The Golden Girls: Run It Back

So I've moved back up to school for my Sophomore Summer (I don't feel like explaining it yet again, read all about it here) and have the incredible luck to be living with three wonderful ladies, aka my friends Madison, Amrita, and Melissa. So far, apartment life has been fantastic, if a little unmotivated. (We have a kitchen and it's really hot out, thus we don't even venture out for a lot of meals anymore.) Yesterday, our efforts to get schoolwork done quickly devolved into two hours of couch potato sporcling followed by a game of "Truth or Truth" (which began, traditionally enough, as a game of "Truth or Dare," but we were too lazy and hot to feel like moving off any of the three couches/futons we have crammed into our living room). And then Melissa came back (having left after the sporcling to go have a life outside the apartment, for which I admire her greatly) and we all ate pie. And laid out ground rules for food consumption, the rules basically being "eat whatever doesn't have someone's name on it, but don't finish the last of something that's not yours" and "if you finish off a basic item (i.e. milk, Cheerios), buy the next one for the group." All in all, a pretty good system, methinks. Although it hasn't really been tested yet.

To continue the roomie bonding, Amrita is cooking the first of what will hopefully become weekly (or every-other-weekly?) roomie dinners, which means we're going on a field trip to Price Chopper tomorrow, since our on-campus grocery shopping options are extremely limited. Here's how Dartmouth's money allotment breaks down:

Smallest on-campus meal plan (which I always opt for): $1000/trimester
Topside money (Topside being the on-campus convenience store): $200/trimester
(Off-campus meal plan: $700/trimester)

Considering the fact that I almost always have between $200 and $400 left over at the end of every term (including the ones where I DON'T have a fully functioning kitchen at my disposal), you can see that, money-wise, apartment living might be tough on me, especially when Topside is so sparsely stocked (a., it's summer, and b., they moved locations since Thayer Hall's under construction). I mean, if I'm obligated to spend $1000 on Dartmouth's campus, it doesn't make sense financially to eat off-campus food, since the price of that is just compounded on top of the $1000 I've already shelled out to Dartmouth. My parents reminded me of this quite frequently before I moved up here. "Don't cook for yourself all the time," they urged. "Eat campus food and get your money's worth."

But since it's summer and the majority of the dining halls are closed, my options include (my favorite!) pasta made-to-order (Monday through Thursday), the salad bar, and/or an assortment of meat-packed, deep-fried, and often sodium-packed culinary delights. It's so much healthier to prepare your own meals, and the variety is so much better. So how are we supposed to stock our fridge while using our meal plan money?

Easy. It's called "Grocery Shopping in the Dining Halls."

Basically, Madison and I went to Collis and raided the salad bar for veggies, which we took home and then put in plastic baggies in the fridge to give the whole thing an air of organization and legitimacy. (Plus the soybeans and chickpeas had gotten all mixed up with the broccoli and, needless to say, each other, which was probably going to be an issue.) We also stocked up on bananas and oranges from the Collis fridge. Then we headed over to the Hop to buy a bunch of Milk Chugs (those Garelick Farms individual milk bottles) for our morning cereal only to discover that apparently someone else (or a bunch of someone elses) had had the same idea, as there was not a single Milk Chug to be found in the cooler. (I can only assume that's why they took them, because milk alone is not a particularly summery drink, ESPECIALLY when chugged.) We recouped our losses by stockpiling some Greek yogurts instead, and Madison bought some of those little milk-in-a-pointed-cardboard-carton thingies that always make me think of elementary school lunch. So all in all, Operation Grocery Shop Without Paying Out of Pocket was a rousing success.

Then we returned to the apartment and Madison did work while I hung a couple more posters (including one that says "Dare to Dream," which, in a spurt of creativity, we hung on the bathroom wall across from the toilet) and wondered (loudly) where our roommates were, at which point Amrita emerged from her room after the world's longest (and quietest?) nap. She then wandered into the bathroom and shut the door as Madison looked at me and whispered, "The POSTER," at which point we heard laughter from behind the bathroom door, followed by a loud, "Whaaaaat...?!" and the sound of the door opening again as Amrita came back in to question us as to why there was a motivational poster staring you down on the crapper.

It was then that we decided that the goings-on in our apartment definitely have the makings of a good sitcom (or maybe a reality show, although there's a definite dearth of girl fights and oddly-named people). What would we title such a show? we wondered. Amrita's answer was "The Golden Girls: Run It Back," which actually seems pretty appropriate. Equally appropriate was Madison's remark that "if our lives were a sitcom, it would have to be on HBO." (Don't ask, just accept it.)

At any rate, I absolutely LOVE my roomies (in case that wasn't clear). My classes...not bad. I think I'm gonna really like my history class, despite the fact that I'm behind in the reading because the bookstore was out of two-thirds of the required texts for this particular class. It was not out of the (only) book for my Chinese calligraphy class, however, and that set me back $69. (I'm already trying to re-sell this monster, I swear to God. It's a lovely, two-inch-thick hardcover book about the art and history of Chinese calligraphy. Do you want it? It would look lovely on your coffee table. And think of how cultured and smart you'll look when company comes over and sees it there! I'll give you a goooood price on it!) And then Madison and I split the cost of our engineering textbook. Since it was the only book required for the class, we'd anticipated a fat hardcover in the neighborhood of $40-$70. Turns out it's a dinky paperback. We bought it used for $7.80 (and split the price anyway).

All in all, it's good to be back at Dartmouth and back in the States (but more on that some other time). I've got mixed feelings about heading home for the Fourth of July this weekend (a long one, thanks to Dartmouth's giving us Monday off), but I'm hoping to hang out with my friends a bit more than when I was home last (for a grand total of what, maybe four days?). But I have a good feeling about this whole "sophomore summer" thing. And not just because there's ice cream in my freezer and a river practically out my back door.*

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer!

*Even though we're not supposed to swim in it. LAME. We can still kayak, though. (Not lame!)

Overheard in Notting Hill

Guy whose girlfriend dragged him into American Apparel: "There's just too many pastel colors. I feel physically nauseous."

I have to say, I definitely agreed with at least the first part of that statement.

Wasting time again

I feel like I've wasted quite a bit of time on this trip, but this time it's not actually my fault! Here's the deal: I need to check out of this hostel and move across the city to the Earl's Court youth hostel. But check-out time here is 10 am, and check-in time there is 2 pm, leaving me four hours to kill. I *was* gonna store my luggage and go across the street to the British Library so at least I could be doing something sight-seeing-y while I waited, but the lockers in luggage storage are WAY too small to hold all my giant suitcases, so I'm just sitting on a couch in the hostel's café area, keeping an eye on my nearby bags, surfing the internet, watching World Cup coverage on some British sports channel, revising my itinerary, and now blogging. Fun stuff. In the next half hour or so, though, I can head off for Earl's Court and check in, and after that I think I'll go to Notting Hill for the Portobello Road Market, which is supposed to be really hopping on Saturdays.

So, I want to share pictures of my trip but I don't feel like posting them all to facebook right now (partly because I'm realizing that when I get home, I won't have the fun of showing my pictures off because everyone will have seen them already), so I'm gonna sum up my week here and post pictures to accompany everything. It seems like a fair compromise.

So:

Friday, June 4th
Arrived in London, checked into hostel #1 (after getting lost due to some bad GoogleMap directions), and then went off to explore the Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens area. That's about it.

Sunken Garden outside Kensington Palace

Saturday, June 5th
Spent most of the day at the Tower of London, which is actually not what I expected. I don't know how I managed to make it through life without ever actually seeing a picture of the Tower or reading a detailed description of it, but I was prepared for a literal tower. A lone tall structure looking all ominous and foreboding looming over London, preferably with lightning bolts in the background, à la the Tower of Terror at Disney World. Actually, the Tower of London is a whole castle, and it wasn't always a prison. It was actually quite interesting to walk around, and there are lots of exhibits, from armor to the crown jewels (and oh my Lord, are they over-the-top with the gem-encrusted-ness. No one really needs that much bling. No one.).

The Tower of London

After the Tower I killed time in the area before going on a "Grim Reaper Tour" of the East End, where we covered the more morbid facets of London history, such as the Plague, executions in the Tower, Jack the Ripper, etc. It was good but by the time I got back to the hostel my feet were killing me (and I wore sneakers and everything!).

Tower Bridge

Sunday, June 6th
Woke up a little later than I intended but still made it to Windsor to see Windsor Castle. Unfortunately I met a sketchy guy on the train there and it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth for the rest of the day. (He was at least 20 years older than me and he asked me if I wanted to go around with him and sightsee all day. I said no thanks, I had plans already. (The plans being not to get saddled with a random stranger all day.) He replied, "Look, I'm not looking for anything, I just want someone to go around with, have fun," which further freaked me out, so I repeated my refusal, but he insisted, "Look, if it's money, don't worry about that, I'll pay for everything." SO SKETCH. I told him once again that I already had plans, and he finally gave up. But it was kind of unsettling and I spent the rest of the day on the lookout for him - I mean, Windsor's not that big so odds were good that I'd see him again. But luckily, I did not.)

Windsor Castle was cool, but my favorite part hands-down was Queen Mary's Dollhouse, which is a dollhouse built on a 1:12 scale with electricity and working plumbing. It was amazing. (No pictures allowed, though...sad.)

Windsor Castle, inhabited for over 900 years

After getting some lunch and buying some souvenirs, I walked over to Eton College, one of England's most famous public boys' schools. (In England, what we call "private schools" are referred to as "public schools." Yeah, confusing. I know.) The grounds were pretty but I was exhausted (I didn't realize it at the time, but I was getting sick.), so I didn't enjoy them quite as much as I might have otherwise. =(

Eton College

Monday, June 7th
Did basically nothing of interest all day, as I was getting sicker and also had to move from hostel #1 to hostel #2. Other than that, I just spent the day reading.

Tuesday, June 8th
Woke up early to take the train to get to Chatsworth, up to the north in Derbyshire, but when I got to the train station I got a terrible surprise: a one-way ticket alone cost £80 (well over $100 US). I was really bummed because Chatsworth was the one thing I wanted to see the most while I was in England. I decided to salvage the day, though, and go to Bath instead. I took the bus and got there in the early afternoon, at which point I did a quick tour of Bath because most of the attractions I was interested in closed at 5 pm, which left me only about 4 hours to hit them all. I managed to: 1.) eat a cinnamon butter bun at Sally Lunn's, which is famous for both the Sally Lunn bun and for being located in the oldest house in Bath:

Sally Lunn's - the line was almost always out the door.

2.) take a quick peek at Bath Abbey:

Built on the site where the first king of England was crowned

3.) tour the Roman Baths Museum:

No swimming allowed anymore... =(

4.) Sample some of the mineral water in the Pump Room (just like Jane Austen used to do! ... It tasted, to borrow the description of the woman next to me, like warm water with baking soda in it.):

Mmmm...?

5.) Go to the Jane Austen Centre!!

Yeah. Like I would miss going to the Jane Austen Centre.

6.) See the Royal Crescent, where some of the action in Northanger Abbey and Persuasion is set:

Where the rich people lived.

Unfortunately, this was that day in the middle of a cold when you hit absolute rock bottom and alternate between being too hot and too cold all day whilst sneezing, hacking up a lung, and constantly blowing your nose, so I didn't enjoy Bath as much as I'd hoped.

Wednesday, June 9th
As I was still not feeling fantastic, I slept in and bummed around the hostel all day long. I don't really feel like I wasted a day, though, because if I'd tried to go out and do something I wouldn't have enjoyed it, being sick and all, and I would have just worn myself out so I wouldn't enjoy the next thing or the thing after that. So really, this was the best option.

Thursday, June 10th
Feeling much better, I headed out to Salisbury to see Stonehenge. I ended up buying a ticket that also got me in to Old Sarum (which the snooty bus station ticket man told me was more interesting anyway). Funny story about the snooty bus station ticket man: he had such an obvious low opinion of Americans that it was actually very amusing. As he was showing me the prices for my different ticket options, he was like, "This covers admission and...'round trip,' in your language...When you get to Stonehenge, pick up an audio guide, I think they might even have them in your language." I really wanted to be like, "My language? You mean English?" but I refrained.

Anyway, Stonehenge was much smaller than one would expect (even after being told it's much smaller and preparing oneself for it), and it was set in like the middle of not quite a highway, but a bunch of roads, which was unexpected, but it was still cool. And Salisbury Plain, the area around it, is absolutely beautiful.

Getting blown away by the freezing wind on Salisbury Plain

Old Sarum was cool as well, although there really isn't much left of it, but being on a hill, the view was fantastic.

And then, true to form, I returned to the hostel and vegged out for the rest of the night.

Friday, June 11th
I managed to make it to Chatsworth! It certainly wasn't an ideal arrangement, as it involved almost ten hours on the road, one hour sitting around the Sheffield Interchange, and only about 2 hours and 15 minutes actually AT Chatsworth, but it was worth it. I'd really, really wanted to see it, and while it was (again) not what I'd expected, it was still really cool, especially since I could recognize certain parts of it from the adaptations of Pride and Prejudice. (In particular, the hall with the staircase. You might remember it from the 2005 version:)

Did I stand here picturing Keira Knightley walking through this hallway? Yes. Yes, I did.

I had just over an hour to walk around the grounds after going through the house, so I explored a bit (but not as much as I'd have liked...I didn't want to go too far and miss the bus).

Part of the house/grounds and the surrounding countryside...the rest of my pictures haven't been uploaded yet.

The 50 minute bus rides to and from Chatsworth from the Sheffield Interchange (where the coaches from London arrived and departed) were actually very pleasant: the area is smack in the middle of the Peak District National Park, so some parts are very pastoral and picturesque, while others are more ruggedly beautiful. Either way, I definitely had a good day, despite all the travel time.

And that brings us right up to now. It's quarter of two and I should get going to hostel #3 (the final hostel!!!) so I can have some time to actually do something this afternoon and/or this evening. I have no idea what the wifi situation is at Earl's Court, so this may be my last entry before I'm stateside again (!!!). If that's the case, I'll hopefully see you soon, and thanks for following my European adventures!

Lots of stuff happened while I was in Lyon

...and it's probably foolish to try and fit the rest of it all into one blog post (it's gonna get all diluted and second-grade-book-report-summary boring), but oh, well. I mean, I have to write about it sometime, and like I said, writing about travels in France from my room in the US is just not as interesting as writing about them while I'm still in Europe. Granted, it would be even better if I were actually still in France, but England's not a bad runner-up. Plus, it's raining again (I'm not surprised; it's England, after all), and I've taken the day off from sightseeing in order to recuperate from the nasty cold that just slammed into me with all the force of a freight train full of bricks and lead and other really heavy things, so I've got the time to go back over the last few weeks and fill y'all in.

Okay...so...scrolling back through my iPhoto library to get some visual reminders...okay. Here we go. The Wednesday after my weekend in the south of France, our class went on a field trip to Beaune, a town that was, if I remember correctly, about an hour and a half from Lyon (very close to Dijon). It's known for its medieval hospital, Hôstel Dieu (don't pronounce the 's' in 'hostel'), or, more specifically, for the brightly patterned roof of said hospital:

Doesn't even come close to doing it justice. The colors are actually much brighter, especially when the sun's shining.

Anyway, we had a really nice day exploring the town and the hospital and eating lunch (the cold mushroom cream thing I ate = awesome. And since it wasn't vegan, I got to eat half of Kelly's too, since she couldn't.), and we all agreed that it was a lot of fun to do a nice outing with the entire group all together like that.

I miss everyone! =(
Also, why am I so freaking short?!

We all took the train back to Lyon afterwards, and most of us passed the time by napping, doing some reading for class, listening to music, or, if you're me and Amanda, trying to remember all the Kappa Delta info we had to learn for our new member test. Turns out we've already forgotten most of it, but what was most frustrating was that we couldn't remember the name of the shell that's supposed to symbolize the growth of Kappa Deltas. It was one of those things where it's on the tip of your tongue and you just can't remember it. It was incredibly annoying.

Anyway, the rest of the week passed without incident (except for the next day in class when I suddenly remembered that it was a nautilus shell and mouthed it to Amanda, who immediately knew not only what it was I was mouthing but what it was in relation to...ahh, sisterhood). One other cool thing we did that week, though, was attend an herb seminar from an American woman who's been living in Lyon for the past ten or so years and blogs about French cooking. We learned about different kinds of herbs used in French cooking and made herb broth, tarte aux fines herbs, and kir (with acacia flower syrup and verbena syrup rather than the traditional crème de cassis), and it was all delicious:

Behold my foray into French cuisine. Although, to be fair, I didn't really actually assemble any of this. I chopped parsley. That was my contribution.

That weekend was another long weekend for another Catholic holiday (Pentecost this time). Since everyone else had plans for the weekend, I decided to do a little traveling on my own. My plan included Grenoble, Annecy, and Geneva (aka Genève), and Chambery and Aix-les-Bains if I had time/wasn't too tired. Turns out that traveling in the heat and the sun is actually quite exhausting, so I only made it to the first three, but it was still a very nice weekend. I went to Grenoble on Saturday not quite sure what to expect. I'd come to France prepared to like Grenoble, since Aunt Michelle always speaks of it fondly and I was interested to see it, but when I'd missed the train there one weekend (my first attempt to visit it), Corinne had made a disgusted noise and said (in French) something along the lines of "Believe me, you're not missing out on anything." My host family lived in Grenoble for several years before moving to Lyon, and none of them had anything particularly nice to say about it. Mon père's evaluation: "The city is not pretty. The area around it is, though." Jacques: "It's cool when you're young and you want to ski and stuff, but other than that, it's not that great." Corinne: "It's ugly, it's dirty, and there's no history. It's a modern town, not like Lyon where there are old buildings and a lot of history. It's only for scientists and engineers. And the mountains just box you in." So, you can see why I wasn't quite sure what I was getting myself into.

The reality, as so often happens, fell somewhere between the two extremes. It certainly wasn't the hotbed of industrial filth Corinne had made it out to be. The streets were clean, and there were some pretty statues and fountains, but she was right about one thing: not much history. It wasn't a big deal, though, as I didn't spend much time actually in the city. I just walked through and got some lunch from an indoor market on my way to the famous cable cars of Grenoble, which I rode up the mountain to La Bastille, the 19th-century fort.

Aren't they cuuuuuute?!

I spent the rest of the day up there, admiring the views of the Alps, writing in my journal, taking in the smell of the flowers blooming on the trees (I don't even LIKE the smell of flowers, generally, since I think they tend to smell like a pile of compost someone spilled perfume on. But these flowers were literally the best-smelling flowers I've ever come across. I would go all the way back to Grenoble just to smell them again, seriously. And yes, I know I can probably find them in some other place. But I have no idea what they're called or anything like that, so returning to Grenoble seems like my best bet.)

At any rate, it was a really calm, relaxing, Zen kind of day (and, fun fact, the French use the word "zen" too...I heard it a few times while I was there). I'd love to go back someday in the future when I have access to a car, as I'm sure a lot of the more remote regions of the Alps are even prettier (albeit harder to access, especially when you're dependent on public transport like I was).

View from the parking lot area at La Bastille

I was too tired, as I said, to stop at Chambery on the way back...I'd gotten a lot of sun and was a little bit burned, and you know how a sunburn just saps all your energy. I went back to the apartment and I dunno, probably just ate dinner in my room and watched a movie (mes parents were in the country for the weekend so it was just me and Jacques).

The next morning I set off for Geneva, which was exciting - my first solo international journey! The train ride there was really pretty - at some points the train runs in ravines between mountains, and at other times it skirts along ridges on the sides of them, looking out over marshes, rivers, pastures, meadows...it's like a storybook setting. I took down the names of a couple picturesque towns on the way there, for someday when I return to France. (It WILL happen, I will make sure of it. France was too beautiful to visit once and never go back. I want to visit France as often as possible.)

Anyway, I wasn't particularly impressed with Geneva itself. Not that there was anything wrong with Geneva. And probably my lack of enthusiasm was at least partially my own fault, as I spent the first hour and a half trying to find a place to exchange my money (Switzerland uses Swiss francs instead of Euros) when I could have (should have) just exchanged it at the train station when I got in. And since I went on a Sunday, a lot of stores and museums (including the UN headquarters) were closed. But I did enjoy walking around, especially along Lake Geneva (or, if you're French, Lac Léman). The lake's claim to fame, besides being the largest freshwater lake in Western Europe (thanks, wikipedia!), is being home to the largest water fountain on earth:

It sort of looks like it's spouting from the boat, but it's not. Just trust me.

The major drawback about Switzerland, though, is that it's insanely expensive. My lunch, which I ordered from what was essentially an outdoor food stand, cost me 13 francs (roughly 13 US dollars...the exchange rate's pretty much even), and all it consisted of was a tomato and cheese panini (9 francs!) and a glass of beer on tap (4 francs...I'm not generally a beer drinker but Geneva's supposed to have really good beer and I was like, what the heck, while in Geneva, do as the Genevans do. After all, if you wanna really sample some beer, may as well do it in a place that's renowned for it, right? As it turns out, I still don't like beer. It was like drinking fizzy crackers. Not a fan.)

Anyway, my final verdict on Geneva was that it was fine to visit once, but I'm not exactly eager to go back. I mentioned this to Madison, and she was like, "Really? My parents went for two weeks and they loved it." So I was like, great, maybe I did it wrong somehow. But then I mentioned it to my host parents and they said, "Americans love Geneva for some reason, but it's not all that great." So I felt a little more justified after that.

Monday morning I soldiered on (despite having a pretty legit sunburn by this time) to Annecy, which was beautiful. The lake (Lac d'Annecy) is gorgeous, as is the Old Town with its canals and narrow, winding streets.

Lac d'Annecy

Vieille Ville d'Annecy

Basically all I did was walk around and look at stuff - no special activities or anything. I ate alone in a sit-down restaurant for the first time in my life, and I'm pretty proud of myself for it - I know that eating alone in a restaurant is high up there on a lot of people's lists of social fears, and I must say that while eating with other people is definitely preferable, it wasn't terrible. My waiter was really nice and my meal (ravioli and a glass of kir) was really delicious, so I can't complain.

After eating I decided to get some ice cream since everyone was walking around with ice cream cones and I thought it might be a good idea to follow suit, since it was really hot out. I tried to get a kiddie cone of mint chocolate chip, but it turns out in France that only kids can order kiddie cones (as the ice cream stand guy pretty nastily pointed out to me. Thanks a lot, jerkface.). I should have gone to a different ice cream place, though, as their flavor list was ridiculous:

Flavors include violet (yes, the flower), strawberry basil, orange flower, and Nutella.

And so I returned to Lyon that afternoon exhausted and incredibly sunburned, but happy with my weekend in the Alps.

The next week or so passed pretty much without incident; one Wednesday we were supposed to go to a chateau but that was canceled at the last minute, so we went to a fancy Lyon patisserie instead and Dartmouth paid (good thing, because my frozen chocolate soufflé or whatever it was was like 7,50 €:

Yum.

I also got to try some chocolate with REAL GOLD FLAKES on top. Yes. I have tasted the flavor of decadence, and it is AWESOME.

And that just about brings me up to my last day in Lyon, I think. Not much happened over my last weekend, as I was busy studying (read: procrastinating) and packing (read: trying to make myself feel better about not studying). But now I am DONE with classes (until June 25th, anyway, when I start my summer term), so yay.

And this was a pretty long entry so I'm gonna take a break. I'll probably come back fairly soon and bring this blog all up to date with the end of Lyon and the beginnings of England, since I'm still not feeling much like venturing out (stupid cold has stolen all my energy) but I'm not tired enough to nap or anything. So yeah. I guess that's that.

Overheard in Bath

Is it just me, or is England the best country for overheards ever?!

Lady in the (very sturdy) bathroom at the Roman Baths: "Is is just me, or can you feel it [the building] moving? ... I could feel it when I was on the loo."

Chronological order is overrated

I hope you agree, because I'm about to take things back to my weekend in the south of France again. It's true, I'm in London now, and it's true that the last two posts have been about London, but I've got some interesting stories from the south of France and blogging about them from the US is just not the same as blogging about them from Europe (even if I'm no longer in my beloved France...sob!).

So, where did I leave off? Okay. So Friday morning. We decided to go to Monaco for the day, and Yoshi joined us. We left around 10 am and made our way down the hill. ("How bad was this hill, Renée?" you may ask. "It's a HILL. Come on, it couldn't have been that bad, you complainer." Well, to give you an idea of how high up we were, here's the view from our hostel's porch.)

Okay, so it's not the most picturesque photo of the view, but it shows you how high up we were. We walked down pretty much to the coastline. Granted, we walked to the part directly in front of the hostel, not that bit off in the distance. But still.

We headed into Monaco and walked up the hill to where the palace was not so much to see it but to watch the Grand Prix qualifying race that was going on. And man, was it LOUD.

Coastline of Monaco with the Grand Prix circuit all set up. You can see a car if you look at bottom center/left-ish.

After doing that for awhile, we looked a a couple cute tourist-y shop streets in the Old Town near the palace and I simultaneously got ripped off and bargain shopped (5 € for a baseball cap, 1 € for a postcard that the shop next door was selling for 30 centimes). We headed back down into the city and walked around a bit before taking the bus (free because of the Grand Prix!) to the beach, where we got lunch from a little bakery/sandwich place before heading to the beach for a picnic lunch. Poor Nayab was so exhausted that she literally fell asleep as soon as she laid down on the beach, still clutching her sandwich. It was actually rather adorable.

Funny thing about the beaches in Monaco, though: they don't have sand. You'd think they would and that it would be the super luxurious, super-fine white stuff, but no, Monaco's beaches are made up entirely of pebbles. True story. It feels really weird to walk on at first (kind of tickled my feet), but after awhile you get used to it.

The lovely coastline in Monaco. (I miss it in this cloudy, cool British weather!)

Anyway, we ate and relaxed in the sun. I read a bit of Pride and Prejudice before walking along the shore and then finally swimming in the Mediterranean! It was absolutely lovely. After that I laid out in the sun again and, inspired by Jake's Phi Delt sunscreen tattoo, attempted to give myself a Kappa Delta sunscreen tattoo, which was an epic fail, especially when I forgot it was there and put my shirt on over it, thereby smudging copious amounts of sunscreen all over both my arm and my sleeve. Oh, well.

We played a bit with Wilson, the volleyball the others had purchased the day before, and after we were beached out we headed for the Monte Carlo to see about doing some gambling (since the legal age is 18 in Europe and hey, wouldn't it be awesome to say you gambled at the Monte Carlo? I think so.). It didn't open until 8, though, and it was only like 5 or 6, so we decided to get dinner and then come back. We went to a little sandwich shop/cafe-type place. Unfortunately there wasn't anything vegan for Kelly, but the really nice cafe workers made her a sandwich that was essentially a hamburger without the actual burger - lettuce, tomato, veggies, etc. on a hamburger bun. It was really nice of them, especially since it was one of those places where everything is pretty much pre-assembled. And then as we were finishing up eating, the workers came over and gave us four free fruit cups to split between the six of us, since they were getting ready to close and otherwise they'd just have to throw the fruit cups out. Like I said, they were really nice. We took a picture with them (the workers, not the fruit cups...although, actually, both are true I guess) before we left.

We returned to the Monte Carlo to find out that they'd pushed the opening time back to 9 pm instead, so we went to Häagen Dazs and got ice cream beforehand and Amanda taught us how to play Chinese Poker (which I still don't really understand...I have no idea why card games are so hard for me, but I just cannot wrap my head around them. My Card Game Repertoire consists of War, Go Fish, Slapjack, and building card-castles only two tiers high.). We went back to the casino at nine, managed to get in despite our decidedly un-classy manner of dress (beach clothes...everyone else was in suits, tuxes, cocktail dresses, and evening gowns). Seriously, these people were rolling up in super-expensive cars and were obviously quite a different sort from us. Regardless, we paid the 10 € entry fee, and then looked around. It was amazing (no pictures though, because cameras sadly were not allowed in)...so fancy! I set a 5 € limit for myself and played a slot machine. I was up about 2 € at one point, but then I lost it. =( It was a good thing I'd pre-set a limit for myself, though, because gambling really is addictive, especially when you see other people - ahem, Jake - winning all kinds of junk. I was super-jealous, haha.

The Monte Carlo at night

We headed back to the train station, checking out all the yacht parties going on in the harbor, took the train back to Menton, hoofed it all the way up the Giant Hill of Death, and went to bed. Well, first, I tried to get a train ticket back to Lyon. It wasn't looking good. I finally found one that would get me into Lyon around 10 pm Sunday night after leaving me in Avignon for like 7 hours, but at that point the wifi cut out and I was still ticket-less. It ended up being a good thing, though, because the next morning - and I have no idea how this happened or what I did to get so lucky - a ticket miraculously opened up on the 8 am TGV that went directly from Cannes to Lyon, the same train my friends were taking. EXCELLENT! I jumped around excitedly about that for literally about ten minutes. Getting back to Lyon at noon was soooo much better than straggling in at 10 pm. SO MUCH BETTER.

We said goodbye to Yoshi at the train station and headed off to Juan-les-Pins, where Kelly had heard about a bread festival. It ended up being a.) actually in Antibes, a 15-minute walk up the road, and b.) not much of a festival, as it consisted of one tent in the square where some people were selling like 6 different bread products. Oh, well. We got lunch from various places around town, sat on benches by the water, and ate, and then we went to the beach in Antibes (sand, no pebbles! Yay!) and hung out there for maybe a little under an hour.

Me, obviously super-psyched to be in Antibes. Props to Kelly for getting this on the first attempt.

A more panoramic view of Antibes, the sea, and the surrounding landscape.

After a quick ice-cream pit stop, we went to Cannes, which was insane because of the film festival. We went to a museum on a hill above the town since it was the Night of the Museums in France and all the museums were open for free until midnight, and we were hoping to check our stuff there. The scary mobster-esque guys running the place had a good laugh at that, and we went on our way. We got dinner at a yummy Indian restaurant in Cannes which played Bollywood music videos on a screen in the dining area, and then we set off on a Night of Adventures, since we had no lodgings for the night, nor did we expect or even attempt to find any. (Cannes books up MONTHS in advance for the festival.) First we wandered around, then we attempted to watch the red carpet for awhile (no celeb sightings that night...boo). Then we watched a film screening on the beach, where we sat in beach chairs and were supplied with blankets. Everyone else got little naps in during the movie (which was in Italian with French subtitles), but I couldn't fall asleep, partly because even with the blankets it was freaking COLD on the beach.

When the movie finished we hung around the red carpet some more (still no celeb sightings) and then just sat down near the Festival Pavillion, looking distinctly hobo-esque with our multiple layers (I was wearing pajama pants as a scarf) and stolen Cannes Film Screening blankets. (I couldn't bring myself to do it, but I was rather jealous of those who had, since those blankets were fuzzy and lovely.) Anyway, as we sat there, needing only some fingerless gloves and a fire burning in a barrel to complete the picture, a screening let out and all these people walked by in tuxes and evening gowns. It was a pretty ridiculous picture, as you can imagine. Two guys stopped to chat with us - they were Americans living in France and they'd been attending the festival for the past several years. They gave us a bunch of tips on how to actually get in next time, and told us that if we'd been wearing cocktail dresses and suits, we could have been partying on a yacht right now, which was simultaneously exciting and disappointing to think about.

Festival Banner

The red carpet after the festival was done for the night. It's still heavily secured, though, as we found out when a drunk guy tried to run onto it and was stopped by a police officer and a dog.

We walked along the shore and tried to catch a glimpse of some other the after-parties happening on nightclub boat thingies, but were deterred from attempting to crash them by a.) the scary-looking bouncers and b.) the fact that we had all our stuff with us still. And Lord knows nightclubs are crowded enough without baggage being involved.

We wandered a bit more until at around 1 am, we stumbled upon a Godsend - a cafe that was open until 4:30 because of the festival. We sat at a table outside under a heat lamp in a back corner and managed to stay there for the next three or so hours, making sure to sip our drinks or nibble our food every time we were within the waitress's line of vision. It was actually quite fun, partly because it was pretty late (pretty early?) and we were all pretty punchy by that point. At 4:30 when they closed we trudged to the train station and waited for it to open at 5 (it actually opened at 5:30), at which point Jake and Nayab stayed with the stuff and Amanda and Kelly and I went off to watch the sun rise over the ocean (turns out you can't actually see the sun rise over the water in Cannes). Amanda went back to the train station and Kelly and I checked out a market, and then we returned to the station, where everyone was fast asleep on benches. We caught the 8 am train back without any problems, and that was that. It was a wonderful weekend. I mean, we were sooo lucky in our choice of weekend: the Grand Prix and the Cannes Film Festival! People plan out trips for months without getting that lucky.

And although I was absolutely exhausted after staying up for like 24 hours straight (I took a two-hour nap on the train home) and then going my entire Sunday until 11 pm without a nap, it was totally worth it. What a fantastic life experience. =)

Overheard in London

No time for a full post, so here are some overheards:

Tour guide at Tower of London:
"Any Americans here today? You enjoying England and this sunshine? Could've all been yours if you'd paid your taxes."

"All right, everyone, I need you to make a rather large gap so I can get through here. Not that large."

After a really specific list of places and dates: "I'm just making this up folks, you know that."

When there were some stragglers as the tour moved to a new spot: "Come on, you lot, stop sight-seein'!"

"On to the execution site, chop chop!"

"If you liked my tour, my name is Chris...if you didn't you can call me Kevin."


Little girl at the Tower of London: "I'm wearing my most cutest outfit ever!"

Kid at Tower of London, in regards to the Yeoman Warders: "Mum, can we go have a look at the weird men with the funky hats?"

Walking tour guide describing Henry VIII's jewels and finery: "He was a bit like a ginger Mr. T in the 1500s." (She was pretty much spot on, compare them for yourself: Henry VIII vs. Mr. T.)

Guy in Kensington Gardens: "He's got this thing where whenever he meets anyone his own age of the same sex he just hates them. He just instantly dislikes them, yeah."

Piccadilly Circus

is the best name for any place, ever.