Day two in Nice was a long and busy one!

Classes started at 9 am- Mediterranean Civ and then French.  Both easy and fun.

French class is being taught by a professor from the University of Nice, Serge.  He seems very nice.  He speaks most of the time in French to help us get used to it.  I understand a lot more than I thought I would haven’t not studied French in 4 years, but I still only get about 25% of what he’s saying.

It’s a very unconventional class though.  We sat for a little bit in this restaurant near by (which I’ll talk about in a second) and told him the basics about ourselves- name, age, French background.  2 of the girls have never studied French ever, poor things.  It’s going to be much more difficult for them.

But basically our French class is going to be sight seeing around Nice and just trying to learn and use French as much as possible.  With a smidge of grammar thrown in.  Yesterday for our class we went up this gigantic hill with so many stair to see the ruins of this old castle.  That was pretty cool.   But very exhausting.

After we spent some time there we came back and had lunch at that restaurant.  We call it Nelly’s- that’s the woman that owns it.  It’s a quaint little French restaurant (in style, but Italian in food).  The whole thing is about the size of a small dining room, and the kitchen is comparable to a larger sized apartment kitchen (as in not terribly big).  Nelly does everything herself- she hand rolls the ravioli and makes her own gnocchi.  Then takes your order, cooks up the food and serves you a piece of fruit for dessert!  I had cheese and spinach ravioli with just butter and cheese and it was very yummy.   (Though, I thought it was a little on the expensive side for 10 euro, so it was my big meal of the day).

After lunch was a group excursion to a site of ancient Roman baths and an arena then a Matisse museum followed by a quick look at a monastery and it’s gardens.

After a day like yesterday I learned: I need new walking shoes. And I need to carry bigger bottles of water, because the small 20oz ones just don’t cut it when you’re out in the sun for so long!

We got back from sight seeing at about 7pm and I ate some quiche and baguette and then ended up crashing hardcore.  I feel asleep around 8pm unintentionally (lights and computer still all on) and slept until 1am or so.  And have been awake ever since (it’s now past 6:30am). I still have a few hours before class again, but I’m not even sure I could sleep right now!

I’m already planning on going to the beach after lunch and maybe napping there if I’m tired enough (though not the easiest thing to do on the rocky beaches).

Life is so tough over here.  Lol.

I arrived safe and sound this morning in Nice and already walked about town and swam in the Mediterranean. I took a long nap just now as I didn’t sleep on the plane and I was beat! (It was about 9am NY time when I went down, 3pm here).

My room is not air conditioned (as is par for the course in Europe). It’s pretty warm in my room. I hate to spend money on a fan, but we’ll see. My bed is atrocious. It’s basically a thin mattress pad. No springs. I can feel the bumps of the wood underneath. I’m not sure how I’m going to manage with that for a month… I might have to find a French suitor near by stat and start crashing there! (Lol.)

But- I have a balcony!! (Not everyone does!) It’s super! I have the doors open and I can hear the sweet French chatter coming in through the streets. This is so awesome.

And check out my view!

Now if you’ll pardon me, I need to get some food because I haven’t eaten since the plane and I’m a bit hungry.

Hooray for my first dinner in France!!!

(There’s a slight chance I’m not going to want to come home at the end of the month…)

I’M GOING TO FRANCE TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(On that note, posts and replies to comments will be sparse for the month.)

WEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!  I’M GOING TO FRANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG I’M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See everyone in August!!

I’ve been enjoying Extra’s new gum- Fruit Sensations both in Strawberry Banana (which is very yummy) and Island Cooler but I found the gum gets soft and liquidy in my mouth so I decided to write the people at Wrigley’s and let them know.  Well, only a few hours later and I got a response!

Dear Avah,

Thank you for contacting us to comment on your experience with Extra® Island Cooler and Strawberry Banana gums.  We are always happy to hear from our consumers and truly value your feedback.  By receiving input from consumers like you, we are able to constantly make improvements and ensure that we are always providing our consumers with the highest quality products.

Our Technical Services laboratory technicians suggest that an improperly formulated gum base may have caused the extremely soft texture and we are continuing to investigate this possibility.

While we can’t be certain why your product seemed to fall apart, it is also possible it was exposed to excessive heat or humidity somewhere along the line after it left our factory.  This may affect the texture, making it soft and sticky.  It’s likely that when it returned to room temperature it maintained its appearance but lost its normal consistency.  Our objective is to make high quality products that our consumers will choose over and over again, so we will pass along your comments to the appropriate personnel who are continually working on improving our products.

To help us accurately document these issues, we ask for your kind assistance in providing the lot numbers from your last purchase of these flavors, if they are still available.  The lot number appears on one of the narrow edges of the package, and begins with the letter “L”. You may reply to this email to submit this information.  We thank you for your help.

Again, we are sorry you had this experience and thank you for reaching out to us.  We are sending along complimentary coupons in the mail  with our best wishes.  If you have any additional questions or comments feel free to contact us at 1-800-WRIGLEY Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CST.

Sincerely,

Susan Garner
Consumer Affairs Representative

Cool!

Some thing’s been driving me nuts and I think life will be much better if I just spill the whole truth.

I hate Diva.  With a passion.  Like nobody’s business.  And I’m insanely jealous of what she now has with Jefferson.

And I’ve been a complete bitch to her these past 6 months or so.

I’ve left countless nasty comments on her blog (generally anonymously) over the months and even sent a nasty e-mail (which, actually if it hadn’t been so mean would have been hilarious).

I guess I never admitted to anything I’ve done because I hoped for plausible deniablity.

I’ll even cop to trying to get access to her secret blog by creating a fake e-mail account and trying to pass myself off as a sympathetic blog reader.  Meh, I was curious.  Didn’t work though.  And wow did she say some nasty things about me and my relationship with Jefferson (that were also completely untrue).   (Even though it wasn’t true, it’s what put me in my bad mood yesterday.)

I don’t actually want to keep doing it.  I don’t want to be trapped in my hatred for her.  Especially since I’m doing my best to move on from all things Jefferson.  I also don’t want to keep doing it because I know she loves it and loves the drama and feeding into that completely negates why I’m being a bitch to her in the first place!

This is like step 1.  We’ll see if I need additional steps.

My acting out against her is basically what killed my relationship with Jefferson.  Contrary to some people’s beliefs, I don’t actually blame her for the end of my relationship.  And I know now that my anger toward her lately (because I cooled off significantly for awhile there) is misdirected (hence my misdirect post).  She was a symptom of my anger towards Jefferson for treating me like crap.

If he could have been honest with me about the nature of his relationship with her, maybe I wouldn’t be writing this today.

If he could have maintained his relationship with me then maybe I wouldn’t have been so jealous and felt so driven to act out.

If he could have taken even the most remote amount of responsibility for his any of his actions then maybe I would be cutting him out of my life, for good, right now.

But right, that’s a bit of a tangent.

So there it is all out there- I can be a bitch when I want to be (though my bark is worse than my bite admittedly).  And I chose to be a bitch to someone who seemingly had done nothing to me.  And I won’t even be apologizing for it.

I’ve never claimed to be perfect.  And I’ve never claimed to be oh-so-mature (if anything I hated it because it meant people expected me to be so grown up all the time.  I think people forget I’m only 22).

My own childish actions were the major cause for my relationship with Jefferson to disintegrate.  And I don’t need to hide the fact- from me or from anyone else.

It’s a fresh start for me from here on out.