Saturday, September 21, 2013

Saint Tropez

I woke up grudgingly this morning at 6:50. Madame was already up. I ate breakfast and made myself a pb&j and then got dressed and packed for my day. I headed out and decided to take the "short way". Well here is the deal about the short way, it's only short if you know how to take it and don't end up going too far up and too far left. It was getting to be ten minutes until I needed to be there even though I had left twenty minutes ago... I took a gamble and took a different street. Luckily I ran into some IAU girls who were going and knew how to get there! Thank goodness or I really would have missed out and missed the bus! I was definitely going the wrong way!

When we got to the buses we got on and then drove for about an hour and a half before arriving at Saint Tropez! There were lots of boats and lots of tourists. The guy who organizes the trips George took us up to the citadel. It was pretty cool. I don't know any history on it but it was clear from the rock and the way that the lookout was tiered that there is definitely some history to it. Most people descended half way up to go see the cemetery but I continued up further to see what was at the very top. There was. Sort of tower thing on the side of the wall of the citadel at the top as well as an amazing view. I got to talking with a group that was there and we took pictures and stuff. We descended after that and went down to see the cemetery. We didn't go in but it was pretty cool to see the grave sites. Similar to the graves in Mexico, they are above ground and very ornate. I wonder because both Mexico and France are mainly Catholic if that is a catholic thing to have graves like that. I really liked how they had wreaths of ceramic flowers on a lot of the graves. I thought that was a kind of cool idea because then the flowers don't die and no one has to take care of them. I wonder why they are in a wreath shape though.
After that we started heading back into the older part of town. It was really pretty there and we got to pass the hotel de ville. I didn't see any famous people but I did see lots of cool yachts. There were also a lot of cool paintings that were done that artists were trying to sell. Everything here was very expensive and the prices increase was enough that even I could see. While we were walking through town Cassandra called me and wanted to meet up. When she found us she stopped to use the atm so I stayed with her and our group didn't notice so we ended up splitting off. We took our time wandering through town and walked through the souvenir shops poking. We found a good deal on post cards of ten for 2 Euros so I bought ten and a pack of cards. Which reminds me that yesterday I bought a post card that has different places in southern France and I want to TRY and see all of them before I leave?
I got an ice cream cone at a little ice cream shop that makes their own ice cream. It was really good! After that we walked towards the cathedral but it was closed when we got there so that was sad. We walked around a lot and then eventually found our way back to the bus to leave to go to the beach.
 
The bus ride there was veeerrry curvy. I felt really sick by the time we finally stopped. I wonder if I can get motion sickness pills from the pharmacy. Probably though I would think. I may have to look into it for next time. We go off and they told us that we could either stay at the little beach we got off at or go on a half hour walk to a different beach. Being not so great feeling I decided to just stay where we were.
It was verrry gorgeous! The water was even clearer than the last beach I went to. There were also a lot less people. After deciding I was feeling better I went and joined some IAU girls in the water. We swam for a while and the shore went out pretty far before I got deep. This was a much sandier beach but there was a section of rock just past the shore before it turned back to sand. We swam for a while and then I noticed my arm was like kind of uncomfortable stinging feeling. I started wondering if there may be jelly fish in the water but decided maybe it was just the salt of something and I had a scratch that was causing it or something. About two minutes later one of the girls noticed a little jellyfish with brown spots. Oh no. I definitely did. The girls didn't believe me when I said yeah I think I got stung. I think they thought I was being attentionish. It was uncomfortable but not to the point of being super painful. I would say it was half the annoyance of a stinging nettle. It wasn't painful really just like uncomfortable. Or maybe like a mild shock from electricity. Kind of like the feeling after you get shocked but a little worse. I got out after another ten minutes and went back to my towel to eat something. After I got out I noticed I started to have some red humps on my arm. That pretty much confirmed it. The stinging started to feel worse so I did what you do for jelly fish stings.... Yep. I peed on it. Which was definitely a weird experience but it for sure made it feel better instantly and then it went away completely about ten minutes later. The bathroom was really weird though and was basically just a hole in the ground which made the whole process a bit easier. 

Overall I am kind of shocked that I didn’t freak out and that I really did that… There was a shower nearby that I definitely used afterwards. But really like I’m here to have experiences right? Like… How many people can say that they have done that? That’ll be one that will definitely stay with me. After all that I went back to the beach and everyone was like yeah good for you for actually being brave enough to do it. It was kind of weird. But I was pleased that they weren’t like grossed out. But like it really did start to feel like it was going to hurt like to a noticeable point soon. But it was all good. I went back in the water because I was like eh well now that that’s out of the way nothing worse can happen. And I was right thank goodness.
So then I met two girls who are going to a different university who were both from San Francisco. They were very nice and I swam with them for probably a good hour talking. Then some of the girls started taking a ton of like group shots so I played camera girl for them. They went topless at one point to take like pictures of their backs holding their top over the shoulder. I definitely would not have done that because there were definitely boats out there… But I saw this cool rock by itself out in the cove so I had Cassandra wait until I got out there and then had her take a picture of me. It turned out alright. It was a bit difficult to get to with the waves but it was not very deep so I just sort of swim/crawled out to it. The rocks had slimy stuff but it was whatever. Then I swam back. There were some cool silver fish with black stripes in the cove and one was actually probably 4 inches tall and as long as a ruler. So he was pretty big! The water was clear enough that when the wave let up a bit you could see the bottom even if you couldn’t touch bottom. 
Most of the girls tanned the whole time, but I swam most of the time. It was really fun and I was sad to have to leave. It was getting close to time to leave so we dried off and went back to the road to get a drink from the café carts. I bought a icee thing that was pretty good. They are really popular in this area but I hadn’t tried them yet. I think they are not as good as real icees, but they were refreshing all the same. 
After that we got back on the bus… to drive more windy roads. Roads here are VERY skinny so a lot of the time we have to break repeatedly while we turn corners and they don’t do it very gently. Also we have to stop a lot so that the other cars can move off the road so the bus can go by. It was very curvy and again I felt sick… I also was tired so I was going to try and sleep it off but that didn’t work either because I couldn’t fall asleep because of feeling sick. That was a bit sad. But when we eventually got back on the Auto route I started feeling better. My ear hurts still. I think Monday I will ask to go to a doctor. I still haven’t gotten my insurance card… 
When we got back I made plans with Cassandra to go to dinner. I took a shower and such then skyped Thad for like 2 minutes before my internet died and told him what happened with the jellyfish. He laughed really hard. Then I went to meet Cassandra for dinner. While I was waiting I skyped Megan because it was creepy waiting for her in the dark on a not super crowded street by myself. Right before she got there though I got heckled by a group of three guys so I decided to go wait by the fountain but then not 20 seconds later Cassandra showed up. I said bye to Meg and then we went to go find food. 

We ended up going to a restaurant because it said pizza and salade for 10 euros so I was like DEAL! But then when we started looking at the menu Cassandra was going to get spaghetti and I knew I would be jealous so I changed my mind. I definitely should have not… Not that it was bad but whenever they walked by with pizza it smelled reeeallly good. The pasta was fine but not as good clearly plus I wanted some greenery in my life. 
The service was very slow. I don’t know if they did that on purpose but it too two hours from when we sat down to when we left for sme 11 minute pasta. It was not so good but eh. I also tried a citron Diabolo which is like lemon soda with flavoring. I was stupid and got lemon. Oops. It was very tart though. I liked it. After dinner I came home and was sad that the cool game show I like on Saturdays was over. But then! There was a second one!!! It is really the best show and they should bring it to the states. This one has Tony Parker the basketball guy and Eva his wife who apparently isn’t his wife anymore. But I don’t know who he is so that’s lame of me. But it is really a good show. 
I guess the best I can say for this day is I had a good time in St. Tropez and definitely am experiencing some things!

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