Wow Where to start!

Okay so it was another mega fun filled weekend. And I am having trouble remembering where to begin....so I guess at the beginning would be best right?? On Thursday we had a field trip for my art history class to Roussillon. It is a small town know for its ochre quarries. Ochre is a red rock and that gives many red/brown, and orange paint its pigment. Or rather ochre is the pigment used when you want these colors. So when you drive up to the town you are immediately surrounded by a terracotta color; from the buildings to the roads, everything is this orange/brown/red. So we ventured into the town looking for the quarry, and instead we ran into the market. Which I love the market, so we had to stop....bad idea....I found way too many things that I liked, and needless to say couldn't possibly live without. But hey that is what traveling is for. So after the market stop, where my wallet became considerable lighter, we were off to the quarry. Now if the town is terracotta red, then the quarry is bright orange, with some yellow on the side. Ochre is by nature a very soft stone, with so many people walking on the stones everyday and chipping away pieces...the tops have this fine layer of what I call ochre sand. I found out later that this ochre sand is what is used as the pigment. Basically you take this crushed up stone and mix it with water/gum arabic/ or egg whites and you get different types of paint. In the end it was really just a bunch of red colored rocks...but I had fun AND if you touch the rock pigment you get red hands for the rest of the day...believe me I tried!! LOL

Heres Some Pictures of Roussillon

Roussillon was a fun little excursion and a prelude to a pretty fantastic weekend. On Friday it was a campus wide field trip to Aix En Provence. Basically Aix is a city. There is not any ruins in aix (pronounced like the letter "x") nor much history, its just a college town with a lot of shopping. Oh and it is where the famous painter Cezanne lived and worked from. That is probably the reason we went there...but to be honest most of Cezanne's work is not there, its in Paris. We did get to go to a museum to see some of his early less famous paintings. And they were beautiful! His paint application is just incredible, you want to touch it....and you can't! But we did see some really nice sculptures in this museum as well....and the rest of the day was ours. So as all girls do, we went shopping. I looked at shoes, souvenirs, dresses, paints, stamps and pastries. Unfortunately I only ended up with the last one...but thats okay! So in all Aix was just a laid back kind of city day. We didn't do much, but then there wasn't a whole lot we wanted to do but just walk around and people watch.

After Aix is when the fun started. The bus that was taking all the students back to Lacoste, made a little detour to drive my three friends and I back to the train station. We were headed for Nice!!!! yippie Vacation time! It was a beautiful train ride along the French Rivera around sun set and we arrived in Nice around 9:30pm. So what do good college students do in the French Rivera on a Friday night? We go out of course! No really we went in search of a beach with one wine bottle in hand to share between my four friends. And when we get to the beach guess what...every other European has the same idea...imagine that one. Anyways we got to Nice and the beach at night and enjoyed some good wine before really crashing for the night. And our hostel by the way was very nice. It was out of the old city in the new part of town, and kind of hard to get to because of a monster hill we had to climb. But it was clean and accommodating and we had quite an experience there.

The next day we decided to return to the beach and have a beach day. Naturally I did not bring a swimming suit, but I thought no matter the water is cold anyway I won't want to go swimming. Well the one day we go to the beach is the day that it gets very warm in Nice. So by noon I was looking for a swimming suit. Which by the way is not advisable in Europe let alone in Nice. The one piece bathing suit does not exist in the French Rivera... and even the ones that are claimed to be one piece, well lets just say its just easier to get a bikini. SO yes I ended up owning my first bikini ever! And it is really tiny...and I did not appreciate wearing it. My friends were very good humored and said I looked fine but I don't believe it....LOL So I ran from my beach towel into the water and froze into a Popsicle because a) the water was freezing and b) I didn't have much on anyways. And then I ran back to my towel...TAA DAA my Nice beach experience. I do have to say that i did look better than some of the other people wearing bikinis....I mean I don't look great in one, but some people just shouldn't even think about it.


Beach Pictures...Sorry No Pictures of the Bikini!

So after a couple of hours on the pebble beach we decided a trip to Monaco was the way to end the day. We changed clothes and headed to the train station. A short 30 min ride brought us right to the center of Monaco to a train station located in the middle of the mountain!!! I couldn't believe it. Then we walked out of the mountain and heard the familiar drone of race cars....we had made it to see the Formula 1 Grand Prix qualifying races...in the middle of Monaco. It was the oddest and coolest thing I had ever seen! I mean they raced down road ways...sidewalks...where ever they could fit the track in. And the spectator seats were the same, where ever the could fit the stands thats where they had them. It was amazing and the sound was just awesome! Basically we just walked around Monaco taking in as many of the sites we could. It was so pretty and clean, I didn't want to leave. I got to see the Prince's Palace on top of one of the mountain like jetties that makes the main bay. I saw the changing of the guard at the Palace and did some shopping around that area. We also stopped for crepes for dinner, I had a veggie crepe which was really delicious. Then we walked along the race track in the marina to Monte Carlo Casino, just to take a look. We didn't even got in, but we saw it and were amazed!!! It was fun too to walk on the track, we walked across the starting/Finnish line! And then it was back to the train station! We were tired! We got back to Nice having a fun filled, sore feet kind of day and just passed out.

Monaco Pictures and Videos

Sadly it was back to reality today as we caught the train home to Avignon and then a taxi to Lacoste. I realized I only have two weeks of class left and one weekend before the Exhibition!!! Aaaggg!! Freak out time! LOL The Exhibition called the Vernissage, is like our finals. So its time to hit the books again and get things done. I am sorry for such the long post, but I couldn't resist writing as much as I could remember! Enjoy the pictures...and videos!