Monks, Pizza, and the Emperor

Wednesday was a varied day. In French class, Anique, in a very roundabout way told us not to come to class on Thursday. She said it was a French holiday and so things like the post office and banks would be closed. The college, however, was open, but if we wanted to take the morning and go to movies for the film festival, or whatever, she had no problems with that. I think that was her way of unofficially “canceling” class.

Lunch was exciting for one reason, we had melon for dessert. That is exciting because melon to me says it’s summer. I like summer, so it makes me happy to be eating summer food!

Anyway, after lunch it was time for the very last AIFS excursion. We were going to the smaller island in the bay of Cannes. It was kind of sad, there were six of us going with Aude. It was Rachael, Heather, Lauren S, Shannon, Mychelle, and me. Quite the group, I know. The island is inhabited by monks who make wine among other things. It was a pretty island. There were a lot of rules for the entire island. For instance, smoking and loud noises aren’t allowed anywhere on the island. That sounds kind of crazy doesn’t it? An entire body of land with a noise restriction. But it kept the island peaceful. We tried to go straight to the Monastery to see the church there, but they were having service, so instead we went to a ruin battlement. It was neat. There was a winding staircase inside and there were like 4 different levels where you could come out and check out the view. It overlooked the sea, so it was beautiful. While we were up top, we saw a monk walking. I’ve never seen a monk in real life before, so I took a picture. Heather noted that he was a very young monk. She also thought he was cute (how she could tell from that distance is beyond me), I told her he was off-limits.

When we came back down, service was over so we were able to see the chapel. It was very simple. I liked it. Then we checked out the store, there was a lot of wine and liqueurs. No one bought anything. And since there wasn’t much else to do on the island, we all jumped on the ferry and headed back to good ol’ Cannes.

Back at school, Rachael and I decided to go lay out for a while on the sundeck. We were joined eventually by Lauren S and then Teresa. We enjoyed the sun for a while. Then Rach went to the cyberdrome, while I stayed out a bit longer with the other girls. Teresa and Lauren decided they wanted to order pizza and watch The Emperor’s New Groove and I thought that sounded like a fun idea, so I told Rachael and we decided to join in the fun.

We all grouped up in Teresa’s room to figure out who wanted what. There was a large group of us taking part. The four of us, plus Samantha, Ellen, and Katie. While we were sitting around, a couple of the girls got out notebooks to take down everyone’s home addresses. It was kind of sad. It really felt like things were coming to an end to be exchanging addresses. There was some talk about going to different places to visit each other. We’ll see if any of that actually works out. I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to it.

Anyway, we ordered the pizza, and went down to the video room. We waited to start the movie until the pizza arrived. While we were waiting, Teresa showed us a couple of the bonus features, including The Llama dance. It was hilarious!

The movie and the pizza were great! It was fun to watch a silly kids’ movie with everyone. There was a lot of joking. A couple of the girls had never seen it before.

After the movie, I went back to the room and did some journaling among other things before heading to bed.

I was awoken shortly after I fell asleep by fireworks. Now why fireworks were going off, I’m not sure. The movie Marie-Antoinette premiered but I don’t know if that was the reason for the fireworks. I wouldn’t have minded so much if I had been able to see them, as it was all I could do was hear them. I love watching fireworks, not a fan of just listening to them. Oh well…