Nice was Nice

***wifi is EXTREMELY slow at the Cannes dorms so pics will be much rarer sadly unless I can find a better internet spot-- text will still be coming though and pics will be uploaded ASAP***

On that note, here we go....Though it's hard to follow Hayley's guest blog (thanks for being funnier than me on my own blog Hayls), I'm gonna have to take the reins back. Sadly, today was our last day in Nice :( But what a nice day it was!
   Expecting it to be raining all day, we slept in and got a late start. Alarms went off at 11, check out was at noon, and our bags were stowed away with the concierge for the day and we were out the door by 12:15. The 4 of us really do make an excellent and efficient travel team. The rain we expected luckily never came and the sun started to peek through the gray overcast sky. We walked over to the market which on Mondays transforms into an outdoor antique shop. It was such a cool experience! There were tons of tables strewn with vintage French jewelery, china, perfume bottles, glassware, linens, clothing, handbags, scarves, and more. After hunting around for an hour, Hayley and I finally found a table of jewelry that held our attention and we each bought a truly special and memorable piece from this woman's antique French jewelry collection (after a little haggling of course). I bought an 19th century gold mother of pearl pin that I plan to wear as a necklace and Hayley found an elephant pendant carved of ivory. Truly really lucky finds!! But then again, luck on this trip has always seemed to be in our favor!
   After doing our shopping we sat down at a crepe restaurant in the main square. We were so surprised yesterday when we realized that after four days in France, we had yet to eat a crepe. It was crazy. So obviously, we made that our main mission for the day. Jaycee, Hayley, and I ordered the best banana nutella crepes EVER and Adam got some equally-as-delicious savory chicken/cheese crepe that looked amazing. Stuffed, we embarked on our other adventure for the day: conquering the Matisse Museum.
   It was way too far to walk (even though we contemplated doing it, but thank god we didn't because as Adam put it, we would've collapsed 1/8 of the way there) so we decided to take the bus North of our hotel to the area of the museum. For the third time now, we successfully navigated French public transportation and could not have been prouder of ourselves!!
   The museum was beautiful from the outside: a large red house with green shutters everywhere and beige balconies painted on to its facade. It was situated in a large park that also housed a site of ancient ruins, an archaeological museum, and a monastery with an adjacent garden. We were all exhausted walking through the park but managed to make it over to the museum in a few minutes. I personally was underwhelmed by the museum and definitely made it a point how Matisse's work did not "call out to me." I was the only one though apparently, because the other three loved it. Classic. Still though, all the signs were totally in French and therefore completely incomprehensible to us so I guess I wasn't totally off base.........
   We left the museum and walked to see the ruins which were pretty cool and then walked over to the monastery. But importantly, on the way, Hayley befriended like 3 different French dogs. It was probably the cutest thing we've ever seen (see for yourself).

   The church at the monastery was so beautiful, and it was so interesting to observe such a lavish church in the middle of what looked like a poorer area of Nice. The garden too was stunning. There were tons of multicolored roses everywhere and there was an overlook from which the entire city could be seen (we love those!) In addition to pretty views, dogs (in Hayley's case), and doors (in Adam's case-- don't ask), we also love little French babies, which we saw/friended two of in the garden. A mom was walking around with her 2 year old twin boys and our hearts melted. We played babysitter for them for a little while (with the mom there of course) and then parted ways, but will forever remember the little boy twins, mysteriously identical but one with very curly and one with very straight blonde hair (and suspenders and pink polo shirts aweeeee).
   We took the bus back to our hotel and planned on stopping at our fav place for gelato but honestly did not have the energy to make it that far. Instead, we sat in the lobby and computered/napped until our car arrived to take us to Cannes! After a short hour drive (which I slept for most of to be honest- did I mention we were EXHAUSTED today?!), we arrived at the International College de Cannes!!! Such an exciting thing and we got ourselves settled into our rooms as soon as we arrived. They're definitely different from Penn dorms (somehow something has managed to be even smaller than room Leidy 112- hey Allie!) but hey, when in Cannes right?
   As a pre-dinner snack, we finished the Parmesan cheese from yesterday's picnic and some breadsticks we took from our hotel in the dorms and then walked into town for dinner. Even at night, the water was glistening and the gorgeous yachts were visible in the darkness. I absolutlely cannot wait to see Cannes in the daylight!!! We decided on Cafe Boheme for dinner, a cute little corner restaurant, and had pizza, French onion soups (which were more like cheesy bread with onion flavor- definitely interesting), and chicken caeser salads. We walked back to the dorms afterwards to hang out and get a good night's rest for tomorrow, when the exploration really begins! The festival starts the day after tomorrow so we need to get our film schedule prepared (an ideal one anyway) and a lay of the land. And some good beach time in. Obviously. Check back tomorrow for more of our Cannes excursion! We'll always miss Nice but had some great memories there that will surely last a lifetime!