Nice and Monaco :)

What an amazing trip!! I can't believe it is finally coming to a close. I will definitely be sad to leave because everything that I have seen and done has been incredible. Though I must say, that I am also ready to get back. I need a vacation from my vacation! Our days are pretty exhausting. I'm going to skip over some of our days from the bus trip. Basically we saw eight castles in four days, ate amazing food every night, probably spent more time in the bus than out of it, and learned more about castles than I thought I ever would! After a while they all started to blend together to the point where now I can't really distinguish who stayed in which castle or what they looked like. All in all, my camera and computer have tons of pictures of really pretty castles, really pretty gardens, and amazing views of old cities from the top of the towers. The names of the castles we saw are: Mont St-Michel, Angers, Langeais, Azay, Chenonceau, Amboise, Blois, and Chambord. All amazing!

We got into Paris on Friday night after more traveling on the bus and the next morning we took a flight on EasyJet from Paris to Nice, where we have been staying this whole week, We are staying in studio apartments, which really just means a pull-out couch, bunkbeds, a kitchenette, a table, and a bathroom. It has been a lot of fun because we are all in the same complex and everyone from our group hangs out with each other every day! We got in on Friday around 1pm and after we got settled in, we immediately went to the beach. We spent a good three hours at the beach. It is so beautiful! I've never seen such blue water. It's a little different here because there is no sand on the beach, it is all rocks, or little pebbles. They go all the way out to the waterfront and then there is a really large drop right into the water and it gets really deep really fast. The water is so nice-not too cold,not too hot. And the weather has been pretty nice. Sunday was D-Day, which is obviously a really big deal in France. We went to church in the Nice ward and it was fast and testimony meeting and a lot of the older people's testimonies were about their experiences during the war and how grateful they were for the debarquement, which was very cool to hear. It was also interesting to compare the Nice ward with the Paris ward. The Paris ward was mainly young single adults or young american families, whereas the Nice ward was mainly older retired couples and a few families. After church we went to the Matisse Museum and the Chagall Museum. Matisse isn't really one of my favorites because I think his abstraction goes to the point of absurdity at times. His museum had some really strange things in it, like cut out pieces of painted paper in the shapes of flowers and squiggles hanging on the walls in frames or on stands in glass cases. Chagall was a little more intriguing because his use of color was very unique. He would highlight the principal objects in an array of bright colors and then make the background more themed in a sinlge color. He was a Jewish fauvist who painted a lot of religious scenes, which were at times a bit far-fetched. We then came back to our apartments and went back the beach for a couple of hours. I've been reading "The Man Behind the Iron Mask" which is very cool to read because Dumas set it in France and Paris in the exact places that we studied and went to, so I know exactly what he is talking about! Then on Monday we went to Old Nice, which has the feel of Italy, and the Rock and the Castle, which is the royal castle built into the side of a rock cliff overlooking the city and the ocean. The streets of Old Nice were very narrow and colorful, all in cobblestone. We also did some shopping here. Tuesday the weather was incredible and the sun was perfect so we spent the whole day at the beach. Sunscreen probably would have been a good idea, because I looked like a lobster!
Then yesterday was another very cool day because we went to Monaco!! I saw Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Bentley, Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, and Lotus cars on the roads and in the side stores. So cool! We went up to the Monte Carlo casino and walked inside. We couldn't go all the way inside without checking our bags so we just went in the entryway and took pictures outside. We also went to the Cathedral and saw Grace Kelly's grave. I looked it up, the population of Monaco is only 30,300 and is only 0.78 square miles big! We learned in our class that it is near impossible to become a citizen there--you have to prove that your family has lived in Monaco for at least seven generations. The cliff was covered in really expensive houses and the sea was covered with really expensive yachts. There was a film festival going on and we saw the red carpet all stretched out, but we were there early in the day so we didn't see any of the action on it. We did see Julie Benz from Desperate Housewives getting ready to do a talk show and Simon Baker from The Devil Wears Prada and from The Mentalist doing a talk show. There were a lot of people waiting to get their autographs. All of the souvenir shops were full of paraphernalia for the car race that happens there and with stuff with Grace Kelly on them. It was definitely a cool place to visit, and it was very picturesque. The sea was pretty choppy and the waves kept coming up strong on the dock. From the tops of the cliffs we could see the whole bay and the city below, which was an awesome sight.
We didn't do a whole lot today because the wind was too strong so all of the beaches were closed because the waves were so strong against the rocks. I spent most of the day catching up on the journals we have to show to our teacher tomorrow as part of our final. Yeah, we have been going to class too for the past week, which is a huge bummer because we have an oral final exam tomorrow that no one is ready for because we have been too busy having fun! Hopefully it won't be too hard. I'll post some picures from the main places that we've gone to. Only one more full day! I fly home on Saturday!

Also, Congratulations Whitney on graduation from high school!!!! And to Rachel, Sabrina, Banks, Kallan, and Chase for making it through another year of school! I love you and I will see you soon :)