Dear Reader,

What an eventful couple of days. We left off at orientation. After orientation Marissa and I went home for a bit and then managed to successfully navigate to Juan-les-Pins. It's about a 10 minute walk from our apartment, very easy.  The bar we went to, called Esterel, was dark and had heavy music but was still fun. I got to order drinks in French, which was amusing as well. The bar was very close to the beach so Marissa and I explored that a bit as well.

As the night wore on everyone had more and more drinks and eventually it was too hot so Chris and I went for a walk outside, playing on the beach (and for me since I was wearing rain boots, in the water). The most entertaining part of the walk was when I decided I had to use the restroom but I was afraid the nearest restaurant wouldn't let me. So Chris and I decided that for the sake of my bladder I would be pregnant and tell the hostess exactly that. So we did. At first the hostess told me the bathroom didn't work and I was sad, but then she said she was kidding and showed me where it was. Apparently while I was gone the waiters were arguing about whether or not I was actually with child/how far I was along.

Overall it was a fun evening. The next night Marissa and I went out into Antibes and had our first real "french dinner". It was nachos. We're pretty awesome. But to our credit it was really the only place that was open. And we got to talk to people there in French and English and see where we should go hang out after dinner. The bartender told us about this popular bar called The Hop Store which wasn't too far away, so we decided to go there after nomsing. Turns out, thats where all of the other Americans in our program were hanging out that night too! So we had a big group, talked to some French and English guys, and chatted until the bar closed, then we went to this club called The Light House. Thank god Marissa has a sense of direction because I have no idea how I would have gotten home without her. People who have tried to get me to navigate in unfamiliar territory before will know that I have something known as "I always want to turn right" syndrome. Anyway it was the first late night but it was quite fun as well.

Marissa and I are currently on our way out to Nice. Many of the students here are going on a French/English bonding ski weekend, but that was too expensive. So a few of us are going shopping instead :)
I'll update on how that went, hopefully with pictures, and I'll talk about the first week of school too!

Bise Bise!
Alexa