Bonjour!

I am in France and loving it. It has been quite a week. I will give you a quick recap. Monday I was unable to go to Paris, all the trains filled up weeks before I even knew I was going to France due to the Easter holiday so sadly I was unable to go. I may do a weekend trip later. So I ended up leaving Tuesday for Dijon.

It was quite the adventure. I barely made it to my bus in Torino to go to Lyon but I just made it in time. I took a 5 hour bus to Lyon and then a 2 hour train to Dijon. I arrived around 7:30-8:00 but sadly my hostel was hard to find. Eventually after some help from some bus drivers and other people and after getting lost for a couple hours I found my hostel. I didnt check in till 10:30 or so. I am very glad that I speak french ok it really helped me to find my hostel.

By the time I got there I was exhausted since I had been traveling since 9 that morning. I was in a 6 person female dorm but I was the only one so it was nice. The next day I woke up early, the hostel had an early breakfast and I headed to check out the town. The hostel is 15 minutes outside of town so I took the bus in. I visited the Musee de beaux arts which was beautiful and free which was of course a plus. Then I went to the Tourism Office to find out about the mustard museum which sadly closed years ago.

On the positive side they showed me a place where I could buy and taste mustard. It was nice. I am not a real fan of mustard but it was still interesting. Following this I checked out some of the local churches, the architecture in Dijon is amazing. I then found a nice little cafe and got a fairly cheap lunch. I went back to my hostel to lighten my load then traveled back into town. I found this cute park and sat and read for awhile.

I ended up going back to the hostel I was pretty beat and I went to bed early I knew I would have another long day ahead of me. While the hostel was very clean it was also not a lot of fun I never had anyone in my room and also I never talked to a single person. Most of them were middle aged french men so I probably didnt want to meet them but that is the nice things about hostels is that you are supposed to meet people. Anyway so the next day I had an almost 7 hour TGV to Nice from Dijon. I had made reservations ahead of time, i learned from my mistakes before.

The ride was nice aside from a creepy man who sat next to me for the last few hours of the trip. I pretended to be asleep after he asked me for my phone number. I found my other hostel fairly easily. You take a bus to a square and they come pick you up. The hostel is on top of a huge hill. They came and picked me and I met another lone traveler named Jacob who is studying in london for a semester. He goes to school in North Carolina back home. He is nice.

I checked in and am in a 8 person mixed or co ed room. The people here are all of different ethnicites it is nice to get some variety. They all speak very good english too though. I went and explored the town a little looking for food and ran into jacob and we got some asian cuisine together. When I got back to the hostel I met one of my roommates. She is from New Zealand and she is amazing. We had a really good talk and then she told me about some people she met and some plans they had.

We all ended up going out into old town which is famous for its great jazz bars. We saw some live music and hung out, I feel like I've known these people forever. Today I am going to go to the beach and relax and later we are going to go check out some other jazz clubs with some people from California that we met last night.

I figure this is my vacation seeing as I am going to be coming back to Nice with my class to see all the museums and such so I should relax while I can. This vacation is going by so fast I am really excited for all that is to come. Jacki will be back soon and I can't wait to visit Germany.

I got all the classes I want for next semester and now I am working on my SMP ideas. I am quite the busy girl. Life is great. I have no complaints. Wish you were all here with me. Miss you like crazy. I will be home before you know it.

Au Revoir