Ma famille est ICI

My family finally arrived and I am a happy girl!  

Yesterday, I surprised them at their hotel.  They got here just about 9am.  I was so excited to see them!  They would like me to add that they were overjoyed to see me and surprised!  We walked around a bit and then put everything into the hotel room.  It was surprisingly big for a French room.  We all got to snuggle in a king sized bed! :)

We had a cute little lunch at a burger place nearby my school.  I had to run off to class quickly after I finished eating, so gave Mom and Dad my map and hoped they'd find their way.  History class was boring as usual, but for architecture class we got to go to a cute little park called Butte Chaumont.  It was beautiful and definitely a place I would have never found out about on my own.  I met back up with my parents and we walked to the Eiffel Tower.  On the way there, we stopped at the longchamp store so I could buy Mom a Mother’s Day present.  The man asked me if it was a gift, so I explained to him it was for my mother in May.  My parents didn’t exactly know what was going on, but my dad figured it out and explained to the man, in French, that I was buying the gift but it was his credit card.  Gave the guy a good laugh!


The walk took quite a while, but it was a nice walk.  We stayed by the tower a bit and I got them a banana and nutella crepe! Yum!  We got to see the tower sparkle and then walked back to the hotel.  My Dad refused to take the metro even when I had passes for them!  My mom and I went searching for some quick food for dinner, and finally were able to find ham sandwiches on a baguette.  We grabbed them and brought them back to the hotel to eat.  Then it was bed time, since we had to get up at 5am for Nice, France!

Our train ride was good.  Of course, we were on the wrong "train."  There were two trains that were connected, both going to Nice and following all the same stops.  We happened to get on the wrong one, so at the first stop we had to run up and switch.  Kind of seemed silly to me, being that no one even checked our tickets on the 2nd train.  After about 5 hours, we arrived in Nice.  We walked to our hotel from the train station, which took about 15 minutes.  It wasn't a bad walk, though, especially when my dad carried my heavy bag! :) Our hotel was amazing! We somehow got upgraded to surprerior rooms so we each had these big big rooms.  During the afternoon, we just walked around the town and along the 'boardwalk' type place.  It was a bit cloudy and windy, but still really nice! Then, we stopped at a cute pizzeria for lunch.  After lunch, we tried to find a grocery store for snacks and happy hour materials, but it was so impossible.  Finally, dad bought some wine at a corner store and Danielle and I went searching for the store.  My Dad of course, has to speak French to everyone and it might possibly be one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed.  He's so good at French and just says the craziest things all of the time!  Never a dull moment with him around! 

Danielle and I finally found the Monoprix and got everything we needed for happy hour.  Just as we were on our way back, Lisa (my Mom's cousin's daughter studying in Nice) texted me saying she was at our hotel!  We met her at the door and had happy hour in my parents' room.  It was so great to see her!!


She showed us around and we stopped for some gelato.  This one gelato place has 86 flavors!  I tried black currant and strawberry.  The black currant had a weird taste at first, but it turned out to be really good! I would probably try every flavor if I studied in Nice....

We went to a really nice restaurant for dinner.  I had the escargot!  Mom and Dad tried it as well and really enjoyed it.  We stayed at dinner for a while, catching up with everyone.  It was a very enjoyable night.

We had breakfast the next morning around 9am.  Then we were headed off to visit the village of Eze and Monoco.  The dummkopf at our hotel told us that there was no way to get from Eze to Monoco and also gave us the wrong bus to get on. We ran to try to catch the bus and missed the one she wanted us to take…luckily, however, the next bus was going to Eze.  When we got off the bus at Eze, that SAME bus was going to Monoco.  She was quite an idiot.  We walked around the cute little village and climbed up the castle.  We didn’t go through the gardens since we’d have to pay 4euros.  But it was a beautiful day out and we had a beautiful view!  We had some pizza and drinks for lunch and got on the bus to Monoco!

What a city! We got off right by the casino and it was something to see.  The cars were so amazing, as well!  We took tons of pictures of the amazing blue water.  We didn’t stay for too long and then headed back to Nice.  Lisa met us when we got back and we had another happy hour in the room.  Then we were off to dinner.  We went to a cute little Italian restaurant and I had delicious pesto raviolis.  My dad of course was making eye contact with every person he saw.  This is not acceptable in the French culture.  When I yelled at him, he responded, “quand le serveur retourne, je vais mettre ma tete dans le terre.”  Translated to English: When the waiter comes back, I will put my head in the earth.”  Quote number 1 of the night.  We left the restaurant and went to an Irish bar. We sat at a table upstairs and my dad went up to the bar to order us drinks.  When the waiter came back, my dad asks him, “acceptez-vous des cartes de credit?”  The waiter laughed and told my father that he isn’t French.  Then my dad assumes he is from Ireland and tells him that Danielle and I were just in Galway.  He was so confused and told us he was from Holland.  It was already off to an interesting start.

Next, my father tells him “I’m from New Jersey.  They call me the Situation.  Do you know Snooki?”  The waiter responded, “No I don’t, but I guess you do.”  I was dying laughing and this was just the beginning.  At the end of the night, he told the waiter that he’d give him a tip if he heard the bell rang.  The bartenders would ring this bell each time they received a tip.  So yes, we heard the bell.  When we finally got out of there, we walked over to the gelato place.  Dad gave me dispensation to eat after dinner provided that I did a good deed (putting up with him counts).  As we ordered, my dad lets out a scream saying he’s paying for “tout le monde!” The servers were laughing.  We asked a different server if he could take a picture of all of us and my dad was telling everyone that walked past that they should get in the picture.  It was a funny night.  He also mentioned that since we wouldn’t understand the church the next morning, we would all hold hands on the beach and pray.  He was going to give a sermon as well.  As we walked back to the hotel, he decided to squat down on top of a pole in the middle of the road.  I really hope no one saw this disaster….

We sprung ahead this morning so are now back to being 6 hours apart from home.  I hated losing an hour of sleep.  We had breakfast again early and asked dummkopf if there as a church nearby.  She gave us 1. ONE! There were at least 5 around as well.  Lisa took us to one and there was luckily a mass at 9am.  During mass, the lady behind us would not shake hands with my Mom!  She was a cranky old French lady!  I couldn’t believe it.  We checked out of the hotel and were back to the train station.  Our train left about 10 minutes late, but we were on the right car this time!  We sat next to these French kids about our age that were BLASTING music in their headphones.  So we took out our wine, cheese, bread, chips, and vodka and had a picnic.  The train was a bit delayed, but we finally got back to Paris.

We headed back to my parents' hotel and just rested for a bit.  Then, we went out to a little restaurant for a bite to eat.  My Mom and I had chicken club sandwiches, which of course had mayonnaise even though I asked the guy if there was stuff on it....So we just picked out the chicken.  Dad had tuna.  It was a really cute place.  I told the waiter that I was studying here and my parents were visiting and he told me to never let a waiter take my American credit card.  Make sure they swipe it right at the table.  It was a really nice tip.  I headed back to my homestay to sleep for the night and get my things situated.  The random boy in my house wasn’t there when I got home!  Still have no idea who he was.

Now, just going to rest up for a full day of fun tomorrow with my parents!  We’re having dinner with my host family Tuesday night so that should be a great experience.

My father wants a shout out to all his cousins, Natassa, and Bart--- he hopes you’re doing well in the basketball pool!

Bisous!