Better Work Those Weekends

These are some of the pictures from our latest outings! The market is in Arles, where we spent the whole morning on accident!

Seaside Cafes.

Sarah and I at the cafe where the alcohol soaked fruit was served

Lindsey and I overlooking the one of the many sea ports in Marseille

Sarah: Caitlin, who is that?
Me: I don't know,why?
Sarah: I thought you'd know.
Me: Why, cause I'm Mormon? Girl this is a thousand year old Catholic cathedrale. Mormonism wasn't even invented yet.

Luckily, you never grow out of field trips, even in college!

On Wednesday this week, we got a break from regular classes, and journeyed the 20 min to the second largest city in France, Marseille.
I had only been to the great city one time, when we first arrived from The States, and I only saw the airport. This was a much different experience.

The city itself is as huge and metropolitan as any other city with more than 500,000 inhabitants. The buildings are made from grey stone and are all decorated with red rooftops. The view from above most large european cities look much the same.
Marseille has an incredible history, and we saw only a smidgen of the sights and historical evidence that proves its long and rich history.

The highlight of the trip was our lunch at a darling seaside cafe. It took us a while to find a cafe that we wanted to eat at, most were all seafood, which does not agree with most of our delicate palates.

We did stumble upon a restaurant, that claimed to have the best deal on "moules and frites" (mussels and fries) ew. gross.

So, of course, my gal pals immediately take a seat in the deep blue chairs with anchor patterned napkins. What traitors.

I find something on the menu that sounds innocent enough.

A nice small salad with carrots, tomatoes, chicken, grapefruit, pineapples, and a oil and vinegar dressing. A half salad comes with a dessert, how nice to have a fruit salad with my greens!

What luck!

I should have known better, always.

My salad comes, and I take a bite of a few pieces of chicken and fruit.

My mouth burns as I realize my grapefruit is soaked in..rum?

I attempt to eat around my liquor soaked lettuce leaves, leaving a vast majority of my 13 euro salad on my plate.

I decide to skip dessert telling the waiter, no dessert, s'il vous plait.

We get the bill, and low and behold, I am charged an extra 4 euro for my dessert, that I never got, and certainly didn't eat.

I promptly tell the waiter, who comes back with the manager, and he promptly tells me

" Madamoiselle, you ordered this and you must get it, you are paying for it either way".

Plus, the fruit wasn't part of the deal.

So I got chocolate ice cream. Oh darn!

I Swear I Saw 007 Lurking Among The Palms

Monte Carlo, here I come.

Everyone loves a Chocolaterie. Let's be real.

Yachts, much?

Monaco is so georgeous

Monte Carlo is a place I've been hearing about as long as I can remember, but I never really knew what it was until Casino Royale came out in 2006. I didn't even realize it was associated with the french, much less a famous, ritzy very expensive place in southern France.

Yesterday our group traveled 2 1/2 hours to the small country of Monaco.

Yes, it is its own country, covering about 2.2 square kilometers. The average person can walk the entire width of the country in about 56 minutes, and it has a population of about 33,000, making it the most densely populated country in the word.
84% of the population is not French, and it is a popular destination for the rich, famous and fabulous to have their second or third homes.

What would that be like.

The entire town runs along the Mediterranean, and the crystal clear blue sea has waves that crash,white and foamy, along the jagged edges of black cliffs; there is no beach, just a huge harbor with shiny yachts.

Oh, the yachts. There were hundreds of them, that likely cost more than my parents' house. Possibly more than all my friends parents houses put together.

I would love to live on a yacht.

Just sail the 9 miles it would take to get to the border of Italy on days when I got restless from living my life of luxury, laying out in in the baking sun.

Yeah, right.

As Brit, Jill and I wandered the streets of Monaco, we couldn't help but notice how clean the streets were. It was like being at Disneyworld in the Epcot center's version of France.
The houses and apartments were pristinely kept, the windows all full of flowers and not a piece of trash in sight.

Occasionally, a car would zoom by us, and our eyes would widen as every car that passed us was a BMW or Mercedes. I have never seen so many gorgeous European cars in one place.

As the afternoon wore on, we walked the shoreline to the casino, which was what I was most anxious to see.

I am a huge James Bond fan.

Hot and sweaty (always), we hiked up a giant hill ( France is ALL about the hills), and there it was, in front of us, with it's seafoam green rooftop dome-like steeples, and it's ancient cathedral architecture, Monte Carlo.

Of course, we didn't get in very far. First of all there is a black tie dress code, and second of all one must be 21 to enter. Jill and Brit are 20.

The security in the grand lobby of the entrance make it very clear that tourists cannot go past a certain part of the brown and white speckled marble flooring.

The golden Phantom of The Opera status chandeliers hanging from the elevated celing made a 22 year old college girl feel very under-dressed in her jeans.

So we poked around a little, walked down the stairs, past two ferrari's, and into the streets, where Cartier and Chanel sat, waiting to be walked into and shopped at.

But clearly, not by us. Someday, though.

As we walked away from the casino, I looked back, glancing into one of the windows on the third floor. I couldn't see much, but I could see another golden hanging chandelier, and a few tables waiting to be set up for black jack or a little russian rulet that night, and I could only imagine the couture of ball gowns and tuxedo's that would be worn to the tables that night.