Monaco and Monte-Carlo

This morning came too early after the craziness yesterday. I slept like a rock though even through the storm. I felt weird sleeping without putting my blog up or being able to say hi to anyone in the world back at home. My internet is NOT liking it here right now so I don’t know if because of the storms something is off or what but it is really annoying! I woke up and had breakfast and then left. It was a pretty easy get out the door day but once I started walking I decided to take a more educated short cut to the hotel where the buses meet at. It still was not shorter. Note to self: stop doing that. Not to Self: Actually listen next time to the last Note to Self! But I still got there with plenty of time which was good.

We got on the buses and I was a bit worried Cassandra wasn’t there yet because I hadn’t seen her. There were a lot less IAU kids on this trip and I’m not really sure why. Maybe because everyone went farther away for the weekend? I don’t really know. Cassandra showed up after a bit though.

The bus ride there was pretty quick considering I let myself sleep the way there with my noise cancelling headphones and iPod. Usually I don’t listen to my iPod because I use it to take pictures and then it dies really quickly because of the iOS 7 update. I should have never done that… Maybe I can go back. But it really kills my battery super fast. But I was like nope I need to sleep. I brought Thads camera as a backup but the thing is so annoying. It thinks all of my pictures are blurry and says do you want to take another so I’m like sure and then it says it is blurry again. I cannot figure out how to take a non-blurry picture! So I gave up on that pretty quickly but just tried to take less pictures and try and save the battery more on my iPod. Beggers can’t be choosers though.

Monaco is the second smallest country in the world next to the Vatican City. It has 35,000 inhabitant (Because everyone tours and it is expensive) and they are ruled by a Prince sort of. Princes Grace is buried in the Cathedral who I guess is Grace Kelly and was in some movies or something? And then died driving her car off of a cliff in town that the bus was on today? I don’t really know much about her.

We got to Monaco at about 11:30 and then had until 1:30 to walk around the Palace, Cathedral, and Museum area. This is in like the real Monaco part of town not the Monte-Carlo part of town. We first got there and everyone was hunting for the bathrooms. Luckily my group found them first so we didn’t have to wait in line. But it was pretty comical for everyone to be looking. The sign said they were on that floor but they were like in the parking garage section of the building and not in the interior part so everyone was like running around.

After we went to the bathroom Cassandra and I tried to find our way out of the garage part and into the town part which was a lot harder than anticipated. We ended up going in a big circle first. We eventually found our way out, a bunch of stairs later. Why so many hills and stairs? WHY!? France, well I guess today Monaco, must hate me! But we got out. We looked at the museum from the outside and then walked through the garden area to get to the Cathedral. It was a pretty gorgeous view and all of the building in Monaco are really pretty. We went by the Catherdal at first because there was a wedding going on (I would so get married there. If I was Catholic.) and went on to see the Palace. We got there right before the changing of the guards so we got to see the little ceremony. It was pretty cool. I don’t really know how to describe it other than being very military like. I kind of thought it was a bit silly… But that’s only because I think having guards who walk around is weird when you also have police who do the same thing. It must be a tradition thing.

After we watched that we went to go look for some lunch. We walked down these very narrow streets and along the way I found a cool gift for someone. I think she will like it. Then we bought paninis. Or rather Kean and I did but Cassandra wouldn’t like step up to the counter to be helped but just like waited for the guy to notice her in a group of like ten people standing in front of this sandwich place so she just gave up. I was like just go up there and she was like no my mom would kill me if I did that, and I was like well she isn’t here and that’s how they do it here. So she didn’t get one but she had a sandwich in her bag that she ate.

We ate in front of the Cathedral and then split up because Kean wanted a picture in front of the Palace and I wanted to explore the Cathedral in depth so we split. I really like going through the Cathedrals. They are really pretty and usually have some cool art of sculptures. This one was no different. They had like tombs though in the floor in this one which I found interesting. Some had flowers so I think that those were for the most recent Prince and Princess. It was cool but I finished before Kelan and Cassandra came back so I decided to go look in the tourist shops. I found couple things and now I have crossed off a few people on my gift list which is good. I looked at a polo shirt for dad but then decided it was cheap and would probably shrink or be weird so I said eh. Sorry dad I will find you something.

I was in one shop debating between a gift or not when Kelan and Cassandra came in. They were like oh hey that worked out well and I was like yeah I figured you would look here so we were good. After that we were pretty much out of time so we headed back to the buses via the garden but took a different path this time. I was cool and we stopped and took pictures. When we got back to the bus we were right on time! We climbed on and were waiting to leave. Usually these trips with George are really prompt about when we leave. I noticed though that with more IAU kids they don’t listen to George or anyone else in charge when they say “don’t switch buses”. How hard is that? Hey stay on the same bus how hard is that? Apparently too hard to grasp. So we all had to wait for fifteen minutes for some idiot to first come forward that he switched and then get in a tantrum argument with the person in charge. I was like really we are doing this now? How old are you? And of course there is the fact that he is holding up everyone else for this and we can’t leave to go to the next place until he sits down and shuts up on the correct bus. I feel like some people are so inconsiderate.

After that finally happened, we went and to Monte-Carlo! It was pretty cool. It was also a very expensive part of town/country so they had told us not to buy anything. Really 5 bucks for a can of soda? I thought I should buy that! Just kidding. But we walked up a bunch more stairs to get to the famous Casino. We had been told on the bus that to go into the casino was 10 euros and then you had to be 21 to gamble. The other bus was told you had to be 18 so we went to go check it out. It turned out that they were doing like a special or something so two of the rooms were free to go in and you only had to be 18! So of course we went in!

We walked around and we couldn’t take pictures but it was seriously like a museum or something! The walls and ceilings were seriously gorgeous with gold and ivory and big rocks and it was just really awesome. Probably the most swanky place I have ever/will be in. I was surprised by how few like machines that they had in it for how famous it is. I thought it would be more machines but it is like more swanky machines instead and just everything more swank. All of the machines were like 3d and the chairs were like memory foam. They were a bit expensive but for that fancy of a place I am not surprised. Kelan and I decided we wanted to do 5 Euros of slots just to say that we did. So we did. I totally lost but I played a few different machines. Each was like 40 cents each. I won a few times but never more than the game cost. But Kelan actually WON and won 5 Euros more than he had originally bet! WOW! That was pretty cool so he was like yep quitting while I’m ahead. I said I must have my mother’s casino luck where I just lose all the time. But that’s okay it goes to like helping Monaco or something, right? Yeah probably not.

We went to the bathrooms while we were there and it was weird because there was like a lady in charge and you were supposed to like tip her for pointing you to one of the two stalls. I was like umm I have no money and all you are doing is telling me where I was already going to go sooo…. Yep. It was awkward. Also the toilet had like an automatic toilet seat cleaner thing so that was a bit odd. After that we went and sat and just watched one of the guys we know play Blackjack at a table. He like bet 100 Euros and ended up winning like 200. So that is cool for him but I would not be able to just walk in and bet that much money. I would definitely lose it. We were watching and then this like little Asian lady like literally pushed me out of the way. Which I found kind of rude because she didn’t even like say anything because then I would have moved. But no okay whatever! After we got bored of blackjack we went and sat on the edge of the room on a bench and just looked at the room. It was pretty gorgeous. We were talking and this like Lady next to us who was probably in her 50’s started talking to us. She was from Paris and stays for vacations in Nice which isn’t far up the road. We actually passed it and Eze on the way to Monaco. They are pretty close together. But she was cool and we just talked about school and Americans and stuff like that. She was nice.

After that we had about 45 minutes until we needed to be on the bus. So we headed outside to see what was in the world. We walked through another little park thing and then walked by the Chanel and Louis Vuitton swanky places. Oh also there were some swanky cars outside of the casino. I guess there was a lot more to the Casino than we saw but it is mostly like private rooms. It definitely would not have surprised me though if there were like people there in private rooms betting millions of dollars. It felt like that fancy of a place.

We walked back toward the bus and ran into a Japanese Garden in the middle of like nowhere in particular. We decided to waste the rest of our time there. It was really pretty and the Koi fish were HUGE! Probably as big as my arm! There were also ducks and bridges and waterfalls and it was just very pretty. I wouldn’t mind going to Japan sometime as long as I don’t have to eat fish. It was pretty and I liked taking pictures of it.

Before we got back on the bus i bought an orange juice out of an orange juice squeezer machine it was soe dang good orange juice! After that we got back on the bus to go home. Someone had taken our seats near the front so we had to sit further in the back. We soon figured out why. The English girls behind us were talking SO loud and there were people playing music without earphones. The English girls though… I had my noise cancelling headphones in and playing music pretty loudly and on the way here I was able to block out an entire airplane worth of noise. But this girl was like so loud that I could still hear her. I thought about turning around to tell her to be quieter. Inside voice but I didn’t. I feel like some people are so inconsiderate.

I read and slept and listened to my iPod. Cassandra slept the whole time I though. When we were abut an hour out it got stormy outside and the lightning started. It was pretty cool. There is a lot of lightening here. And then Cassandra woke me up to show me a rainbow. I was like great we get them all the time in Oregon. But it was cool against such a dark sky. When we were about to get off of the bus Cassandra told me the guys behind us had been stereotypically American and then complaining about how everyone has American stereotypes. She was annoyed, I said yeah but that girl and she was like seriously be quiet! It was funny and we laughed.

We got back and parted ways. I came home and Madame was on the phone. I uploaded all of my photos and had to pretty much delete almost all of the ones from the camera because they were blurry. But I did get a few good ones from it and my iPod worked the whole way home so I accomplished my goal! Madame got off the phone and I showed her my pictures. We had dinner of sausages and mashed potatoes and zucchini, as well as bread and cheese and ice cream. It was very good and I was definitely starving for it. After that she did laundry and I did homework until I gave up and started writing this. We talked about different things and I told hr about how you can get a cats claws removed and she was like elated at the idea and had never heard of that. Beebow scratches at everything and it drives her nuts. She told me that Paul is going to stay the night tomorrow because his parents are going somewhere so that will be interesting.

I have a test tomorrow in Translations on parts of the body and some other vocab. I am a bit nervous so I will have to do lots of flashcards tomorrow and then I have another in that class on Wednesday with even harder vocabs of the different verbs for all five senses and the nuances between them. Eek! Also I have to turn in my paper on Tuesday and I have a test in Monuments on Wednesday. Busy week ahead! And not really looking forward to it… Probably I won’t be able to put this online tonight with the internet we have been having but I will sort of try!

Goodnight!

Cassis

Oh man where to begin today. I woke up and had breakfast and then learned that we would be swimming so for a second day I skipped washing my hair. I left the house and realized that the new contact I had put in was not in. And already being one down because I dropped on somewhere once, it was a big deal. Luckily I had given myself extra time and went back and found it on the floor right whre I had apparently not ut it in but though that I did. Then I went and met Julia and Lauren and Kelan at the Cezanne Statue and then they showed me the way to the bus. We met up with two other girls from our school who were also going to Cassis so we decided to join forces. I think it was thought of last night but I’m not really sure. So we met up with them and then went and found the bus to take us to Aubagne which we would transfer there to Cassis. They all have these cool cards that give them each bus ride for 2 euros. I learned I need to get one. My trip costed about 9 euros there and the card is free so now that I know about it I should do that.

So we got on the bus and started our day. The first trip took about an hour and we were all pretty tired. We then transferred pretty easily to the 68 bus to Cassis. We were following directions for which stop to get off by a friend of ours who had gone there before. So when the train said that stop we ran and pushed the stop button. But unluckily for us it stopped at the stop before that one that it had announced previously and not at the one it said was next. So we were obligated to get out. This wasn’t so bad because it wasn’t very far from the city and it was all downhill. So we descended and then arrived at the harbor.

We decided to get some coffee and tea at a café to wake ourselves up and then Kelan and I wanted to go swimming. We sat down at this place called Le Golfe and it was pretty great service. The tea was pretty freakin’ hot so I didn’t drink it until the girls who had coffee had finished theirs and I felt obligated to drink mine. But Kelan did the same so it wasn’t so bad. Then we used the restrooms that weren’t too gross and I changed into my swim suit. I guess the other little like room/stall was really ghetto Kelan said so we used the one I was in after that. The waiters were really nice even though we had lots of change to give them but they were cool. After that we made a plan to split up so that people who wanted to go to the beach could to swim and those who didn’t want to swim could go walk around. I obviously chose to swim.

We walked a bit uphill to get to the beach that we knew of. It was really cool. It was a rock beach but the rcks were super cool. There was also like a plateau out that you could see the light house and stuff. It was pretty cool. We took a bunch of pictures including one where I “fell” off a cliff which I will post once Kelan puts his pictures up. It was a bit stormy in the morning so a lot of those pictures are cloudier than later. For a while we had one of us swimmers watching our stuff but then we decided that where we put it was kind of out of sight and w could see it from the beach. There weren’t a lot of people so we weren’t too worried. The water was a bit cool but refreshing. The other thought it was a bit too cold, but again I go in the Pacific until I go numb. After that I collected a few cool rocks and then we got dressed skillfully with towels because we didn’t have a bathroom and then went to meet up with the others.

We went and got sandwiches at a cheeper place. I got a grapefruit soda which was really good. Schwepps Augrum it was called I think. It was really good. I had a steak frite sandwich on a half of a baguette. It was reeeeeallly good with ketchup AH-mazing! Then we left to go look at times for some boats. They had found a boat tour of some of the Calaques (sp?) which are like inlets of water in the middle of like cliffs. They are supposedly really cool and special. You could see 3 for 10 euros or 5 for 15 or 10 for 20. I wanted to do that but everyone wanted to walk to them. So we tried to go to the tourism office but it was closed. In the meantime, we went and got ice cream and I bought postcards. We went and found the way easierly accessed sand beach and looked at the water while we waited ten minutes for the tourism office to open.  I was still on board with the boat option myself… Just because of cliffs meaning hills and hills meaning Vocal cord problems…. But they got a map and the lady said it was easy to get to. So we decided to try after hitting up the self-cleaning public bathrooms. Note to anyone ever using these. Let the person in front of you shut the door. Then it cleans, then you go in. One of the girls was telling us how she had gotten stuck in one because she didn’t let the door close and she had gotten caught in it while it was cleaning. And they literally spray water EVERYWHERE.

We ended up going past the first rock beach that we had gone to and went up further up hill… I started to feel it but then we got to this big hill and I was just like yeah no way that is happening without some serious pain or without taking half an hour. I had stopped to guage my level and they were already like almost half way up. I said nope and then called one of the girls and told them to go on ahead and I would se them when they came back and that I would go to the beach. They said okay and left. I walked really defeatedly back down the hill. It took me about 2 5 minutes to get back to town and the whole time I was just thinking how much it sucks that I have to deal with this. And not only that but like that I miss having someone who knows me here that like takes me seriously when I say yeah I am not sure I will be able to do that can we do the boats instead. I just know that had I said that to any of my friends we would have worked around it or decided to do something else. But here that isn’t the case… And that makes me sad but I also understand other people wanting to do what they want. But I feel like if someone had told me that I would have taken it more seriously and like… offered to go back with them or something? I dunno. Not a big deal but it was a moment where I missed having someone that I knew…

So when I got back to town I was almost run over by a little tourist bus thing that drives you around the city. I said Hey I got probably an hour and a half to kill I should do that! So I did. It was 7 Euros for a 45 minute trip. It was pretty cool. I tried to record the commentary but I am not sure how well that worked. But I tried!  Also it took me literally the same route as my group took so I passed them on the train when they were sitting looking at one of the Calaquages or however they are spelled. I waved and they were very confused. We went up a little further and stopped on this like plateau thing and took some pictures. Some nice older ladies asked me to take their pictures which I of course did. Then we got back on the train and went back down. It was cool but I didn’t get the greatest view of the inlet things but that is okay. I still had a good time. After I got back into town I was still killing time so I bought a big water at the casino and then walked around a bit. There was a clothing market but everything was SUPER expensive especially for a market! I walked around a tourist store looking at different things and then decided to sit and just people watch for a while. I saw a very adorable little girl eat a two scoop ice cream and when I say eat I mean of course drip and make a mess everywhere.

After a while longer we all met back up in town and I could tell everyone was VERY cranky. (Maybe good thing I wasn’t on the walk!) I guess they had take a wrong turn and hiked up and down a huge hill when they could have gone straight because someone read the map wrong. So everyone was grumpy and trying to find the bus station for the bus that was leaving at 5. So I tried to gently help find us on the map but the map was horrible and had none of the streets we were near on it and instead a big cartoon picture covering up our location. Helpful! Especially for the tourists looking at the map made for tourists! So that was not so good. So then people were cranky and mad at each other over directions. I decided to just be one less voice and go with the flow.

We eventually found out where we were and going and started like booking it there. Which I wasn’t really sure why because we had twenty minutes… But okay. On the way I asked one of the girls what had happened and she told me about the direction mishap with the big hill. She was nice. I had seen her around in some of my classes but never really talked to her. Now I did! When we got to the bus we learned SURPRISE! There is no 5 o’clock bus! The next one is at 5:40! So we sat around and everyone took a much needed break. We were sitting and they were complaining how we weren’t going to be back by 6 or 6:30. I was like eh I didn’t really have plans for today so makes no difference to me… I found a chenille (caterpillar, go read yesterdays blog if you didn’t know that!) crossing the sidewalk. I pointed him out to Julia and then slowly everyone saw and we started watching waiting for him to get stepped on since he blended in o well. Luckily he didn’t because I probably would have been sad… But he made it and then we watched him try to climb the sidewalk ramp. He eventually got there. Then someone had the smart idea to look at the bus schedule for our connector bus. There was one at 6:15 and then the next one was at 7:25. We were hoping to not have to sit around an hour and make the 6:15.

Unfortunately for us though our bus was 15 minutes late! So once we got on it became apparent that we were going to have to wait. So we were hoping when we got to the Aubagne station that we would be able to run and catch it if maybe it was late also.

Nope. So then we started looking at the schedule and we were wrong and the next bus wasn’t until 8:15… Soooo We said we have over an hour and a half and are stuck here. We went and looked at the train station to see what it was and we found we could go from Marseille to Aix. But to go to Marseille as out of the way and would only get us back 20 minutes faster. We decided to not and to go find dinner in Aubagne. We walked around and found the populous and not deserted part of town and sat down at a place that wasn’t too expensive to find out they hadn’t started serving dinner yet as it wasn’t past 8 yet. So we decided to leave and go to a sushi place. Luckily they had non-sushi / fish stuff. I was prepared to get a vegetable sushi thing but then they had a chicken teriyaki on special so I chose that. I t was a nice little place and the people were really nice. Though to be completely honest it was a bit strange to see an Asian heritage looking person speaking French… Not that they can’t or shouldn’t by any means but it was very odd for my American brain. But they were nice. We got free water which is not always a thing. At lunch water people had to pay 2.50 Euros for a plain bottle of water! OUCH!

But it was good. The food was super good and we got to use the bathrooms that weren’t very sketch. Then someone was like oh what’s over in that tank a turtle? I of course immediately went and looked. Nope not a turtle. TWO TURTLES!!!! They were so cool! When you walked over they would come over to see you in the tank. One like jumped on top of the other to get a closer look! They were really cool. Their tank was so small I wanted to steal them and bring them home. But I was good and did not do that. Even though I did want to… They were SO cool! Now I really want not one but two! So they can be friends! My day was made and I didn’t care about our bizarre travels back home anymore.

So then we got back to the bus station and looked and were waiting around. We bought some food from the vending machine in the station to eat on the bus. While we were munching before the bus got there Kelan suddenly decided to make sure we were waiting in the right spot. Well we were. But the girls had read the schedule wrong and the 6:15 train had been the last train of the night back to Aix… Sooo that was a problem… So we were like well CRAP. NOW WHAT?!

So we decided to go ask the train station guy what he knew even though the buses and trains have no connection. We decided to go ask and see what we should do now. I noted that their machine to take bills for tickets was out of order when we walked by. We got to the guy and he was like there is a bus RIGHT NOW that is going to Marseille that you could use to get to Aix. And we were like oh great when does it leave and he was like well NOW. And we were like wait what when is the next one? And he was like well I think this is the last one. WHAT. So we were like where do we buy tickets can we buy them on the train like what do we do and he was like yeah maybe you would have to ask the conductor. So of course we literally had to BOOK it up probably 5 regular floors of stairs and then across this elevated hallway and then back down the stairs to even get TO the train. Then Kelan like ran and asked if we could pay on the train and the guy was like yeah but get on quick right now. And literally we hadn’t even sat down before the train started moving. It was not even ten seconds that we had been on the train. Yeah that close. No exaggeration. So we were VERY relieved!

The conductors came by and were like freaking out that they had to sell us 6 tickets. Everyone on the train was staring at us because we looked pretty freakin’ American at that point. We didn’t really care though after how much travel troubles we had been having it was 3 hours later and we were finally getting started towards home 2 hours later than we had intended to BE there. We finally got paid and figured out and then we all started to breathe again. I drank water and got my vocal cords under control which took a minute and ten we all took a deep breath. Kelan and I had sat ourselves down next to this college aged guy who thought we were pretty funny as we had created quite a spectacle of getting to the train. He goes to school in Marseille and was like yeah good thing that you guys were buying tickets and stuff because I didn’t. Hm. I guess they don’t really check? But whatever I like having a clear conscience. But yeah. The bus ride felt really short because we went to Marseille. Once we got there (same train station for Lyon, Cassidy) we took a bus that one of the girls knew back to Aix. It was crazy.

When we finally got here we were so relieved and like the whole thing was so crazy that Kean and Julia and I decided to go grab a quick shot at Wohoo before Julia went to go drink at a friend of hers place that has an apartment and Kelan and I went home. I was exhausted but wanted to be social. It was fine and done pretty quick. I had a shot of Lemonello which wasn’t too strong feeling so that was nice. I didn’t really notice any alcoholic effects probably because dinner just diluted it but that was okay with me. I bet it will still help me sleep well tonight. Though after this day that isn’t too hard!

I came home and told Madame what all had happened and she got a kick out of it. Making memories she said and that was the same take that I took on it. None of us were too upset about the travel situation we all just kind of laughed at it so that was better than freaking out.

I asked Madame if I could take a shower tonight or tomorrow morning and she was like ehhhh it would be better tonight but you need to go fast. So I literally MAYBE used 2 minutes of water. I did the Drum Corps shower when the water is freezing but I did it with hot water. Washed everything too. Win. Thanks Drum Corps you taught me something useful!

Then we watched the end of Fort Boyard and the group did really well tonight. Then I wrote this, quickly posted it and now I want to go to sleep because I still have a full and jam-packed day of Monaco tomorrow!  

Thunder Storms, Wine, and Caterpillers

Today I slept in until eleven. It was very glorious. I woke up and took a quick shower and scarfed down a banana and some apple sauce and a roll before packing up my laptop and heading to Book in Bar to work on my paper. I texted Cassandra and invited her to join me and she did. It was nice to have her there even if we didn’t really talk very much but it was nice to have the company. I finished my paper so that is good and I’m glad to have it out of the way. We stayed there for a good three hours. We ordered two iced chocolate banana smoothies which were very delicious and came with a speculoos cookie! I had been wanting to try them and I discovered that they are the same as the like gingerbread cookies that you get on airplanes in the morning with coffee. THEY ARE SO GOOD! Cassandra says that they are  a Dutch food. But man are they good. I liked Book in Bar. It is an American bookstore and would be nice to go one day and just sit and read a good book. I am at the park in Game of Thrones that I have been waiting for. Though am I horrible that I wish it had been more gruesome? Maybe. But I have to read the whole Brothers Karamazov for my literature class so I doubt I would have time to read the fourth even if I had it. Maybe I will buy it for the plane… But knowing my luck I would leave it on the plane again… I am so bad with leaving things on planes… 

But after I finished my paper Cassandra and I went to find some food. It was about 1:30 and our wine tasting with the school wasn’t until 4. We ran over to Monoprix so I could see if they had those delicious cookies and they did for super cheap and in the pack they were separated in little packets of two! Perfect!

We went to a pasta place that Cassandra knew. It was really good and not very expensive either! It was pretty good. I would go back except that I am not a very big pasta person. Once in a while is fine but I just get sick of it too easily and we usually have it for dinner at least once if not twice a week so that is enough for me. But it was good for today. The lady who made it was also very nice which is sometimes hit and miss as an American. Sometimes they act like they can’t understand you even when you say things perfectly or are more rude, but other times they are very nice and helpful. We were eating outside at a table when a couple walked by trying to figure out how to get to the Tourism Office which was really on the opposite side of town. They were speaking English so Cassandra and I helped them get straightened out before we left on our way. We stopped at a pastry shop close to the school that we know so that I could but an éclair for my dad. Well for me. It was very delicious :-) The filling was really light and it was super good. You can be sufficiently jealous dad. 

We went back to the school and hung out in the cave for a bit while Cassandra worked on her papers and I longingly looked for cheap flights for next weekend to anywhere. I didn’t really find anything. Pretty soon it was time to go and have our wine tasting upstairs in the other building. We went and as soon as you got to the third floor you could definitely smell there was wine. We walked in and were the first ones there. There were thirty place settings with 4 glasses of different wines as well as pretzels and cookies. We took a seat in the back so that it would be easier for other people to come in. We tried four wines today, one white wine, one rose, and two different red wines. They are all from the Provence region where I am so that was cool. I learned that the Provence region is the largest region in the world for producing Rosé wines. 

One of the professors here works in the wine industry so she taught us exactly how to swirl it and what to look for in tasting wines and how to smell for different flavors. I learned a lot of things such as that for each region there are only certain kinds of grapes that you are allowed to grow. There are a lot of strict rules for each region (AC) and the regions are pretty small. One of the common rules is that you have to mix grape varieties in wine here. You can’t just say I am going to use just Grenache grapes to make a wine, you have to have a mixture of different kinds. I also learned that in the Roman times people in France couldn’t make wine because The romans didn’t want anyone else growing grapes to make wine because then they could charge a lot of money for it. Now days you can’t plant more vineyards in Italy as it is illegal because there are already so many. It is almost the same in France but you can make vineyards that are pre-existing bigger. I also learned that it takes three years from when you plant the vines and get grapes until you get grapes that are able and good enough to make wine. Interesting!

The first wine that we tried was the white which was Chateau de Fontcreuse 2012 from the Cassis AC. It was good (I thought all of them were good in their own way). It tasted like sort of apple/peach/florally. It was dry and had a moderate acidity. The Second was a Rosé which everyone agreed was not as good as other rosés that we have had here. It was Domaine d’eole 2012 from the Coteaux d’Aix en Provence AC. It was made from Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault, and Mourvedre grapes. I learned that Rosés get their color from red grapes that are allowed to ferment with their skins on for only between 12 and 24 hours. Then they skin them and ferment them the rest of the way before making them into wine. It was also a dry wine (all of them are today) and it tasted like rhaspberry/watermelon/floral/berrys. It is supposed to be served COLD and more cold than the white. 

The third wine that we had was a Domaine de Bastide, Malcare 2010 from the Coteaux d’Aix en Provence AC. This one was probably my favorite but mostly everyone else did not like it. We learned that when you look at a red wine if the edge of the wine looks clearish it is a newer wine but the more brown that it looks the older the wine. It was very dry and tasted kind of peppery to me. The general concensus was that it tasted like nutmeg or gingerbread but I thought it tasted like black pepper. We also learned how to taste for tanons. The way you do this is you put some of the wine under your upper lip and let it sit there for like fifteen seconds. After that it sort of feels like the wine dried out all your skin and it kind of burned. We learned that you can get rid of that by drinking the wine with some sort of fatty meat or with salt, and for vegetarians eggplant.The last wine was a Domaine Castell Reynoard 2012 from the Bandol AC. In this region they have to use at least 50% or more of the Mourvedre grapes in their wine. And unfortunately this is one of the varieties that you either really like or really don’t. It was definitely different but I didn’t mind it. I couldn’t really pick out any flavors because it was really well harmonized. It smelled like chocolate and black cherry. We learned that the chocolate smell means that it was aged in oak barrels. It was really smooth and very dry again. We tried the tanons and even they were much calmer than with the other red wine.  

I liked them all and even learned an interesting fact that wine coolers are only important if you are going to save the wine to age. But that 98% of wine in the US is consumed within 48 hours of purchase! Wow! I guess we really are a very consumerist country! After the wine tasting I stayed around to help clean and put away all the wine glasses. I had nothing to do and saw that it was going to take a while so I decided I should stay a bit. After that was done I came home and started reading. After a while Beebow came in and started laying on the bed with me.  That was pretty cool. We did that for a while and then pretty soon Madame came home and we had dinner. She made asalad with tuna, tomatoes, and avocado, along wirth red peppers, olives and cucumbers. It was all I could do to try and eat it. I would use the red peppers and cucumbers to try and cover up the other tastes but eventually I couldn’t do it anymore and started picking out tomatoes and some of the tuna. Madame asked if I liked tuna and I told her not really and she said oh well next time I will make it with chicken. YAY. But I still wanted to eat it. I got ¾ of the way through before I started picking which I think was pretty impressive. We had water which was A-Okay with me after so much wine.

Then we started watching MasterChef. They were cooking these big lobster things and Madame told me that’s what she made on the Yacht when she worked for that guy and he took her out on his yacht one day. She says they are really good. One guy was cooking something and madame asked what it was and I said a chili and she thought I said Chenille and looked at me really weird and then about twenty seconds later was like OH Chili! And I was like yeah isn’t that also the French word for it and she said yes but I thought you said Chenille which when I looked it up was Caterpiller. We laughed at that and I said I hope it isn’t a caterpillar he would have to be pretty big! It was funny. We were watching that when suddenly the tv went out. Apparently there is a storm tonight! It is really cool! Lots of lightening about every ten seconds. When they get rain here it is usually in the form of a storm and happens at night but then in the morning is beautiful again. But the storm is pretty sweet. I like it. Lots of thunder too!

Kelan invited me to go with him, Julia, and Lauren tomorrow to Cassis so I hope it is nice! We are meeting tomorrow at 8;30 in the morning so no more sleeping in until Tuesday for me but such is the life! I hope that I will be able to post this tonight but I doubt it with the storm. But I will try! Bon nuit!

Girl who has very similar characteristics to Cassidy:

No Rome...

Today I woke up and got ready faster faster than I wanted. So I ended up going to class really early. I got there an hour before class started and decided to do some homework. I did that and was almost finished when Cassandra came in. I ran over and asked her what her thoughts were on Rome and she told me that she can’t go because it is too expensive. DANG. So then I waited for Patrick to come in and he said maybe. And then when LaSia came in she said probably not. :-/ She added Sally to the conversation but she never said anything. So I was pretty bummed. I really wanted to go to Rome so that I could say When in Rome and all that. During class I wrote my notes quicker than usual I noticed because I think I was taking out my aggressions for not knowing what to do. I was debating whether I could just go by myself. I thought about putting a post on the Facebook group but I had talked to Cassandra and hers about Amsterdam hadn’t gained her anything and that was weeks away. I think people were hesitant because it is a bit last minute. But I really want to go! I think it would be a really good way to kick start the plentiful “lights at the end of the tunnels” that I have. Next week I have tests and it would be a cool way to reward myself for finishing them.

So I was feeling pretty bummed. But after class I went upstairs to check the mail and found one for me from my Thadlius. It definitely made my day better J. I went and read it and then went to the library to chill before class. While we were sitting there eating our lunches, a few of us were talking about books and things. I can’t really remember what exactly we were talking about but we were having a fun time. Pretty soon one of us noticed this giant like flying but that looked like a bee. But it was huge! One of the guys thought that this was a good time to show us all a picture of the giant hornets in China. We were not very happy with him. Pretty soon the bug/bee started flying closer to the table and lower so we all started freaking out and running away. It wasn’t really that scary but it was fun to spaz out about it. J We all decided that it was a good excuse for us to go to class.

During class we discussed The Angel Esmeralda by Don Donillo (or something like that). I didn’t really like the work very much but others did. I felt like I liked it more after we talked about it and I understood it a little more. I still wouldn’t place it in my top fifty though. After that I went back downstairs to the library to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of my day. I ran into the girl that I had the conversation with last time I was in the library. We both smiled at each other and then kept doing what we were doing. I left shortly after that because I was getting mad at the internet there was being stupid.

I went down to the cave and was sitting and talked to Daniel about Rome and how I was pretty bummed that it isn’t probably going to happen. He said I should just go by myself. And honestly I really thought about it…. I asked my friend Grace but she can’t go either… So now I am sad that I don’t get to go…

I went home and was reading when Paul burst in and started showing me his books called Game Over which each page is like a cartoon scenario and they all end in the character dying a horrible death. English is hard. Then we played the memory game again but Paul just cheats all the time. Then we played with these like Lego thing but they were bigger than legos.

Then we had dinner of Cordon Bleu and fries and Rose wine tonight and then cheese and pudding. Then I went and skyped Spencer who got me addicted to this stupid cookie game: http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/ And then I skyped dad. My financial aid came in so that is good and I paid off most of my Visa credit card.

Then I was writing my journal and then Thad got on so we Skyped. SO then I was trying to multitask and my computer kept dying. Tomorrow I have to write my History paper. It is supposedly going to rain tomorrow. So maybe I will stay home to write it, I don’t know.