TREVI fountain!!

The really cool church by Michelangelo

A sweatshirt we saw in a shop...MN gophers Hockey in Rome...what are the chances of that?!?

In front of the Spanish Steps

inside the Pantheon

So finally a blog update!
Nov.7-9 ROME!!!!
I went to Rome with Michelle and Jeff, both from the CSB/SJU study abroad program. We skipped grammar class on Friday morning to make it a three day weekend. We had planned on taking the train from Cannes to Nice only to find out the day before that the SNCF was on strike! So since no one knew when the strike would be done, we decided to take the safe route and take the bus. We decided on the 1 euro bus which starts in Cannes, makes a billion stops but after about an hour and a half takes you directly to the airport. It was perfect EXCEPT that I felt horrible almost the whole way there! A jerky bus and I don’t do well together!! Let’s just say I’m not sure I would have lasted another 5 minutes on that bus! I was more than happy when we finally got to the airport. We checked in and headed to our gate to wait for our plane. Turns out some other American students from AIFS (the other American study abroad group that is at the college) were on our flight! There final destination was Athens but they had a layover in Rome. Our flight went smoothly and before we knew it, we were in Rome! We followed the directions the hostel gave us to get from the airport to the hostel. We took the train from the airport to the middle of the city and took their metro system for a few stops , walked about 5 minutes to where the hostel was supposed to be. But we were confused-it looked like an apartment…there were buttons with names next to them, where was the hostel. So we walked around the block to see if we could find it but we didn’t see anything-we were back where we started. Then we saw it, the button for the hostel on the other side of the doorway! So we checked into the hostel and headed out to conquer Rome! Right after we crossed the street Michelle thought she heard someone say here name but was like who would be saying my name in Rome?? However, the next second we see three bennies running our way. They are on the Greco-Roman CSB/SJU study abroad program and they just happened to be riding a bus as we walked across the street and noticed Michelle’s blazer sweatshirt. We walked by the Vatican and made our way to the pantheon. On our way, we saw a square with runes in it. It was surrounded by a fence and the ruins were lower than street level…upon further look, we noticed there were probably 100 cats hanging out on the ruins! It was crazy! The Pantheon was a smaller building than I was expecting but none the less very cool, I really liked the ceiling!! From here we went towards the Spanish Steps. It was a nice walk, not too far and we saw lots of fancy shops. There was a neat little fountain at the foot of the steps. We climbed up the steps and found a great view of the city! It reminded me of Sacre Coeur! The sun was starting to set and it was beautiful! We went into the church at the top, it was small but pretty. From the Spanish Steps we headed towards the Trevi Fountain. On the way we saw a neat intersection that had a fountain on each corner. Not something you see every day. We came upon the Basilica St. Maria and decided to go in although we had no idea if it was anything special or not. Turned out to be a great idea!! Besides the Vatican, this was my favorite church we visited! The outside was nothing to look at but inside it was beautiful! It was one of Michelangelo’s last works and I was a fan! There weren’t any lights on and it was getting dark so my pictures didn’t really turn out. Next stop, TREVI FOUNTAIN!!! I loved the Trevi fountain!! It was AMAZING!!! It was very intricate with lots of different pools flowing into each other, I could have sat there for an hour! We each threw a coin in and didn’t spent much time because we were all starving!!! We found a pizza restaurant and got dinner. I got a sausage pizza. We were all tired so we went back to the hostel, read a little bit for senior seminar and then went to bed.
Saturday November 8th

St. Peter's Basilica

Sistine Chapel

Castel St. Angelo

All the black dots you see are birds!!!

A pretty night shot from the Castel St. Angelo

Saturday morning=VATICAN
Our hostel was only like two blocks away from the Vatican so we got up early, grabbed a donut at a nearby bakery. We were early enough that we didn’t have to wait in line at all! We took in the magnificence of the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica from the outside. We didn’t think it opened until 8:30 but we got in before that! The inside was amazing!! And, since we were early, there weren’t many other people inside which was really nice! There were mosaics that looked like paintings, cool statues, beautiful stained glass and priests saying mass at many altars around the Basilica. Going into these beautiful churches and Basilicas makes me wonder why we choose not to make our churches as beautiful these days! They are amazing!!! After we had our fill, we went around the corner and stood in our first, and really our only line of the weekend, to get into the Vatican museum. It was only like a 15 minute wait so it really wasn’t a big deal. We each saved 6 euros on the entrance fee with our ISIC card!!! It was only our second time using our ISIC cards so we were happy to make use of them. We didn’t really know where we were going and we didn’t know what all there was to see besides the Sistine Chapel so we just followed the signs pointing its direction. It took longer to get there then we expected but we saw some awesome art on the way! There was one room I really liked that had paintings and gold gilded stuff covering the whole ceiling! Well, the Sistine Chapel was very beautiful but it was REALLY crowded which I didn’t like. They also didn’t allow any picture but I took a couple anyway, sneakily that is. There was a lot more of the museum left so we kept going. There were lots of cool paintings and sculptures. Once we finished one wing, we noticed that it was raining outside. That was ok because there was still a lot of the museum to see. We wandered around a section with lots of old Roman type coffins…they were all made of white stone and with intricate designs and scenes on them. There was also a second of art from Asia and a section about the Vatican stamps and coins before it changed to the Euro. We took frequent stops and to rest our feet! It is amazing how fast your feet get tired even when wearing tennis shoes! Miraculously it wasn’t raining when we were done! It was lunch time so we found ourself a restaurant. I got a four cheese penne pasta, it was fantastic. About 10 minutes after we had sat down at the restaurant, it started to rain again! Within two minutes, there were like 5 people on the sidewalk by the restaurant trying to sell umbrellas to the passersby. It just so happened that it stopped raining before we were done eating. I brought an umbrella with me to Rome but had left it in my backpack in the hostel. Luckily, it didn’t matter! After lunch we took a little nap before heading out again. We went to Castel St. Angelo. It was really cool! We saw some cannons, catapults and cannon balls. When we were on the roof, there was the HUGEST amount of birds flying overhead! It was insane!!! No way to explain it! It was just getting dark so we had a wonderful view of the city as it was lighting up. There also happened to be a procession making its way to the Vatican with incense and all. I’m not sure what it was for though…
Next we found dinner. I tried pasta with clams because I like the pasta and clams that mom makes at home so I thought I would try the Italian version. Even though it was good, I prefer the garlicky version my mom makes. And after dinner we headed out in search of some gelato!! We didn’t have to go far and I got raspberry and chocolate…the same combo I got in Paris! It was a lot cheaper here and just as good, not sure if it was better but it was fabulous!
For some reason, there are a TON of obelisques in Rome! I bet I saw almost 10!

Colosseum!

Roman Forum

Sunday November 9th
So we got up, took the metro to the coloseo stop. They aren’t lying when they say it is the coloseo stop. You walk out of the metro and BAMB!! There’s the Colosseum! Once again, we were early enough that we didn’t have to wait in line!! No lines, beautiful sun shining in the Colosseum, it was a prefect time to visit the Colosseum. There were a few information boards around the inside of the colosseum so we got to learn a little bit about it which was nice. Before we left, I wrote down a few facts about each of the places we were planning on visiting but these boards obviously had much more information on them than what I wrote down. Once again, it was just a beautiful day! After the colosseum we went to the Roman Forum which was just across the way. Our ticket into the colosseum also got us into the Roman Forum which allowed us to bypass the line, even though it wasn’t very long, it was still nice. The Roman Forums were HUGE!! There was a ton of stuff! It was just neat walking through this area that was so important when it was in use. As I am writing this my roommate is staring out the window in fascination at the squirrel that is climbing on one of the palm trees. Apparently there aren’t many squirrels in Holland and she thinks they are very cute. I was telling her that squirrels are everywhere in the US and that most people don’t like them and she didn’t understand why. We spent a good amount of time just roaming around the Roman Forum because there was just so much to see! One thing that we wanted to see was the Circus Maximus, which was right next to the roman forum and where chariot races were held. However, there was nothing to suggest its former use, it was just a green patch of land and when we walked by it was being used for some type of military carnival or something. We were all hungry so we found a restaurant to eat our last meal in Italy. I had a plain cheese pizza but it was good. We did a little shopping on our way to the train station, just got some postcards and such. We got to the train station a little earlier than we had to but we just decided we would hope on the train and get to the airport a little early since there wasn’t anything nearby for use to go see quickly. As we were walking through the train station, another Bennie who is on the Greco-Roman trip stopped us and said hi. None of us knew her but Michelle was wearing her blazer sweatshirt again so we were easily identifiable as bennies/johnnies. We got to the airport just fine and found our gate. We realized we hadn’t taken a picture of the three of us in Rome so we decided to take one in the airport…better than nothing I guess! We all had a lot of reading to do so we found our gate and took out our books. It was time to start boarding so we got in line but after standing in line for about 15 minutes we realized that they had changed the boarding time to 30 minutes later. Oh well, we just sat down again and read some more. In the end, it ended up being delayed about an hour and 15/30 minutes. It didn’t matter because we didn’t have anywhere to be. As we were waiting for the plane we noticed that someone had broken a bottle of wine that they must have bought at one of the airport shops. A janitor came to clean it up. He proceeded to unroll almost a whole roll of paper towel (the ones who have in a public restroom) and put it on the spill. This really disgusted me as after he wiped it up with the paper towel, he proceeded to mop the area, why not use the mop in the first place!!! It just didn’t make sense to me!
All in all, it was a fabulous trip!
Since Rome, things have gotten a lot busier here! I have had stuff to do constantly! The next two weeks are going to be insane! The vast majority of our finals, papers and projects are due the week of Dec. 1-5. This is so the profs and give us grades before we leave on the 13th, and make up the certificate they give us. The whole college closes down after the 13th for winter break.
One piece of drama that happened this past week has to two with the play. The director of the college is into theater and each year he writes one or two plays and whoever wants to, can be in the play. Well, this year there are 17 of us in the play. With all the time we spend in classes it is often difficult to find time to practice. Put on top of that people traveling and sometimes leaving Thursday afternoon to make it a long weekend. On Tuesday we were trying to set dates and times for the rest of the rehearsals before the play is performed on Dec. 4th and 5th. Well, Patrick got fed up with us and decided to call off the play! He told us we weren’t taking it seriously and we were just acting like tourists, not students. We were all shocked and upset since we had been practicing and devoting practically all our free time to play rehearsals. We wrote him a letter and a schedule with all the days we had left and what scenes could practice when and it turns out that there are very few days where only a few scenes can practice. The next day during our 15 minutes break, a couple people went and give these to Patrick. He said he would think about it. By the time we were done with grammar, he had all the practices for this week written on the white board outside his office. I’m pretty nervous about it, it is less than two weeks away!

Pont du Gard

Last weekend we took a group trip to Avignon and Arles! It was fun but really fast. We left Friday after lunch and took a coach bus to Avignon. It took quite awhile to get there but I slept for at least half the ride. We went to the Pont du Gard right way. This is the famous three level aqueduct just outside of Avignon. It was really cool! Our bus driver was really nice and he told us a little bit of history. Apparently no cement was used to make the aqueduct except at the very top where the water flows; it is just stone on top of stone! I’m amazing that is has lasted so long! When we were walking to the aqueduct I understood why my grammar prof told us to bring a scarf! It was extremely windy!!! It was the mistral, the really strong wind that blows in this area of France. An interesting fact is that the mistral blows is groups of 3 so either it was be blowing for 3,6,9…days, nothing in between. So we fought this strong wind the whole weekend! We then went to our hostel and ate dinner. It wasn’t really late but we all stayed in seeing as we didn’t know where anything was in Avignon and we wanted to get to bed early so we would be awake and ready for the next day.

Pont d'Avignon

Palais des Papes

The Cafe in the Van Gogh painting below

On Saturday the first thing we did was take a tour of the Pont d’Avignon. There isn’t much left of this famous bring. When it was built, it was the only bridge between Lyon and the sea! It had 22 arches and it crossed two parts of the river and the island area in between. Also, on one side of the bridge was France and the other side wasn’t France yet which I thought was really interesting. We sang “Sur le Pont d’Avignon” sur le pont d’Avignon (=on the Avignon bridge) which was fun! Then we went to the Palais des Papes (Pope’s Palace). It was interesting to learn about when there were two Popes, one in Avignon and one in Rome. But the building itself wasn’t all that interesting to me. There was some cool parts but it wasn’t stunning like many of the other places we have visited. The view from the top was very nice tough. We had about 45 minutes of free time to have lunch and then we got on the bus for Arles. Our bus driver took us on a walking tour showing us several places where Van Gogh painted- he painted a lot of paintings in Arles even though he wasn’t there very long. We went into an arena that like the Pont du Gard, was made by putting stone on top of stone, no cement in between. Once again, we got a great view when we climbed up to the top of one of the tower that was added later than when the arena was built. We then had almost two hours to explore on our own. It was a nice town. We boarded the bus and went back to our hostel. We then had about an hour before we left for dinner. It was easier to walk than to take the bus so, despite the cold, we all walked to the restaurant. It was a good but big dinner! They gave an appetizer, an entrée, bread, ice cream that tasted homemade and then the lady came out with a lemon pie type dessert. I was stuffed!!! Back in the hostel we played a couple games of Mafia, read a little bit and went to bed.

Cathedral d'Images-blurry but gives you the idea

fighting against the mistral!!

santons

On Sunday we ate breakfast, boarded the bus and headed out for Les Baux, another town. Our first stop there was the Cathedral d’Images. It was this area cute out of the limestone hills in which they show videos. The one that was showing was about Van Gogh, it was really neat seeing many of his painting blown up and projected on the walls! After the museum we went into the town and had some free time to find lunch before meeting up at the chateaux. Michelle and I walked around, did some shopping, stopped in the santon museum (it was cool because we had just learned about santons in our societe fancaise class! They are figurines for a manger scene-but they in the Provence area they add more than just Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the Magi, they add towns’ people and make it more personal). So we each were given audio guides for the chateaux (well, what is left of it) and were set free to explore. It was pretty neat but most of us didn’t end up listening to much of the audio guide. It was SUPER windy which made it kinda hard to hear. It was more fun just exploring anyway. There were several places you could climb up and boy was the wind strong!! I’d have to say the wind made it much more exciting. When we were on the top of the ruins, you could see all the way to the sea! It was cool! After the chateaux we went back to Cannes.
This past Friday I went in search of Hotel La Madone, a hotel that was run by the Otten family (family friends or actually family, I never remember!). Uncle Dave had given me pictures and information about this hotel before I left. He stayed at it when he was in Cannes years ago. Well, it is too far away from the college so I took the bus. I was excited to see that there was a stop that would drop me off right by where the hotel was. Well, I was walking around trying to find it. There was like no one around and all it looked like was apartment buildings. Finally I saw a nice looking older man walking down the street and decided to ask him about it. He said he remembered the name but that is has been gone for at last 15 years now. Well, I guess there was no way for me too see if the Otten family still runs the hotel because it doesn’t exist. It was a beautiful afternoon and I decided to walk back to the college. Where the hotel used to be was up in the hills a little bit so I made my way down to the sea and walked along the main street that brought me into the middle of Cannes. I walked down my favorite pedestrian street, stopped in a few shops, the post office and made it back to the college in time to do a little homework before dinner. I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t been off campus much so it felt really nice to stretch my legs and spend a lazy afternoon in town.
Sorry for the lack of posting lately. The last week I’m here I will have more time and I will share more pictures with all of you over winter break as well.

Where did the nice weather go!?!?

So I think it will be a common theme of once a week updates for the rest of the semester.
Last Saturday October 25
I went on an excursion with the college to a town named Cassis. We took one of the schools vans so there was the guide and 8 students. I was the only one from CSB/SJU which I thought was cool. My roommate went with as well, the rest: two Swiss-German girls, a girl from Norway, a girl from Germany and an American girl and her aunt that who was visiting her! It is about 2 hours west of Cannes by car. The ride was kind of long but between napping and watching the scenery, it wasn’t bad. It is a neat little town on the sea. Like everyone town on the sea, it has a cool port and some fun shops. We had free time and wandered around the town, ate lunch on the beach, wandered into a book store and met back up for a boat ride at 1:30. On the boat ride, we saw the white rock cliffs that Cassis is famous for. There were pretty cool and the water was more turquoise here than anywhere I’ve seen while in France. I saw a bunch of people rock climbing and hiking around when we were on the boat ride. It made me really want to go rock climbing!! The other Laura got information about a rock climbing place in Cannes but we haven’t made it there yet! I hope we find the time soon! After the boat ride we had some more time to look around before heading back to the college. It was a really relaxing day which is exactly what I needed! We just got to take in the nice town at a leisurely pace, go on a nice boat ride and get back in time for dinner!

On Sunday October 26th, I went to Ile St. Honorat with Michelle. Ile St. Honorat is just a 15/20 minute boat ride from Cannes. I almost wasn’t going to go because I had a lot of homework and other stuff to work on but I decided to go and I’m really happy that I went!!! We spent about 3 hours on the island which was the perfect amount of time! We just chose a direction and continued until we had gone around the whole island! There isn’t a whole ton to see on the Island, 5 chapels, an old monastery and the current one. However, it was an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day and had a great time! Next to the second chapel that we came across was a cannon furnace! Totally wasn’t expecting to see a cannon furnace-well, I didn’t know they existed but that’s beside the point. The coast line was rocky I love! Michelle and I made a couple stops on our journey around the island to sit on the rocks and just relax with our feet in the water. We saw some jelly fish, small crabs along with a variety of small fish.
The old fortified monastery was really cool! There was room after room (with nothing in them) and great view after great view! We spent a little bit of time on the top just admiring the beauty of the island and the sea around us! Basically, it was another relaxing and wonderful day!


So we ran into Eeyore's house!

On Sunday night, I booked a plane ticket and hostel in Rome! I am officially going to Rome Nov. 7-9th! I am going with Michelle and Jeff, who are both from CSB/SJU! I’m really excited!
This week the weather had been horrible! Cold and rainy almost every day!! Yuck!! Our director went to Italy with her family this week because her girls didn’t have school so we didn’t have senior seminar this week!!! It was really exciting to finally have a class canceled since we only get one day off this entire semester!!! Normal French schools, and the French students who go to this college didn’t have school last week but we did! I really wish we had had the week off! I could have gone somewhere and escaped the rain! We figured that it is because most people who come here only stay for a month or so and therefore they don’t need the week off. They just pay for the weeks they want and come. Not having a break makes it easier for people who aren’t staying the whole semester to come. I’m sure it is totally a business reason because I’m sure the profs would love the time off!

I skipped my phonetics class on Tuesday (October 28th) because for some reason I felt horrible after lunch. I had a bad headache and was really cold so I just napped until I was supposed to have class. I was feeling pretty much better but decided not to go to class and just stay in my room and take it easy. I figured a little more rest would probably be a good idea.
More theater this week, I got two more scenes worth of lines and now I really need to work on memorizing!!!!!!!! It is going well but it isn’t easy! Patrick is writing the last two scenes this weekend so by the end of next week I should have all my lines for the whole play. Yikes!

Halloween was yesterday. I didn’t bring Halloween clothes besides toe socks so I wore those all day. There were only 4 people in my grammar class, one girl went home for her sister’s wedding and the other 3 went to Italy for the weekend so we watched a movie. It was pretty good but not great and it was cold in our classroom! Most people didn’t show the Halloween spirit until night time. One of the girls from CSB came up with the idea of being a rainbow so 6 of us each picked a color, I was purple, and together we made the rainbow! It was a creative idea and then no one had to go out and buy a costume (and no one would have wanted to because of the rain!). We hung out in the bar on campus playing cards and talking until it closed at 10:30. I had all intentions of going out but it was cold and wet and raining off and on and I didn’t feel like it anymore so I didn’t go out. Ashley and Trevor didn’t feel like going out any more either. We had heard that the water was really high/the road had flooded so we wanted to go see what the sea was like. Miraculously it wasn’t raining and we went across the street to the beach (we could tell that the road had flooded but it wasn’t flooded anymore). It was CRAZY how high the water was and how high the sand was pushed up! My camera batteries were dead so I didn’t have a camera last night or else I would have taken pictures! There is a cement/rock wall at the back of the beach that is normally really high but now we could climb over it if we wanted and the water comes within a few feet of the wall instead of being way out! We went out on some rock and just watch the waves crashing and spraying, it was SO COOL! Then we headed back to the college and watched a movie. Not the most exciting Halloween ever but it was still good.

Today (November 1st!!!!!!!!!!!)
I can’t believe it is November!! Crazy!! I slept in, went to brunch (Yum!) and have been doing homework most of the day. I went to the beach for a few minutes with Michelle because she wanted to take some pictures to send to her hockey team, they have their first game today, and played some volleyball but other than that it had been reading “Atlas Shrugged” and other homework. Well, I better get back to the homework!