The Côte d'Azur!

It's weird coming home from vacation, when "home" is just another sort of vacation. (Actually, I do have a lot of work coming up...projects and papers are due a lot sooner from this side of vacation than before). At any rate, I didn't want to come back to Paris. The weather at the Côte d'Azur (which is in Southern France, right next to Italy), was amazing. Warm and sunny, and I finally could wear shorts. Plus, the whole atmosphere down there is so much more relaxed, casual, and friendly. So what exactly did we do? Let's see...

A 5 hour train ride that was probably longer because we stopped in the middle of a tunnel for "technical difficulties." We got to our hotel, and then wandered around Nice. We climbed up this long staircase for some awesome views. Also, as we were walking by the beach there were these guys roller blading and doing crazy weaving in and out of cone tricks that were pretty awesome. Then we had dinner as a group, in this awesome little restaurant. It was nice to eat as a group, because then I wasn't worrying about prices and whatnot so I actually got a full meal, ending with an amazing tarte citron. mmmm. And that night a few of us went to a bar called the Checkpoint, and just hung out and danced a little.
I slept really well on the trip. Even though I didn't get tons of sleep, I would fall asleep right away and be out until my alarm--and it wasn't horribly difficult to get up. So the next morning we had breakfast at the hotel (croissants, nutella, yogurt, cereal, hard boiled eggs, and other awesomeness. It was the first time in a while I had a breakfast more than tea and a piece of toast.) Then began museum visits. We went to a modern and contemporary art museum, where the coolest part was the terrace with amazing views. Pretty much everywhere we went had amazing views. Lunch was really nice-we sat in the grass at a park and just chilled. Then we went to the Matisse Museum, where we had an actual museum guide, which meant we saw the whole museum and not just a lot of one or two rooms (like it is with our Art History teacher). We also stopped by a church and a graveyard before walking back to our hotel. We had the night free, so we went to a restaurant where we got pizzas, and then just wandered around the old part of town (that's super touristy).
The next day we took a bus to see the Chapel that Matisse designed himself, and this other place which was an artist's studio, but now some sort of foundation. We also went to the Fondation Maeght which was just another museum. He had some neat work, and a lot of it (see picture above). Then we went to St. Paul de Vence, which was this fortress-esque village with lots of tourist shops and nice views and guys playing bocce ball. That night I had dinner with Becky, and we bought this wine called L'Amitié, which means friendship, and had that with dinner, so that was fun. We also watched some of this weird game show, where it seemed like you didn't actually have to do anything but spin a wheel to get money. The host was also kind of scary. We also watched some of this random countdown which had some funniest home video style clips, but also celebrity bloopers and commercials, so we weren't quite sure what the countdown was.

The next day we visited the Palais Lascaris, which was this palace, but kind of hidden in between a bunch of other buildings so it didn't really seem like one. Then we left our hotel for Menton. We went on this hike in the foothills of the Alps, which was a lot of fun. It was pretty warm out, and all uphill on the way up, but the views were gorgeous, and we got to be outside and had a good time. We were at Tourettes-sur-Loup, where we wandered the little tourist-y town there, and then went to our hotel in Menton. I watched handball on TV with Laura, and that is one crazy game. It seems kind of lame, until you see how high-contact, violent and intense it is. One guy had to be helped off the court due to a bloody nose. Then we went to a really nice restaurant with the group called Le Petit Prince. It was absolutely fantastic--I had this shrimp avocado salad for starters, this amazing ravioli and scallops dish and a chocolate dessert.
We stopped by la salle des mariages de Jean Cocteau. It was this marriage place (I'm not sure what the word is in English...but in France you have to be married by the state, and this was one place you could have the ceremony). Jean Cocteau is the guy who did Beauty and the Beast. The room was pretty cool....and not very traditional. Then we went to a Botanical Garden which had amazing views and a lot of cactus. Then we were left free to wander Monaco for a while. Like most other places (though it probably took the cake) it was super touristy. Pretty much all that was there was pretty views, restaurants, and tourist shops and a palace.
We then went back to Nice, bought food at Monoprix for dinner on the train, and then got on the train home. It was a fun train ride...we ate, sort of slept, and then played crazy 8s and hearts. One thing I really liked about this trip was that I felt like the program bonded more as a group, and I actually got to know more of the people on the trip better. I think one of the reasons is that we did a lot more activities all together, had a couple of dinners together, and were all staying at the same place...we had a common area to hang out, which is something we don't have in Paris. It will be interesting to see if the dynamics change from before the trip. But now it's back to classes and research papers.