Go Italy!

Day 9
We woke up at 6am and had the usual French breakfast... croissants and coffee. Setting off for Paris at 745am, we expected traffic to be horrific due to the truck strike (because of gas prices... what else?); it turned out to be a disappointment... nothing much happened besides us missing our visit to St. Chapelle. Because of our early departure, we got to Paris WAY earlier than planned and had to shop and walk around the Latin Quater for 8 hours. Nick, our tour guide, led us to Shakespeare & Co., a famous bookstore known for its official stamp on the inside page. Here is where Mrs. Royer discovered The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime. A FABULOUS book if i do say so myself. The group then headed to see Musee d'Orsay (Mrs. Royer's absolute favorite) turned out, it was closed on Mondays... a 3 mile hike for nothing. boo.
Yet again, it's just another adventure. Backtracking down the street, Emily runs into a sheet music store where the store owner did not seem to like us. =( so we made a quick escape.
Lunchtime... Kat and Mrs. Rachel left to do their own thing and my mom, Em, Laura, and I headed off to shop and eat. We ate at a typical roadside cafe, people watched, and ate the best quiche ever! After lunch we discovered that there was nothing to do but shop and walk around. BORING. We didn't even buy anything due to extrememly high prices. By 4pm we were burnt out and found a fountain to sit out... and we did sit. for 2 hours and 15 minutes. We weren't very good at killing time.
The four of us met up with the rest of the group at an Italian restaurant, ate dinner, and you guessed it... got on the bus again. This time headed to the train station, but our train to Nice ended up being 45 minutes late because of a train strike. (That's all they do here. ha.) The overnight train wasn't as bad as some of us pictured. It was a 6x7 room with 2 sets of bunk beds... makes you appreciate your big bed at home. Because of the sketchy people on the train, we weren't allowed to leave our rooms, so I read two chapters of my book and it was lights out for me.

Day 10
I woke up around 7am on the train, packed up my belongings, and got off the train at 815am. While others struggled with their heavy bags up and down the stairs, the "fantasitic four" lifted them with ease ;)... Of course Laura had it easy because she has no bag, but she was generous and helped others. yay laura!
Went to breakfast on the coast... and yes, it was croissants and coffee. STRONG coffee. Like eyebrow raising STRONG coffee. We then had a bus tour around Nice and the French Riviera... Beautiful of course. All of us got to set our eyes on Russian and Roman style churches... oh and Sean Connery and Elton John and his beau's villas overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
After arriving at the hotel at noon, we got our rooming assignments as follows... Kat and Nat; Laura and Emily... That's all I can remember as of right now. As we all know, the French downsize everything and the elevator could fit 4 average sized people uncomfortably... that gives you an idea of how long the line was to get 43 people and their luggage up to their rooms. So the four of us (Em, Laura, Kat and I) being the hay barrel carrying Tennessee girls that we are, carried our bags up 5 flights of stairs! WOOP.
We got ready for the beach and walked to the pebble-y Mediterranean =)))
Laura and Amber were brave enough to get into the freezing water but no one else proved worthy... so the rest of us just soaked up the sun and the pretty view. And of course, all good things must come to an end... bad weather started to come our way so we left the beach and started back to the hotel. Being girls, we all stopped at a store and when we walked out it was raining. Luckily we only had a few blocks left to the hotel and just in time got inside. Ladies and gentlemen, the bottom fell out. for two minutes.
If you care to know, the keys here at this hotel are hard to work. It's a true skill and I was not blessed to have it. Laura came to hang out in my room while Kat and Em were taking showers and we decided to try and learn to work the key in the door... For you "Office" lovers. Oh so many "that's what she said"-s.
Dinner wasn't really exciting - It was at the hotel, and we drank a record amout of water... almost 5 Liters... Our waiter was impressed hahaa.
And of course, what is Europe without football?... soccer that is. The Euro 2008 games are going on and a huge game was tonight... Italy vs. France. Talk about rivals.... So Nick took us to a pub and we all watched the game. France blew it in the first 20 minutes. GO ITALY! bahahaa.... we rooted for France but all secretly wanted Italy to win. And apparently Mrs. Royer has to find the chess game in every sport and had yet to find it in soccer, excuse me, football. Well... she found it. Kinda. Kate did her best to explain.
We walked back to the hotel and here I am now typing, eating a banana, and watching CNN... the only thing in English here ha. It's nice to know what's going on back at home.
It's getting really late here so it's night night for me.
One day left to go...

Sincerely,
Natalie