Unbelievable Sites

Feeling a bit tired today after a long weekend and a VERY long day of classes. First, last Thursday I went to Interville. Interville is a french television show that is broadcast all over the world but has not yet been picked up in America. There is a similar show in the US called Most Extreme Sports or something that is really hilarious. Anyway in Interville 4 countries (China, America, Russia and Kazakhstan) compete in a series of ridiculous games to win each episode. The people from the other countries were not joking though. A lot of them were celebrities in their countries. For example, one of the Russian women was a world champion boxer. They were freakin huge. Our team was a joke. ☺ Anyway the game is like Nickelodeon’s Global Guts for adults in stupid costumes. IT WAS AWESOME!!!! 2 girls from IAU and I went on a giant charter bus to Nice for the evening to shoot two episodes. Normally there should be 6-10 girls but the rest of the girls bailed for numerous reasons so Jaqueline, Tracy and I got to participate in nearly every game for both shows. Because there are so few guys at IAU the TV producers got French firefighters to act as the American men. They were hilarious and had the thickest accents, “GO TEAM USA GONNA WIN” and such.

So over the course of the evening I was dressed up as a frog, a bunny twice, an old school fisher-woman and a crocodile. I can’t even begin to explain the games but I am supposed to get a copy of the 2 shows we filmed and I can’t wait to show you all how ridiculous this was. For example, in the crocodile suit I was zipped up into this giant plastic ball that was aired up so I could stand up straight in it. I had to run in the ball about 50 yards up a ramp and into a pool where things got a little crazy. I basically rolled across this pool and back to the start of the race. It was so SO difficult. My croc head was about 2 feet long and I couldn’t see a thing, especially when I was trying to crawl on top of the water. One of the girls from Kazakhstan just gave up at the end of the pool. Her body just looked limp in this giant kangaroo costume. It was hilarious. So basically all these games are created so the competitors make asses of themselves which we were quite successful at.
We won the first episode and had to leave before the second was over so I don’t know if we won or not. The first time was a fluke so chances are we lost. We filmed for about 5 hours probably and got back to Aix at 3:15 in the morning. It’s a tough life being a star.

So Friday night after dinner (about 9 pm) I went to take a nap so I could go out later and I woke up to my surprise Saturday morning at 7. Interville really took it out of me. Luckily I woke up in plenty of time to meet up with IAU for our trip to Nice and Cannes.

We spent Saturday in Nice and it was breathtaking. We ate lunch in a café by the market and the waitor lied to us and told us the pizza were sized as personal pizzas. They were definetly not, as you can see from the picture. Then we went and bought wine and headed to the beach. Again the beach was rocks, not sand. Thanks to my amazing chacos (sandals) I had no trouble walking down to the water. When I went swimming in the ocean I realized there was a lot more than in the beaches I have visited in the states. This was awesome! I was able to stretch completely out and float on top of the water with absolutely no effort. And the coolest part was that when my ears were submerged I could hear the shifting of the rocks as the waves crashed the shores. This is one of the coolest things I have ever experienced. So simple.

We left Nice at about 5:30 and headed for our hostel in Cape d’Ail. We ate and then hoped on the bus to go to Monaco for a couple hours. We saw the prince’s palace and stopped at the Monte-Carlo Casino. I have never seen anything like it. The cars, the jewels, the clothes…these people were dripping with money. Libby, Dash and I went into one of the casinos and they ordered a drink. I passed because I am a smart girl. ☺ When the bill came it was 15 Euros for a Gin/Tonic and 17 Euros for a Jack/Coke. I am too smart for that. How ridiculous! I could have bought an entire bottle. Ha. Anyway then we went outside and checked out all the nice cars, with names I can barely say, much less spell. Then we sat at a bar outside and split a bottle of really good red wine then headed back to the hostel for the “discotheque”. HA! We got there and they had pushed the tables to the edges of the cafeteria and set up a disco ball and strobe light. So of course I danced the night away with the IAU students and a couple German guys that worked at the hostel.

Sunday we ate a small breakfast and headed to Cannes, which is also a pretty cool city though I like Nice better. There was a big boat show that day so I got to see Yatchs that were enormous! We only had a few hours there so we wandered around, ate lunch and found ourselves in Old Cannes. It was soooo beautiful. We wandered up cobblestone streets and found a huge church set up high on a hill (mountain to the Texans) that had such an amazing view of the whole city, all the way around. Unfortunately my camera had died and I only got one picture of the church but my friends got some so I will try and post those. After that we walked along the beach, ate ice cream then headed back home.

The weekend was completely amazing. Every morning I wake up and I can’t believe I am here. I wish y’all could be here too to experience all this with me.

This week I am going to be pretty busy with school and planning a couple trips. I have yet to buy school supplies here because they are so different and it weirds me out. Why can’t I just buy a binder with dividers and pockets?!? And they don’t have regular notebook paper, it’s only graphing paper which is surprisingly difficult and confusing to write on. Ahh my life is so hard and filled with so much stress. ☺

I miss and love you all so much.