New photos

Hey! I've figured out how to cut out the middle man (aka my computer) when uploading photos to the internet so I have posted the last of spring break, some of the May Day picnic, and some from Rolland Garros (french open).

http://picasaweb.google.com/slindsey711/PortoAndOtherPlaces#

la Côte d'Azur!

Katherine and I spent a long weekend in the Cote d'Azur- and it is very beautiful and worthy of it's rep. We stayed in a Hotel in Vence which is about 30 minutes away from Nice and is nestled in les Alpes-Maritimes very pretty little town and is located right next to Saint- Paul sur Vence which is the most visited Village in France (according to Katherine) The coolest thing about these towns is that you can see the Mediterranean sea and the Alps at the SAME TIME! Nice is in the running for becoming the host of the 2018 winter games. If they win I'm pretty sure it will be the first winter games complete with beach resorts! Thursday we toured Nice which is pretty, nothing terribly exciting except for beautiful blue water and a pretty flower market. Friday we caught a bus to Cannes where the Film Festival was happening and we had hopes to see some great stars. (unfortunately we were a day late for Brad Pitt). Then on Saturday we caught a train in the opposite direction to Monaco and tried to figure out why europeans were wearing NASCAR- like hats and took part in the hubbub surrounding the qualifying race for today's Grand Prix Formula 1. Formula 1 race cars zooming around the port of Monte Carlo (those are the smaller yachts...) It kinda sounded like an air raid siren was going off- and/or that aliens were attacking and systematically sucking out our brains... someday when I have space on my computer I'll post the video with the sounds in the background.

Katherine and I on the red carpet in Cannes for the 62 Film Festival- yep we're that special.
Some french movie stars walking the afternoon red carpet at the festival. We waited around until 7:30 in the peasant area because we heard a rumor that Johnny Depp himself would be arriving to promote his movie that night- unfortunately he never showed up... But some of the other stars from the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus did show up... just not the super famous ones. Verne Troyer Andrew Garfield and Lily Cole 

Someone should've told Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Ferrel to jump on the band wagon and go back in time so that we could get there pictures- but oh well... and while they're at it tell Heath Ledger to not take those pills so he could've been there too! But it was an exciting atmosphere at least.
This is a picture of Sain Paul. It is very pretty- Very picturesque. You might subconciously recognize it because it was the local for very many impressionist painters back in the day. The town in now filled with various art galleries.

Anyways I decided that I have to become rich so that I can return to these places with the right credentials to be on the other side of the fence instead of with the peasants.

Hopefully I can clear up some space on my computer in the coming weeks so that I can show you the rest of the photos and a couple of the videos that I took this weekend.

I found this lovely little article on french dining. It is SO true and hilarious. The best part is the whole bit about the waiter completely disappearing when you need him to give you the check. This is true all around europe though I find. 

Unfortunately I haven't found the waitress with the mooloo... but I have another month. 

http://www.americansinfrance.net/DailyLife/French-Dining.cfm

When you finally do manage to ask for something, you'll often find yourself waiting an inexplicable 20 to 30 minutes for simple requests, like a pat of butter. You get the feeling that you're order has caught the chef by surprise.

Waiter (sniffing haughtily): Ze customers at table 11 have ordered zom food.

Chef (panicking): Zut alors! Food? Where am I going to find any of zat?

Spring Break Highlights

Last week was spring break so Katherine and I decided to hit up the iberian peninsula and see the cities of Barcelona, Lisbon, and Porto. We were hoping for beautiful weather and time at the beach but had to deal with cold wet rain for most of the trip. We made the most of it and had fun anyways.

Our trip started in Barcelona. First stop: The MAGIC Fountain! It is a fountain that plays music and does a little water show- tourist trap? you betcha! But it was cool and it was a nice night so we enjoyed the show.

Katherine is a flying fish.
We happened upon a good friday parade. And this was the jesus float- for more details head over to my picasa photo albums- i'll put the link at the bottom of the post
Then I turned into a dinosaur and ruined the flow of my blog- it happens.
Some more participants in the procession. 
The virgin mary float. LOTS of candles.
Barcelona has it's own arc de triumf (lacking the Ph but it happens) 
Gaudi architecture is present all over the city from parks
To his giant temple/cathedral which is still being built.
Whitwhicky got attacked by a lion
Gaudi designed this cool looking lizard fountain

Next we went to lisbon...
This is an example of an Azueljos (I most likely didn't spell that right) but it is a mosaic/tiling that is present in a lot of portuguse architechture
That's a view of the city that we found at the top of the tallest hill in lisbon where the sao jeorge castle was.
Danger- be on the alert for slide-tacklers 

This is a crazy summer home built in sintra portugal- about 30 minutes away from lisbon. It had a really cool garden.
This is the cool looking castle where the last king of portugal lived. Of course on top of a hill.
This is whitwhicky looking out over the bay and the not golden gate bridge.
The inside of the monastery. It was really pretty.

Me infront of the tower of belem. 

Like I said more details are in the picasa photos found on this link . I don't know why some of the pictures are small on the blog but they're all big here. 

And I haven't uploaded the pictures of Porto yet- sorry with all these pictures my computer is running low on memory! I'll get around to it later though I promise.

Celebration!

Today I finally received my Carte de Séjour! I've only been waiting for it since November! Now I am free to come and go in France as I please and even get a job. The wonder of a little piece of plastic. The stupid thing is that it isn't the proper size to fit into a wallet. Nor have I noticed that french people have bigger wallets so how do they carry their IDs around? Anyways, I've decided to have a weeklong celebration for this by traveling to Barcelona, Spain; Lisbon, Portugal; and Porto, Portugal with Katherine starting tomorrow. Let the celebrations begin! 

Les Poissons d'Avril!

Instead of April Fool's day in france they have Poissons d'Avril (April's Fish) In the good ole days the citizens of france would stick a little paper fish on the back of friends etc. which was essentially the equivalent of a kick me sign. Malheureusement, (Unfortunately) outside of high school french classes this practice is no longer in use : ( but I did see the evening news paper had a cover photo of a kid with a fish on his back so- not forgotten. AND in my bakery today all the little goodies were fish shaped. I decided to grab one! How cute! Hélas (again meaning unfortunately) the little raisin eye fell off during the swim home.  :( 
On tuesday my friend Amelia needed some shopping therapy after her first french exposé at sciences po- and a week full of other projects. We headed over to the Galleries Layfayette- if you caught the youtube videos Lauren did a little update there (Day 3). Anyways we found this gem of a dress. Sequins and what not looked tacky-licious and it costs- wait for it-   595 euros ($788) due to the price tag they actually have the dress and others like it connected by a cord to the rack! 
Tonight Emily, Ashley, and I took up the opportunity to see a world cup qualifying match of France vs. Lithuania! This is the outside of the stadium. It is very big 80,000 people
can't really tell, but everyone has french flags and were waving them it was pretty crazy (think rally flag night at Turner field- except these weren't handed out for free before the game- the fans are that intense.) I even saw some Lithuanians with their faces fully painted- wearing bright yellow and green walking around the RER station. And if you know anything about Parisians you would realize how bizarre this would be. I stand out because I wear a khaki jacket instead of a black one and my pink and green sweaters are a little bright compared to the sea of black and greys around me.
At the game. France won with 1 goal at 75 minutes the whole game was like OOOh no.... OOOOOOh... no. So close. And the people behind us reminded me of Bobby at a Georgia Southern Game- But louder. 

The fans were also throwing paper airplanes- which made me say "Now let's not start that again" 

Bobby- the french people are so much more intense with their wave, I'm pretty sure you would go insane because before the wave reaches them they all look over to the side and wave their hands out in front of them and go Ooooooooo until it comes down the entire side of their stands. Face it-the wave will never die. It also went around like 10 times.

I also got my grades back this week-suprise I didn't fail- GO me!

Back after Technical difficulties

So it has been a week since I last updated, sorry about that but my internet has been a little shady this past week and if you reading this it means my 8th attempt at this post has finally gone through (although blogger is blinking red saying this will most likely fail grr) Anyways quite a lot has gone down since my last post. Miranda came through town with Katherine and we did touristy things in Paris, and then Katherine and I skipped off to LE mont saint michel last weekend for some touristy things outside of our respective cities. 

Miranda and I on top of the tower of Montparnasse.  Looking out over paris towards the Eiffel Tower.
Miranda's got jump skillz.
Inside the tower Montparnasse- they had really cool lights.
Miranda and katherine were excited to see the louvre and Mona.
They can float over water.
Photos from the strike they are holding signs for CGT the largest communist party in France. Breaking News! Apparently some disgruntled workers have taken their boss hostage!
THIS is LE Mont Saint Michel. Built in 708 AD it is like traveling back in time (well if you edit out the village of tourist shops. But it is surrounded by a Bay that in high tide the water would cover the whole area and make it and island. But we visited at low tide so the water you see is a river going out to see.
It even has a draw bridge- something I find awesome. My house will have a draw bridge- right next to that Louis the 15th architecture.
Me and in the background you can see the sandy bay all the way to the ocean... it's somewhere out there.
The shadow
Katherine is being a pilgrim- they always were hunched over right?
it is like a desert 
we decided to personify falling rocks
ANTM here we come!
Me and my traveling buddy 
This statue is a copy in silver of what the statue in gold is at the top of the monastery. It is the arch angel Michel slaying a demon.
The little church in the village had beautiful stained glass windows. The colors were so vibrant. Much different than Saint Chapelle but I think these might be a lot newer. Reminds me of the beginning of Beauty and the Beast. A movie I've been thinking about a lot actually- maybe it is that whole france thing. 
Katherine is the keeper of Sunsets.
Soccer anyone?
Katherine's favorite spot in france. Ended up that her train was at 4:30 and she spent about 6 hours at the train station- in the little town of Pontorson which we decided was stuck circa world war 2. The whole weekend was time travel. Definitely not the big cities we're used to! I think the town where our BnB was had a population of 30 tops. 

AS Always all of my photos can be found on my picasa page!