could do.... The rest of our afternoon was spent in Nice. We did some last minute shopping, grabbed some tasty treats, and enjoyed our last little bit of France. I finally found a ring after a weeks worth of searching and I love it. I got a very good deal on it! We had ice cream at one of the most well known ice cream shops in Nice, it was so good, I had a scoop of Nutella & cap pachinko flavors. I will miss so many things about France, it's so different from the US that it's hard to say what I will miss most. It'll be good to be home and back into the routine of things, yet if I could do those same things here, I would never want to leave! 

Panoramas

Aix en Provence, Cassis & Nice

Off again for another full day of beautiful sights full of fun! Our first stop was a visit to the city of Aix en Provence, otherwise considered as the 21st district of Paris even though it is no where near the city at all. We had free time and we chose to visit a small patisserie where we each tried a different dessert. Before leaving I wanted a small chocolate and the boss offered it to me for free. I don't know, maybe he just felt bad for my poor French! Haha, anyway, it was very good. It was like a rich piece of fudge covered in white chocolate. I've yet to have any French chocolate other than this morning. I'm getting so sick of bread! They eat it with everything. So my friend bailey and I are doing the "no bread challenge" where we are avoiding bread for an entire day. It sounds easy, but with the amount they eat here it is not! After the visit in Aix en Provence, we went to Cassis for a boat your if the calques. These were on the Mediterranean Sea and we're absolutely breath taking. Our boat tour lasted about 45 minutes but it was well worth the time.   We were able to take many pictures and had a lot of fun while doing so. We finally found our coffee grounds to bring back home for some delicious French coffee. I have a major thing for peaches now, I can't get enough of them! They are just everywhere in the markets along the streets and always fresh and cheap. Once we left the town if Cassis we took a three hour bus ride to Nice. We came in on a hill and the view of Nice was so cool. You could see all of the little city buildings and the aqua blue water all along the Promenade des Anglais.  We had only a little but of time to do our own thing so we just walked along the beach and delivered our postcards to the post office. Dinner was decent tonight, we had some sort of stroganoff with noodles. Personally I didn't like the meat portion so I had the noodles along with the ice cream treat for desert. And I'm proud to say I went the day without bread so that was a success! Tomorrow is our last day here in France... I am quite sad, but at the same time I do miss people from back home and am anxious to get back into the routine of things. 

Nimes & Avingnon

Today was yet again, another fun day of exploring. We started our day with a visit to the Pont Du Gard, an ancient Roman aqueduct. It was pretty neat to see. This area didn't have a whole lot other than the aqueduct itself so we saw that, ditched the tour group, and took a hike through the woods. We ended up in some random field with an awesome view and hopefully no poison ivy! It was kind of one of those things you could live without seeing, but it was still interesting to view. The Romans had built the entire structure by placing stones on top of another by using only rods as connection. It's crazy! Our next stop was a walking tour through the city of Nimes. First, we toured the ancient Roman ampitheture where gladiators and bull fights used to be commonly held. It was another structure that was interesting and held a lot of history. We were given an hour of free time to explore the building and take pictures. My friends and I, being the way we are, climbed to the very top of the building, stood on the ledge and yelled "THIS IS SPARTACUS" ... The looks we got I'll tell you what... I think we embarrass "America" more and more everyday, but like I've said, it's been a lot of fun and I don't regret a single moment of this trip. After the visit at the ampitheture, we took another short walking tour through the streets of Nimes to an ancient Roman temple that is the most intact temple in the world. It was very pretty. We were given 30 minutes to go and grab lunch & most of us needed an ATM so three of us went and grabbed money while Madi went to a pizza place right down three street to grab a spot and order a pizza for the four of us to share, but unfortunately our French was misinterpreted and we ended up with four pizzas, one for each! They were delicious, but way too much to eat! On the bus again, we set out for Avignon which holds the Palais De Papes, or the Palace of the Pope. The city was much like Carsaconne, which was surrounded by a castle wall. The castle itself was nothing like versailles, it was more so the typical stone castle. After viewing the castle we had three hours to do as we pleased, which we spent well. Dinner was at a small restaurant, but the meal was delicious! Our bus driver Jean Pierre is awesome. He blasts the music on the bus and makes fun of us girls all the time. For bonding, he reserved a TV in the

lobby and bought France color face paint for us to watch France play in the World Cup tonight. It should be fun, I'm excited! We've become better friends with the Colorado kids in our tour group, they're a lot of fun. Tomorrow we go to Nice, can't wait!