Friday: Bon Voyage!

Today I had no 8:30 am class, so I had an extra 2 hours to pack for the weekend and sleep in a bit. It was the last day of my Civilization class and the two hours could not have passed slower. Finally we were done, and we had just 45 minutes to wait until our departure for la Cote d'Azur! I ate (and shared) some of the snacks and fruits Mme Cottave packed me, and my PB&J because none of the school cafeterias were open. At 1:30 we left Grenoble and began our long journey south. We took the Alps route on the way down, boy was that traumatic! Several of us became pretty car sick from the curvy mountain roads. 

At about 4pm we stopped in a little city called Sisteron to eat. We asked around at a few places and found it utterly frustrating that cafes in France don;t serve food at all hours. Most places were only serving desserts and drinks at the time. Maryel and I gave up on cafes and walked down to the crepe stand, and bought the chocolate gaufres we'd been craving since the night before. Before leaving, I decided I'd better find a bathroom. We found the public W.C. easily...using it was the difficult part. I wish I'd taken a photo, but this self-cleaning contraption was frightening. You wait until the light turns green to enter, then once you enter you cannot open the door again until you are done. I went in, got confused and opened the door for some Moral support from Maryel. Then all of a sudden, the toilet seat starts to lift its self up, and scary noises started. I ran out of there, knowing the place was self-cleaning, and not wanting to be trapped inside during the disinfecting hurricane. I waited for the light to turn green again, and stepped into what looked like the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Anyway, I can now say that I would rather pee in a stinky port-a-potty any day rather than experience this mean clean machine.

After 8 long hours of travel (counting 2 long stops) we finally made it to our hotel located in a little town outside of Nice. We had our typical meal of pizza margherita at a cafe, and one of the older waiters and Chris if he was the banquier (banker) because he was having dinner with five ladies. He is constantly the lone male in our group, because out of 16 U of M students, there are only 2 boys. We laughed at the joke and finally we headed to bed preparing for the long day ahead of us.