Monaco and other adventures

I guess I have not written in a long time. A lot has been happening. This past week was the third week of our prep course and I got a new teacher. She specializes in grammar so she is really hard. Hopefully it makes me learn more and faster but it was making me really frustrated because I don't understand a lot of grammar things even in English, how can I understand them in French? I need to hang out with more French people so I actually speak more French instead of just listen to it. The other day I went to the park and just read. My roommate and I are doing a bilingual book club and I started reading the book which is called "The boy in the striped pyjamas" and it is really good. It is a holocaust story but it is from a little German boys point of view. But it was just good to go to the park alone and not be speaking English and listening to all the people and people watching etc. This is what the park looks like:



I also went around and tried to find a group to rock climb with. The place I found looks really good but they are only open for a little while on thursdays. They do outings and things though that look really fun. My roommate and I also found a belly dancing class. We are going to try it out and see how it goes.

Today a bunch of people went to Monaco. It was a 3 hour bus ride, I slept almost all the way there and the whole way home. It is the richest city in the world, it is actually its own country type thing. We visited the palace and "watched" the changing of the guard. I was too short to see anything because there were a lot of people:



The area around the palace was really pretty. We had lunch at a little restaurant that was actually a lot cheaper than I had expected in Monaco since someone had told me that a bottle of water would be about 10 euros. (which wasn't true, it was 2, which is still expensive for me) I walked around after lunch and found a spot with a really good view of everything.



We also went to the giant casino Monte Carlo. Apparently James Bonds favorite? I didn't go inside, but I should have. There were so many people there and it was so beautiful. I couldn't bring myself to go inside because it was such a beautiful day outside. This is the casino:



And this is me in front of it :-D



This is on the other side of the casino:




The whole area was full of expensive cars and expensive stores. Examples:





$$$$$$ The sign is a list of stores like Prada, Hermes, Valentino, and Gucci. Insanely expensive stores like that. I want to know how people in Monaco got their money. Because Im sure they work or something, but I have never seen so many rich people in one place. There was a yacht show while we were there. One of the yachts had a jacuzzi on the front and a helicopter pad on the back. That yacht is on the far right of this picture:



It was a very fun trip in general. Tomorrow I want to go to the beach but I dont think I will. There is a huge garage sale on the main street so I'm gonna check that out tomorrow and see if there is anything good.That is all for now. Ill write again soon. :-D

In the Dungeon

This week has been awesome so far. We started prep courses for school on monday and I am in class with my roomate and a few other people. Our professor is really cool. We pretty much read the newspaper, write, learn grammar, and watch a little bit of a movie every day. But he speaks in french the entire time. He is really funny too. He draws pictures on the board if we dont understand something. And I like how everything is explained in French too, English is never used and I love that. One day last week it was break time but i decided to stay in class and I talked to a Chinese girl. It was just really cool because she couldnt speak English and I couldnt speak Chinese so we had to talk in French. I really want to see her dictionary from Chinese to French it would be cool. But our school is amazingly beautiful. This is me in the courtyard of it.



We are also getting settled into our appartment. We have made a few group dinners and they have turned out very well. Here is one of them



I just had to take this picture. This is my roomates friend from france. He IS the french stereotype. So I told him to hold a cigarette, baguette, and wine :-P



Last night we had our house warming party. It was a lot of fun. A lot of people showed up and they all loved our house. It is really dirty now though. :-P

New Apartment!!

Christa, German, Jenae, and I moved into our apartment yesterday. This is my room with some of us in it. its three of the roomates and our friend.



And this is the bathroom. We got a shower curtain for it today.



We went shopping for it today and it is awesome so far. Were makin our first dinner in it right now, well they are making dinner, I am watching. :-P

So this past weekend we went to Marseilles as a group on saturday. but on friday 14 of us went to La Ciatot. It was beautiful. The coast is beautiful here. I love going to the beach. I have gotten so much tanner while here. It was so great. here are some pictures. Because i feel like pictures tell better stories than me:


This is me and christa under un faux arch de triumph in Marseilles.


This is all my roomies!!! yaya for roomies.


This is me and my roomate Jenae in front of the most beautiful palace we have seen. Its amazing. Its gorgeous.


This is the palace.


This is Marseilles/Los Angeles. Because there is more graffiti in Marseilles than in LA.....blah.

But the other part of Marseilles that we saw was beautiful. There is a cathedral there that is called Notre Dame de la Guerre...i think....and we went up there on the tour. It was so pretty.


This is the cathedral in the background.

Other than that everything is going very well. :-D