"This piece is called shots on shots on shots."

Yesterday I was depressed and jet lagged and slept all day, which is why there wasn't a post. Also, we didn't do anything, except get our French classes assigned (first level of Intermediate, yeahhh yeahhh!!) and get a lecture from the staff of the College about how, just in case you forgot, DO NOT WALK THROUGH LE SUQUET AT NIGHT BECAUSE YOU WILL GET RAPED AND KILLED. Later in the evening I skyped with my family (and also Mel) which was wonderful, and bought my plane tickets to visit her in Glasgow at the end of February while a lot of the Cannes people are in Florence. I opted out of Florence because A) It was very expensive, B) They're doing the same things we did whilst there on Eurotour (So much love always for Eurotour.), and C) I could use that time/money to go somewhere new! So I am returning to the land of my ancestors at the end of February, and it'll be fabulous. Later that evening I watched the Noah's Arc movie with my roommate Jenn and our friend Karnig. In case you didn't know what Noah's Arc we're referring to, and why it's spelled wrong, I will tell you. It's not the biblical version. To quote Karnig, "It's worse than a soap opera. It's a gay black soap opera from the 90's."

Most of the College went out to this pub to celebrate this girl's birthday, but we were tired and angsty and this is what we did instead, and I just want you to know that it was glorious.

Another thing that's glorious that you need to know about is a picture that's going around on Facebook that was taken today at a museum we went to (I'll get to that shortly) of a bunch of girls with Alex Grannis, who goes to Chapman, and if you read this and go to Chapman you probably know him. Now I guess the thing about Alex is that if he's wearing sunglasses (and from kind of far away) he could potentially look like Ryan Gosling. Or at least he did the way he was dressed today. So this girl posted a picture on Facebook of him (tagged as "ryan gosling") and was like OMG WE MET RYAN GOSLING!!!! and all her friends from home are like NO WAY YOU BITCH I'M SO JEALOUS WHY WAS HE IN CANNES!!?! and everyone from AIFS is egging it on and being like "Where was he??? Oh my God!!! WTF??" and all of this girl's friends believe it's actually him and are trippin about it, and like I said, it is glorious.

Anyway, what we actually did today after class was go on a field trip to the Museum de la Castre, which is an old monastery on a hill in Cannes that has a small collection of ancient art and ancient musical instruments, with a high tower that one can see all of Cannes from the top of. Now, once again, sometimes these things--while cool--have limited appeal, and then you have to make them more interesting. A smaller group of us ended up taking way longer to get through the museum, and it is here that I present to you: Noted Historians Nick Thompson, Amanda Beals, and Rachel Harris Present the Musee de la Castre.

"What's that?" "It's a weird doll. I have several in my own likeness in my backyard.

They have all my moods and one for every day...like Monday Statue is all pensive..."

"What's that?" "It's a road. For tiny little people."

"They invented lacrosse. And also backscratchers."

"Oh look at that ancient map!"

"It's Squidward's skull."

"This is clearly just 69."

"It would really suck if you had to like...be a monk and live here." 'Yeah...it'd be....cold..."

"This is cracked open, it's clearly a Raiders of the Lost Ark thing..."

"This piece is called shots on shots on shots."

We are so cool...

Eventually we fucking made it to the tower. Which was pretty impressive, given the amount of time it took to realize what virtually every object in the museum was. By which I mean make up elaborate stories. But whatever. Comme si comme ça.

We climbed up to the top (which was a bit vertigo inducing...why am I suddenly afraid of heights now that I'm almost 20?) And the view from the tower is absolutely the most exquisite thing I have seen in a really long time. You look out and it just smacks you in the face. For the first time since we've arrived I felt like I was really, you know...here.

This is Cannes.

"Straight-up breathtaking" is not a very poetic turn of phrase, but that's entirely what it was.

These are the infamous vertigo-inducing stairs. Ughh.

And the tower itself from the bottom!

After our tour of the museum I went shopping on Rue d'Antibes with Jenn and Karnig. We mostly just went around and browsed through all the stores--everything is on sale, I'm dying--but didn't manage to buy anything. It was quite fun though, and I want to say trop fun, but I won't. (My French teacher was bitching about how French teenagers are basically using the word "trop" like we use hella, and now of course I've started doing that.)

As always, more tales to follow.