Nice is nice

I voted yesterday!!!!!

My first time voting and it's amazing! It's nice to actually believe in what your candidate is campaigning for and really believe that they can and will do what they say. I just really hope that my vote will actually count for something. It was really awesome to put my ballot in the mail and know that I voted for the next American president!!

This weekend was so much fun in Nice! It's such a beautiful town and I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to go! It was sooo nice to get to hang out with Karlene too! I didn't realize how much I missed her!! :) And I get to see her in about a week too! lol

Friday we went to Eze Village, a small mediaeval town between Nice and Monaco, which was pretty interesting. The old town is up on a hill and it's kind of built into it, which is pretty cool. Then we went to Monaco but it was night by that time and the last bus (before the night buses that started at 11) left at 8 so we had an hour to find the bus stop from the very vague maps at each bus stop. We got dropped off somewhere at the top of the hill and had to find our way down through a series of very sketchy looking stair cases.

But we finally made it and it was really beautiful at night! I would like to go back during the day sometime! 

Saturday we went to Cannes and walked around for a little while and hung out on the beaches! It was really nice but the sand was like sand box sand and left a nasty film on your skin, which was no fun. But it was still nice to get to lay around on the beach in the sun! That night we went out to eat and then went down to the water in Nice. The beaches in Nice are pebbles which is really neat because when the waves was over them they make a really cool noise clacking together!

I've been obsessed with John Mayer's cover of Free Fallin' since we went to his concert this summer. It's an amazingly beautiful song and he does great job of making it his own but still keeping the integrity of the original. Here's a youtube video of him performing it in his Trio. I'm always extremely impressed with his ability to play guitar I just hope that his ego doesn't get the best of him, which it seemed to be doing at the concert this summer. O well, he's still amazing.

Free Fallin'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wJ-VPqFzy0

And a video of him playing with Eric Clapton. It's fun to see the differences in playing styles. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh4n1bZi4d8

It's been a while

Sorry it's been so long since I've been able to update this! School has gotten in the way of a lot of things lately! :p

This past weekend was the IES trip to Normandy and it was absolutely amazing! We got to go to two really great museums. The peace memorial at Caen (which was a history of leading up to WW2 during the war and after the was and also some of the cold war) and also the Musee du Debarquement (D-Day Museum) at Arromanches (which was a really awesome museum about the artificial harbor they built after D-Day). It was amazing and I had no idea that they had built a harbor there! And then we also went to Omaha beach and the cemetery. The cemetery was amazing and also extremely overwhelming. It was just overwhelming seeing all the graves and then to think that they all died within 3 days most just on the first, and that there were more that got sent back to their families. It's absolutely amazing to think that they sacrificed their lives like that. 

We were standing on Omaha beach and talking about everything and trying to take it all in when one of my friends said "I've never been more proud of my country than I am right now." And it's so true. I felt the exact same way. All I ever really think about is how messed up everything is right now. How I'm not happy with the government or what we're doing or what we're not doing, but it was refreshing to get to look back into a time when we did the right thing and we literally changed the world for the better. If D-Day hadn't worked, or that harbor hadn't held up, we would be living in a completely different world and I'm so proud to say that my heritage was a part of that change. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to start crying while we were there because of how proud I was of all the soldiers involved and how proud I was to be able to say that my grandfather was a part of it all. 

It was also really amazing to see how many countries were involved in the whole process. To think that there were so many countries involved in the process and that they all worked together so well. And what an outcome. 

This week was more school and I leave for Nice tomorrow morning!! I get to be on the first metro at 5:00 am!!! woo!! I'm so excited to have a break from Paris and get to see Karlene! It feels like London was forever ago, but I can't believe how fast the time has gone by!

And, I only have 2 months left!! Hope everyone's having a great day!

French Fries and Tacos

Yesterday Amanda and I went to lunch after we got out of classes and the moment we walked into the café I smelt French fries. Now I haven’t had any since I’ve been here and haven’t been craving them at all but the moment I smelled that smell all I wanted was fries.

So I ordered a plate of fries with my sandwiche jambon buerre and when he brought out the plate he brought none other than Heinz ketchup. It was amazing.

After our insanely French jambon buerre sandwiches we devoured the plate of French fries with ketchup and Amanda was apparently missing ketchup so much that she needed it on her sandwich too. So she had a sandwiche jambon buerre ketchup. J

And then last night for dinner with my host family we had tacos. They didn’t call them tacos but they were pretty much the same thing. Flour tortillas and beef with some kind of brown seasoning on it. They asked if we had it in the states and I said yes trying to hold back from laughing since we eat it at least one time a week if not every day.

So, eating yesterday was extremely American and today is the first day that I fell like I’ve gained weight. Funny how that happens.

I went running this past Sunday with my French friend Remi and had a lot of fun. He just quit playing futball professionally three months ago so I though it would be a good idea to push myself with him. It was a good push but I definitely felt extremely out of shape. He also informed me before we started that he was known for being the person who could run the longest when he played. Awesome. 

Amanda and I got accepted to go to Normandy with IES the 10th-11th of October. So we're both really excited about that! And I'm going to Nice with Karlene the weekend after that! After this weekend I have something planned for each weekend until December! It should be a lot of fun but I'm a little nervous about getting all my studying done and things turned in on time! I guess I'll just have to make use of my time on airplanes, busses, and trains!

Hope everyone's having a great day!