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