Roadtrip!

so this past week we found out we would have 4 days off before the whole winter season takes over our entire lives. Mike, Justin, Kristin and I decided this would be the perfect oppertunity to see the South of France and get out of the cold for a bit. We left Sunday hitting Avangon and Aix en Provence where we stayed at a cheap french hotel called the Formular 1. Both cute little towns with a lot of history and some amazing chinese/thai food that we found at a little out of the way cafe.
Monday we got up pretty early and headed to Marseille. According to our 4 maps and directions we should have gotten there in about 30 min. yea it definitly took us 3.30 hours to get to our hostel. We ended up stopping at this random centre commercial in the downtown area for shopping ( my first french mall....exactly like all of them back home) and a parking lot picnic lunch....yes we're cool like that. There was even some mood music playing in the lot that we decided to have a dance party too ;) When we found our hostel we stopping in awe for a little while. A pretty nice view, an amazing old restored villa run by a family and these rooms with chrystal chandeliers. It was incredible. The guys gave us the princess room with the beautiful patio and breakfast area and we gave them the room with the built in kitchenette and living room where we all chilled most of the time. After we finally got to the downtown area. We walked the old port, walked around these old fortresses and saw chateau d'If, then strolled these little side streets and visited Longchamp palace (which is really a big statue and stairs and pretty gardens with a sick playground which we totally tapped). In the evening we were all really tired so we returned to the hostel for our pasta creation ( aka ramen) and this card game we are all obsessed with.
Tuesday we got up....once again pretty early....had breakfast delivered to our room (courtesy of the gents) which we all ate at the pretty breakfast area set up in our room as the sun rose. We headed out to Nice next, but got rather sidetracked along the way. We ended up stopping in a little fishing town called Cassis (my favorite town we saw) and for a hike in the Calanques (series of inlets, secluded coves, and beautiful views of the Mediteranean Sea). We had another picnic here at a little cove we found and ended up almost going swimming, but in the end decided it was just a bit too cold for us. Needless to say we enjoyed the sun and sea. Finally we checked into our next hostel in Nice. It was quite a bit different than the first two places we stayed. This one was a REAL hostel complete with all english speaking foreigners who we got to chat with. We stayed in a dorm and shared it with a Canadien girl. We ended up eating dinner in the monastery ( did i mention it was a restored monastery) with some other travelers our age. The chef was a line chef and he was such an amazing cook. He made pizza and chinese stir fry noodles. I took some great pictures of his antics. We enjoyed hanging out for a while and then headed into Nice for the evening. We say a Russian Chapel, the beach, the Chateau overlooking the city, the old town, the light up buddah's and ended by sitting and watching the stars and talking on the beach. It was a pretty sweet evening. Plus Mike and I found a fry place on the way back to the hostel and that was pretty sick too.
Wednesday morning we once again got up pretty early, had a quick hostel provided breakfast and then headed out. We drove to Monaco and walked around for a bit. We saw the castle and Grace Kelley's grave. Then headed back out towards Italy. Along the we ended up taking the coastal route and stopped in nearly (or it felt like) every town we drove through that had a cute beach. Either way we got some ice cream and walked some beaches. Then we drove into Italy and hit Ventiglia ( the first Italien town we hit) for a late lunch of pizza and coffee flavored Gelati as we walked the beach. Finally we headed back home through the mountains. It weas a really long trip home...emphesis on REALLY. It took us about 7 hours to drive back to Grenoble from there. But the view was amazing and we saw a killer sunset. We ended up stopping for dinner and cafe in a little town and had a very entertaining experience with the locals. When we did get back we unloaded, read out 10 emails from blain (you might think im exageratting, but im sooo not), had a really really late dinner of pasta and all collapsed.

So that is the brief and not explicite version of our travels. It was sooo much fun and we all had a great ( if not tiring) time. The south is very different and soooo pretty. Plus it was very warm and the beaches were amazing. It was neat to explore some of the places we had heard about for so long. And now we're preparing for the wedding and learning Brazilian to be prepared for the experience. Tonight Juniors fam gets here and his bro has been living with us today. This weekend consists of a group run by Mike, Kristin, and I and then Monday-Fri is a group from a Christian school in Ohio. Should be crazy busy, but fun all the same.