20 going on 65

Hello again! Thank you to all the Arcadia peeps who comment and make my day! :) Okay, so this is the last of my trilogy of entries about fall break! :D Today we have the South of France (aka Cote d'Azur), which was my favorite! Well, I say that about EVERYWHERE I go :) Shelley and I were definately the youngest vacationers at this area... everyone was middle-aged and we saw so many old people in their linen pants, visors, and basket purses (oh gawd). It was fabulous anyways.

Day 8: Nice/Monaco

• Train ride:So we left Julie (the other girl) in Milan... she was kinda crazy anyways. I won't elaborate on this :X But anywayssss, on the train ride to Nice, we met this wonderful Scottish family! They were so cute and made fun of us for going to pubs in London instead of studying ._.
• The BEACH!!! OMG this is the most beautiful beach I've seen in my life. The only bad thing is that it's rocky... :T I saw a few topless old ladies, but they didn't seem to care. The weather was so warm, you could feel the sun on your arms. Christina from church said I had a little hint of a tan!
• Vieux Nice- This is the old part of the town, which was SO CUTE! There are clothes hanging from lines and pastel window shutters. There are lots of windy roads and cafes too! We got ice cream from this stand... there were SO MANY flavors! I got almond, which had real almonds in it (duh). There was green tea, ferrero rocher, cookies, rose, violet, and lots more I'm forgetting.
• Monaco/Monte Carlo- This place is weird. haha... it's way too old for both us- and a VERTICAL city! We tried going to the Jardin Exotique, but it closed on us. It looked like a bunch of catci anyways (and the local lady agreed with us). We ate at this stand in carnival, then headed out to the Casino. You had to pay 10 euro to even get in, so we didn't see much. The city is so strange! Right out of the train station, there's bunches of elevators taking you everywhere, since the city's basically on a cliff. You take an elevator down to the shore, then walk uphill a little to another elevator that takes you to the Casio and the cafes. Everyone there was way dressed up; we were in our flip flops!

The Palais from the cliff outside of the Jardin

The Carinval... reminded me of Circus Circus

In front of the Casino... really fancy building

Day 9: Cannes

• Musee National Message Biblique Marc Chagall: This was really close to our hostel, which was really nice. On the way up, we passed these gardeners, who were SO NICE to us! They were like "You're going to see Chagall? It's this way!" Nice is seriously the NICEST (how ironic) city ever! Everyone smiles at you and chats with you a bit... really different than Paris. Anyways back to the museum... it was so cool! It was opened by Chagall himself, and I love how his paintins are so full of fun, life, and color. He did stained glass and mosaics too! It was such a breath of fresh air after all the Renaissance art in Italy :)
• Cannes: We tried going to the Palais des Festivals, but it was closed for this convention. I really wanted a picture on those steps though! The beaches here are actually sandy, while Nice and even more north is rocky. We got to SWIM in the Mediterranean!!!! (dream come true!!!) It was cold, but we got used to it fast. There were no waves, it was like a big swimming pool! It was really cute seeing all these (naked) kids playing in the water and sand. Only in France! :)

The free beach near the Palais des Festival (can you believe it's almost November?!?)

Rasberry milkshakes and laying out = absolutely fab.

Carlin- apparently THE place for fancy sailor wear (for a boat party I'm guessing?)

Little yappy dogs and tanned middle aged women make up the population of Cannes

Cool chandeliers!

• Funny Story!!! So in Cannes, we ate in one of the little cafes, but this one looked okay because it was quite popular (and cheap!) But everything was in French and some stuff wasn't in our pocket dictionary. It sounded like the waiter said "beef roll", so Shelley got it. When it came out it was pick and SQUISHY! We were both like "Is that ground beef... RAW?!?!?" I was thinking "no... the French don't eat that..." So we both shook it off... it tasted kinda funny (and squishy). When the waiter came back, he said "You scared?" And Shelley was kind of embarassed (we were about to scoop it into a napkin and dump it later), and he explained that he said it was "beef raw" (!!!!) YIKES! Anyways, I forgot the name of the dish (beef tart-something), but moral of the story: don't get anything beefy that you're not sure about in France!

Day 10: time to go home :)

• Wandering Nice/saying goodbye to the Mediterranean: We had a more chill day today and went walked on the main road for some last shopping. Shelley got a Longchamp bag (all the rage here) from Lafayette- on SALE! I'm still against them because I think they're quite overpriced. We walked around Vieux Nice again, which was so lovely. :) People buy their produce from stands... they bring baskets for their shopping! It's like the "poor provincial town" from Beauty and the Beast *_* We passed an old book/postcard market and a flower market too.
• Flying home: on a real airplane! ^_^ We didn't have to fly Ryanair, the cheap one, but bmi! OH MY it feels so nice to be on a normal airplane :) We even flew into Heathrow, not Stansted!

So that concludes my break... last week was pretty fun, we had Halloween (but I don't have any pictures from that ._.) and Guy Fawkes Day! My pictures are still on my camera, but it's basically fireworks... until next time, see you later!

p.s. so I do have Skype... my name is vivian.yee ! It's eight hours time difference :)