Ile St. Marguerite and the Gorges de Verdon

This weekend, we went on two adventure excursions, epic outings, if you will, to wrap up our set of trips with AIFS. Aude frankly outdid herself, and on Friday we went to Ile St. Marguerite, which is a little island off the coast of Cannes. This was one of the places I’d been before when I was here 5 years ago, and surprisingly once we got there I remembered it the most vividly of all. It was blissfully sweltering hot Friday, and we took the boat to the island and walked around to the museum, which is basically a set of 3 jails cells, on of which housed the Man in the Iron Mask (theoretically). In my French class we discussed how there are so many questions about that, such as: Did that even happen? and Was the mask actually made of iron? Because that seems like really unnecessary...
Alas, we wandered around and took pictures in the courtyard, because THAT SHIT WAS PICTURESQUE, and then wandered the trails in an attempt to find the famously clear blue water on the other side of the island. So beautiful. We think a lot of summer camps stay on the island, because it’s really just a perfect place to be when it’s hot and lovely like that. Okay, so eventually, because we are masters of orienteering and only got lost like twice, we found the water.

Now here is where the story gets interesting. 

The shoreline of the island was made up of a substance not unlike wood shavings, and we have absolutely no idea what it was, except maybe a weird foreign invading kind of seaweed that dies all at once and dries washed ashore. To get to the sandbar, where the water is as clear as a pool and you can see fish around your feet, you have to climb through the wood-shaving stuff, which is probably about 4 feet deep, and underwater, so it’s kind of like quicksand. Karnig, A’brielle and I did not bring swimsuits, because we were both imagining this being like a beach beach where there’s sand you can sit on or just go in up to your legs. It became immediately evident that the only solution to this problem was to go in in our clothes.

It was totally worth it, even if walking through the muck was probably the grossest thing I’ve ever done in my life. We played around in the water with everyone for a while and then struggled our way back to shore, and I just have to tell you it was a really special experience, the kind of thing where you know that it could only happen here, on this island off the south of France, playing in clear blue water while old leathery people on their anchored small yachts stare and laugh at you. Also, importantly, on the way back I Kylie and I got ice cream, and I had a Magnum bar for the first time, which is an important European experience. I just need to say, America and Dove bars, get your shit together. In Europe they have caramel between the chocolate and the ice cream, and you need to figure that out. It was a life-changing experience.

That night I went to a Japanese restaurant with Jenn, Kylie, Hailie, and their roommate Ali, which was bound to be interesting. We make valiant efforts at these Asian or “Tex-Mex” restaurants in France that are just so close to being actually good but are also obscenely overpriced, because you know, tacos are a rare delicacy. I just want to go to Sumos on State Street and get like an uncomfortable amount of food for 12 bucks. We were the only people at this restaurant, and at some point during the meal, two of the chefs got into a fight, which we could see, and it was a serious fight, with punches and throwing bowls and screaming and the other waiters/other chefs trying to pull them apart.. Awkward. This went on for the majority of our meal, which sadly we still had to pay full price for. One of the girls I was with posted a status later that said, “had a real authentic Japanese meal in France, complete with a samurai fight!” So that’s definitely one way to put it.

The next day we left the College early on another beautifully hot and sunny day for a long bus ride to the Gorges de Verdon, also known as the French Grand Canyon.  It’s truly a stunning thing to see, and almost vertigo-inducing. After driving around the top of it, we went down to this huge man-made lake at the edge of the canyon, where the water was an unbelievable turquoise. We rented kayaks, and what follows is very high up there with the coolest things I’ve ever done.

Karnig and I decided to go into the Gorge, down the stream there, and like...imagine this, with two huge cliffs on either side and greenery and small waterfalls..we didn’t have a camera, but I’m determined to find someone who did so I can show you this. It felt like we were straight up in Jurassic Park, and that any moment a pterodactyl would swoop across. To quote Karnig, “A friendly pterodactyl, like one you could ride.” It was an adventure, in the truest sense of the word, like we were Indiana Jones or just something, anything to express how absolutely cool this was.

Also, I discovered that I am a lot better at kayaking than originally thought, which is great, because kayaking/rowing/windsurfing/sailing small craft are necessary skills in my family, and I have been taught from a young age how to do it. When you’re on your own sometimes you realize that you were a lot more competent than you thought you were. You rise the occasion and all your latent knowledge and strength that you never have to use comes into play, and it’s very empowering. We were going against the wind, hard, on the way back and made it out alive without crashing into the rocks, and on time. HOLLA.

 We all sat around in the sun for a long time, and then Aude managed to herd all of us back to the bus and we visited our last, but not least, medieval village, which was also unbelievably pretty, settled between the cliffs, with waterfalls, and a star hanging above the town. If you ever find yourself in the south of France, go to the Gorges de Verdon. It’s probably one of the most amazing things you can do here, and was a perfect wrap up of our AIFS excursions.

COMING SOON...the Cannes Film Festival!