F-R-A-N-C-E!!!!



Chocolat Chaud
Hot Chocolate! Fancy :-)



 I absolutely with a passion love love love France! It is gorgeous! I'm close to the beach! There is so much history here! They have old villages that are totally incredible! I live in a city called Mougins and I went to the Old Village there where I got hot chocolate. I've also been to a city called Eze which is close to Nice which had a breathtaking view and old ruins! Me, being the history nerd that I am, I was absolutely in awe! I took lots of pictures but unfortunately, I forgot my camera cord at home so I have no way to get them on the computer!!! :-( But they will all go up as soon as I get it! France is a very old country so what my seem old and decrepid to some, to me is just filled with history and the essence of the past. The US in comparison is new especially where I was living! It was commercialized with suburbs everywhere which is nice for the luxury it offers but doesn't have the same ancient zeal that France is overflowing with!

 I hope to go to some other places around France that I've only seen pictures of! It truly is amazing! :-)

 

Old Village in Mougins




The Old Village in Mougins! Amazing!



Mailys and Me

Donkeys at Eze

Eze

Cactuses... I thought I left Arizona!



View from Eze

   



Nice in the background



The house is beautiful and the family is so so so nice!!!! I couldn't ask for better people to be staying with! Mailys is 8 and she is so cute. She talks to me completely in French as if I completely understand everything. Haha it's funny. Jeremy is 14 but he doesn't talk to me much because I think he's scared I don't understand when he talks in French. Haha :-) The cherry on top of the whole situation is I have family just down the street... Stasha is my dad'scousin (I don't know what that makes her to me??? 2nd Cousins???) and that's how me coming here all came to bout! I had never met them before... I just told my mom I wanted to go to France (just a dream then) and she said "Your dad has a cousin in France" and that's how I ended up in France!!! When I got here, Dave, her husband, was the only one of their family here. Stasha and her 4 kids came 4 or 5 days later. They came here about 3 years ago but before they lived around the Phoenix area like me! They can all speak French now but they know they feeling of having to learn another language etc.. It's nice having someone who has gone through the same thing that I am now. Dave was really nice. He would have to translate quite often and answer my questions but he's awesome! I'm so stinkin happy they will be so close! I don't know if I could do it without them!

 

Haha some of the major differences betweeen France and the U.S.... well because it's so old the roads were built before the houses were so they are really small. So you come close to running into a car but then one of them has to back up... Haha it's scary sometimes because you are just cruising along when BAM!!! Another car is an inch from your bumper! You kinda need to be an aggressive driver here because it gets kinda intense. I would be terrified to drive!!! I would get in a wreck a minute from the time I got in the driver's seat! But yet again... I haven't seen an accident yet... :-) Here, anything like a Walmart or Target is out of the question! Mostly, it's smaller stores that you need to go to in order to get a particular thing... Think of it this way each section in a Walmart=smaller store in France :-) And another big difference is of course...the portions! Haha when you go out to eat, they don't give you very much food (it's delicious just small...) because the idea of taking food home is absolutely absurd whereas in America, they load up that plate as much could possibly fit and say it is for one person... Haha but whatever you didn't finish you could take home! I kinda miss the American way! The feeling of "Aww...there's nothing to eat in this stinkin house...Oh wait a second!!! I have leftovers" And then your heart skips a beat and you skip merrily to the fridge! And then you warm up that deliciousness in the microwave and your head is spinning in a frenzy of excitement and when you eat, you get to relive the experience of eating it at the restaurant! Haha oh yeah... good times! Haha and everything here is so much more expensive... Haha the U.S. is a well-oiled mass-producing machine! Sparkling water is also very popular which I really don't like! I think it tastes like soda without the flavor! I prefer de l'eau plate!!! Yeah yeah!!! Fortunately, they have a refridgerator with ice :-) Because French don't always like ice... I never realized how much I liked ice until I came here! It's just common at home! There is tons more that I will mention as I go along but I think that's pretty good for now!




The view from my bedroom!
You can see the ocean when it's clear!
It's so green!!! :-)