Florence Day 1
Sunday, June 19.

Ok, let me start by saying that McKenna is the official photographer (she has the cool camera) and I am the navigator (I have the phone with data), so I won't have many photos, if any at times of this trip until later. When I have them, I'll post them on my blog so you all can enjoy them too.  

Well, Neither of us slept very well, but we had church at nine thirty am. It took us about fifteen minutes to walk there, which is nothing really compared to other distances we have had to walk. Church was really good too. The chapel is nice and the members are as well. Luckily for sacrament meeting they had a translator, gospel doctrine was in English because most of the recent converts speak English, and relief society the sister missionary translated for us. Guys, Italian is hard. I looked up online basic important phrases we might need to know and I can't pronounce most of it. I have no idea how Italian works and my french only helps a little when reading Italian and not much when listening. Oh my goodness, this week is going to be fun. I more fully appreciate going to France knowing the language enough to get by. After church our plan was to go home and eat, then head out to explore a little, but there was a huge thunder/rain storm, so we stayed indoors for a while instead. McKenna took a nap. Good thing I'd bought so much pizza. We had enough for today now. Ya, pizza for all three meals. Tomorrow we'll eat in the city or cook. Turned out perfectly. After the storm stopped we decided to go for a walk. It was too late to really go anywhere far, so we went to the park across the street. We were getting really antsy staying in our room. The walk did us good. It was also nice to not really do anything though, to be able to recuperate a bit. Sundays are a gift from Heaven. 

                                                    Here's the LDS Chapel in Florence. :)

Pictures taken at the park. It wasn't really that dark when we were out walking, but I don't know how to fix the lighting on my phone very well and I liked how they looked.

This is how the lighting really looked. The belle tower to the left belongs to a really cool, old church built in the ten hundreds. After it was abandoned by the monks, a rich dude turned it into a villa. Now it's a church again I think. We couldn't go inside because it was closed by then.

So Long Nice, Hello Florence!
Saturday, June 18.
I'm not gonna lie. Today was a long and a little bit of a stressful day, but we made it through and things worked out in the end. We packed up and said goodbye to everyone and France in the morning (bittersweet), then McKenna and I headed to the airport to meet our ride to Florence. It took us about an hour to get there and then our ride was really late, so we just sat there at the airport terminal waiting. Our drivers were really nice though and so were the other guests. The drivers were french and the other guests were Italian. The Italian lady spoke french though, so between all of us we were able to communicate. The drive was about five hours, then we had to take the bus to our place, which only took us part of the way, so we had to walk the rest. Apparently buses in Italy aren't as efficient as those in France. They tend to be late and on the weekends don't run as often. We had to walk the last leg of the trip to our place which is about a forty minute walk from the main city Florence. With our luggage it was just a load of fun. Our host, though a little awkward, was very nice. His English wasn't amazing, but it was enough to get by. It was a great relief to finally get settled in. Total time from Nice til we got to our place was about eight hours I think. I'm ok not reliving that experience. Adulting is stressful enough without adding a foreign country to the equation. Excited for Florence though! We were both starving, so I found us a restaurant about three minutes from our place and bought two pizzas. Luckily a waiter spoke enough English to help me and I just ordered what they recommended. The pizza was good, but really bizarre. Sausage, cheese and some sort of spicy sauce. McKenna ended up not eating after all and just going to sleep, so I put the leftovers in the fridge. I didn't know what the portion sizes would be like and I didn't think to ask, so we have quite a bit of pizza left. Oh well. Just east it later.

Rock giant outside Nice airport, view of Italian countryside.

Le Musee des Beaux Arts, Beach, Cleaning, and Goodbyes.
Friday, June 17.
Today Maddie and I went to our second museum, le Musee des Beaux Arts. It was a cool musee, not too large, but not too small. Some paintings were not my favorite. The general style was more classical with some more modern styles in there. Some Picasso etc. After the musee, we walked to Fraganards in Old Nice. Maddie wanted to get some perfume for her mother. I convinced her that la Belle Cherie was the best scent and she is now the proud owner of a small bottle of it.  We got back around two thirty to Haley who was kind enough to make us lunch. I'm gonna miss my roommates making me food all of the time. After lunch we went to the beach. It was super windy the whole day, so the ocean was super choppy and the weather was slightly chilly. I was cold, so I stayed on the beach, but the others were crazy and went into the water for a few minutes. I went as far as my knees, which with the waves meant that I got decently wet. Too cold for me. Fun times though. After the beach we went back to our hotel and cleaned up the place for check out, ate dinner, blogged, chilled etc. We'd said goodbye to Carson earlier that day. He left for Paris to show his mom around. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Maddie leaves early Saturday morning. We had a banana, one piece of bread, and butter left, so I decided to make us some fried bananas. I've never actually made one before, but it turned out really well. I've converted Maddie anyway. This might have been at midnight. What better time to do  it right? Said goodbye to Maddie before we went to sleep, since she was leaving around five or six. Good luck in England kid. Catch you back at the Y soon.

Passed this little gem on the way to the musee. Why can't we all get a long like these guys?

                        It was a bit of a walk to get here, but we made it and it was worth it.

 

 
I love the lighting in the picture on the right. :)

 

This artist has a seriously messed up mind. The paintings are very symbolic, but creepy. The one above is one of the less creepy ones.

 
Left: The three fates.

 
The flower market and a giant chair!

 

 

 
Some more boring wave pictures. :)

 

Having fun at the beach! 

The Beach, our Final Exam,and the Russian Orthodox cathedral
Thursday, June 16
Today after sleeping in, which was fabulous, Haley and I finished our final exams, not so nice, but necessary. After turning in our exams, Haley, Maddie and I headed to the beach, so Maddie could collect sea glass and Haley could take pictures. Plus it's the beach! Not a sunny day though, rainy actually. After the beach we went to the Russian Orthodox church. It took us about a half hour to get there. The church is quite small. I expected something more, but it's still pretty. After the church we chilled until our last group dinner. We went to a restaurant  down in Old Nice. It was really good and comme d'hab lasted for hours, so that when we were done we went back to the hotel for the rest of the night. It was cool to see Nice during the night with all the lights and to see the city be alive. I'm gonna miss Nice.

 
Isn't Haley adorable? She's so happy. :)

 

 
Not to brag or anything, but I captured some pretty good wave moments.

                                                           Maddie! Love this girl!

Here's the Russian church! During the Russian monarchy many would come to Nice for vacation. After the fall of the Czar, some nobility fled here permanently. This is why they had this church built.  

 
I'm not sure what all these things are because everything was in Russian, but to the left you'll find the crown, and special things for the pope? Some important saint on the right I think.

 
Pretty isn't it? Good things come in all sizes.

 

 
 Here's what I had for dinner. For dessert, it's a meringue covered/floating in creme with nuts on top. It was basically a giant marshmallow floating in delicious  cream. I couldn't eat it all though because i'm not so into marshmallows and it really was huge. Plus I was full from dinner.

Isn't old Nice nice? The men light up in all different colors!

Le Musee Massena, and Monaco!
Wednesday, June 15.
Went back to the Musee Msssena today.  No worries, it was open this time.

 
Massena was a general in the french army during the second empire and the third republic. He was very popular and well off. I believe he was given the title of Prince. This is his house in Nice.

                                                                This book is giant!

                                                                  It's a library!

 

 

 
These things were made for me. Just saying.

And here you see where we keep the pigeons. We've made a nice pen for them and everything. They're well trained. They don't fly away or anything.

 
I don't know why they put a dinosaur here, but it's cool. I also have no idea who this guy is, but there was a cardboard cut out of him, so he must be important. We're in Monaco! We thought we'd look around and see a few famous sights while we were close by. Monte Carlo, Monaco is about an hour away by bus from our hotel in Nice. It was raining, quite a lot, but otherwise it was a good day in Monaco.

 
Here we are in front of Monte Carlo! Monte Carlo was designed by Garnier, the french architect who built the opera house in Paris. Its very Baroque as you could guess.

 
Right behind the gambling center of Monte Carlo lies the Opera House.

 
Lots of people in this area are very well off. We saw lots of really nice cars and the yachts in the bay are huge! Even in the rain, its a nice view. Right: a theater dedicated to Princess Grace Kelly.

 

                           Example A of really nice cars that I could never afford in a million life times.

                                  I just thought this bench was swanky and thought I'd share.  :)

This sign says you must be wearing clothes to walk this path. I thought it was funny, though we're in France, so that's a good precaution to take in a town that relies on tourists.

 
I had stopped to take a picture of the sign, but the others had gone on ahead of me, so when I finished I ran up the steps to catch up to them. While I was running some young tourist boys were like, " Oh no, she's gonna beat you, you better catch up." Then they raced each other to the top. For the record, I totally could have beat them, but my intention was to be with the group and not to be better then preteen boys.  ;) It would have been amusing though. Oh to be young.

                                        Making our way up the path to the Prince's Palace.

Some important person for Monaco. :) Shame on me for not remembering who and why.

 
This cloaked figure is Francesco Grimaldi in 1293 pretending to be a monk, so he can get past the guards and win the fortress built on the Rock of Monaco.  He is quite successful and becomes the first Grimaldi king to rule Monaco.

 
                                                             View from the palace.

 
Liking this cannon ball theme. The balls are actually stuck together so they can't be taken. Like someone would do that. ;)

 
We got to see the changing of the guards!!! It was awesome. The guards looked so board though. I'm sure I would be too having to do that all the time. It was also raining and the changing ceremony makes them go out in the rain.

Beautiful.

 
                                                                                           Look mom, they have smurf gummies!!!

 
This is the Cathedral of Monaco, where Grace Kelly, famous american actress, married the Prince of Monaco, Rainer III, in 1953. She had a stroke causing her to crash her car and she died a day later on September 14, 1982.This church is where many of the royal family are buried.

 
I might have been up to my old habits of spying on newly wed couples. They make such a cute couple though. She's wearing what looks like vans. I like her.

 
The inside of the church is quite lovely. The lighting is cool. On the right you see a relic of an old anonymous saint. It's a bone. The shrine is pretty.

 
This is where Grace Kelly and Rainer III are buried.

                                            The view of the old castle wall from the bus stop.

Stopped to watch the game for a sec while waiting for the next bus and found the mustache door. It was made for Carson.  After we got back we worked on our tests and blogs etc. until bed.