Monaco

Went to Monaco and Eze yesterday. Monaco was very nice, we went to the area of town where the palace is whiwh was very nice. Our guide, Aude said that whenever the flag above the palace is up, then the prince is in residence and sure enough, the prince was there! We didn't see him, bien sur, but the idea of royalty so close--how exciting. We also watched the changing of the guard in front of the royal palace which was pretty cool. Aude told us that there is almost no crime in Monaco and that there are cameras everywhere in the city. It's no surprise that everyone in Monaco looked nice and happy--they were all rich and safe!
We also went to the aquarium there whiwh was awesome. Then we went to Monte Carlo, ahich was just ok.
Then, we hopped on the bus to the city of eze which is built into the rock. Very coo, amazing views. must go, i'm running out of time in the internet café.

echange langue

I am at the medithèque right now. Essentially, it is a library that also has DVDs and videos. La seule diffèrence est que c'est dans un maison très grand et vieux (the only difference is that it's in a really old big building) once owed by Rothchild. Cool. We can use the internet for free here, so I imagine that I will get very used to the mediathèque. Last night we had the echange langue, which is a program that brings french students who are trying to learn english together with english speakers who are trying to learn french. I met a few cool french girls and a bunch of us are going to get together again. It was nice to be able to use the French like that-- I think I did ok, too! Tomorrow we are going to Monaco as part of the trip. So far, I would definitely give AIFS high marks on their programming--everything has been awesome and helpful. They are taking us to a french restaurant next week and then we are going to go to the Carnaval de Nice on the weekend.
On Wednesday I am going to have my first cooking class. Thus far it is the only thing that I will have to pay extra for, but I think it is going to be worth it. They took us to the school and we met the chef who is going to be teaching us. He was very nice. He made us hors d'ouvres whiwh we incredible! Alors, I have to go, my time is up.
à bientot!

Mon Anniversaire

Oh yeah, my 21st birthday is tomorrow. All gifts can be sent to:
AIFS c/o Katie Rose
1, rue du Dr. Pascale
06400 Cannes, France

PS. I'm just kidding

The Collège International de Cannes

This is our little group in front of the Palais de Cannes, where the film festival is held.

So I'm here at the collège and it's really nice. I didn't realize that it is a language school for foreigners, so everyone' common language is (or soon will be) French. This also means that the whole point of the school is to improve your French language skills, so everything is conducted en français. I had my language test yesterday and did fairly well. We are doing review today in our class and I got a little homework. All the profs are French and mine is no exception. She is very chic and speaks all in french, but slow enough so we can understand her quite well.

I have met a few people who are really cool: Jo (short for Josephine) from Holland, Andrew from Ecuador, Johnny from England and Emily from Scotland. They are all very cool and quite well travelled (no surprise there).

Right now I'm sitting in the "Cyberdrome" which is like an internet café at the school. En fait, I am sitting next to Preston and Emily, two of the people from my program who are from SoCal (Chappy) and New York (University of Toronto), respectively. There will be free internet access at the Mediatheque down the street which I'm sure I will start using once we get our cards and go there on Thursday.

Je Suis Ici!

Hi Guys! I am here in Cannes and on an international keyboard, so bear with me. : ) The collège is great and right on the Mediterranean. We've met some people who are young that work and study here from the US, England, holland and elsewhere. I am on the computer at the cyberdrome, which only allows me 10 hours of free access, but apparently there is a place with free access that I can use. A lot of people brought their laptops, but it seems like there is no place for them to get internet anyway, so I'm glad I didn't bring mine.

My roomate's name is Allie and she is an Alpha Chi Omega from Iowa. She seems pretty cool and hopefully we will just have a low maintenance living situation. I like my room-it is on the third floor (technically 4th by american standards) and I have to walk up the flights to get there. All I can say is, I better have great legs by the end of this! Allie and I went to town to the Monoprix and got some stuff that she needed and generally just looked around. The city is very fun and i think I'm going to like it here. It is a very liveable sort of place.

That's all for now, I don't want to spend all of my minutes right away. à bientot (where's the circomflex on this keyboard?)

katie

Tour of London

Still in London today, we had a tour of the city and got to see many of the sites. While I like London, it is not really a city that I love in the way that I love say, New York (or even Paris for that matter). After our little tour ended, we got dropped off at Covent Garden and were allowed the rest of the day free. a few of us grabbed a bite to eat at a pasty shop (meat and vegetable filled dough) and then headed over to Trafalgar Square. We looked around and stopped into the National museum, which had some cool stuff. We saw some impressionist work like Cezanne, Monet, and Van Gogh. While we were at Trafalgar Square, one of the girls got approach by a man I have dubbed "the Pigeon Whisperer" but also known as a bum who makes money off of getting the Pirgeons to sit on people. he didn't charge her, but it was a pretty funny site to see her squirm with all of the pigeons on her.

After that, we hopped on the Tube and went over to the Notting Hill area of town, which had a street market and was a really cool little area. We considered going to Abbey Road after that, but after asking some people where it was, decided that it was too far and not cool enough for the work to get there. So instead we went back to our area of town, South Kensington, and visited the Victoria and Albert Museum. There was a cool exhibit of clothing and fashion trends that was exciting. Also, there was a really impressive blown-glass chandelier in the main entrance that was way cool.

When we finished there, we accidently left the museum on the wrong side and ended up close to Harrods than the Natural History Mueseum, so we stopped into Harrods to look around. I bought a pastry that was delicious. After that, we went to H&M and then finally dragged ourselves back to the hotel. Suffice it to say, my feet are tired!

Cannes tomorrow. Good times.

I Made it!

Hi everyone! I am currently in an internet cafe in South Kensington! It's hard to believe that I'm still going at this point and that I'm finally here.

I feel like I have been going so long and so much stuff has happened that I can't fit it all here. But I guess I will try. So, my flight from Sac to Phoenix was delayed, which caused me to have to run from my terminal to catch my flight. I made it and ended up sitting between two guys who had been at a conference in Las Vegas and were heading home to NY. They were perfectly pleasant, but as you can imagine, it was still tight and uncomfortable. Oh well, I made it. So, I got to JFK and claimed my baggage, went to BA and got my tickets with American figure out. As I was doing this, I spotted a girl on my program (I saw her baggage tag) and met my first friend of the trip: Kelly. She is from Utah (not mormon) and is loud, but seems pretty cool. When we got to the terminal, we saw that there were several other people from the program waiting (a couple were from Chapman who I recognized) and we all decided to go have dinner in the airport. Everyone seems really laid back and cool and we enjoyed ourselves. Once we got on the plane, we got settled in for the long haul. My seat was better this time, but I never actually slept, which is kind of annoying, but pretty characteristic. Once we arrived, we were bused to the hotel, got settled (I'm rooming w a girl form Chapman who I know) and now are looking around/having lunch. The lunch portions are much smaller--like food for normal people! Anyway, must go. My time is running low and people are waiting for me. <3