beautiful. dirty. rich.

We just like to party. Like to pa-pa party, yeah!

About two weekends ago we were in the South of France! Sorry I'm really of my blogging game. Finals are kicking my booty, and I guess the "study" part of being abroad is finally rearing it's ugly head. But before all this worrying about finals, the beautiful tropical fish Channy and I got a weekend of relaxation! Our first day we were in Nice (pronounced niece). We toured the city and learned about it's unique history. We explored an open air market, seriously the market was darling. It was covered in fresh flowers, veggies, fruits, pastries, Nice's famous soaps, and candy. It was amazing, I could have walked around there for hours. Nice is simply gorgeous.

Nice was nice... (chuckles at my own joke). After the market, we were taken to a castle. The castle doesn't exist anymore because it was blown up in protest to the people of Nice a long time ago. But this used-to-be-castle has the best view of Nice. You can see all the roof tops, the ocean, the beach and the whole city.

Isn't that just stunning?? Believe me, I was in awe. When I'm rich, this is where I'll be. The weather was perfect and the people are so nice. I loved it here, and any place where there is a beach Chan is at her happiest. After staring off into what looked like the end of the world, Chan and I got some lunch. We wanted lunch where the locals go, so we ventured into town and found this cute restaurant. Our french is... well it sticks so we were praying that people spoke English. The waiter came out and went off in all French, after a little bit of silence I just said "Parlez-vous anglais?" The waiter beamed and said, "Ah! Yes yes!" After listening to specials we ordered our food and took in the darling French ambiance. After our delicious lunch, we decided to spend the rest of the day at the beach! Hours of relaxing music and laying in the sun. It was perfect, even got to catch up on the sleep we have been so desperately missing. But this beach was different... it was a rock beach so while laying down I received a few bruises but the sun and rest was more than I could ask for. After the beach we, changed and walked around Nice because Saturday we were off to Eze and Monte Carlo!

The food was amazing and gigantic

Hey... more selfies with gelato!

In Eze, we went to the Fragonard perfume factory and had some time to walk around and sample all different smells. It was super cool learning how they make all their soaps, scents, and different oils. After the factory, we got to walk around the village and check out hilarious shops!

No idea what this says, but lolz

#coolkidz

Anyone have desire to see fancy cars and win lots of Euros??? Yeah me too! Monte Carlo was rich to boot. There was 3 Gucci stores within 100 feet of each other it was insane! I felt like Chan and I were co-staring with Selena Gomez. Pretty fabulous right??

Next vacation mom??

Yes there is a story behind this blurry picture. We went inside the Monte Carlo Casino, to see the really fancy people winning the big ones! No pictures are allowed but I got a little to cocky thinking that I wouldn't get caught... I thought we were in the clear, but just as I was snapping the picture Chan said "The man is coming". I thought we were going to get kicked out, or get kicked out of France (which may seem far fetched but I was scared). Anyway the guy just asked me to put my phone away and he walked away. Phew!Thanks French man, you're the real MVP. Even though he could have let me take my picture, but whatever.

This weekend was serving up lots of laughs and no stress. Again... thank you France!!! Sunday we were driving back to Rome, but on the way we stopped at Antibes. This tiny city that is known for it's 48 beaches. We only had time to see one, but we spent hours there reading and just listening to the waves roll in and out. The ocean has the best calming sounds, I was de-stressing before finals and it did a world of good. Plus I got to read another cheesy book, so life is pretty great. 

More flowers cause I loooove them

France did it again. I will be back, I promise. Thank you Europe for the most amazing four months. You'll be missed when I return home, but not forgotten. 

Here I go with the last of my finals. As they say in Italy, "in bocca al lupo", which means "into the wolf's mouth" it's the Italian form of break a leg. Here we go kids! Then one more week until I'm home! 

Until next time,
-O

no one's as irish as barack obama.

Confused about the title? Ask any Irishman or woman and they will tell you that our president is as Irish as they come. They say everyone is Irish, and you know what? I am okay with that! The Irish are amazingly nice people, with lovely accents, beautiful faces and lots of hearty food. It was a grand ol'time. When we first arrived we had one mission in mind. We may be twenty years old and in our second year of college but Chan and I looooove One Direction. (sorry 'bout it tweens but those boys are ours.) As some of you may know that Niall is from Ireland, and his favorite restaurant is Nando's. So there was our mission--- FIND NANDO'S. And that we did. 

Thank you Niall, you beautiful man you. 

It. Was. Delicious. So whenever you are in England or Ireland... check out Nando's. I promise you no disappointment. We continued to walk around and take in the beautiful, green city.

Trinity College. Isn't it gorgeous?

They drive on the other side of the road. I was wigging out.

Something that was so peachy about Dublin was they spoke English! Finally!!!!! We could understand everything that was going on! We decided to celebrate the fact that we didn't look like bumbling idiots because we could finally understand the language. What was something we were craving badly that we haven't done in months?? The movies! We figured a good way to celebrate was to see a movie. We saw Cinderella. Okay lads and ladies, if you haven't seen it yet, finish this post and then go see it now!! Honestly it was darling! I loved it. Saturday treated us with the Cliffs of Moher, Galway and the food festival at Galway. 

I told you they love him.

O'Brien's Castle. Chan was stoked

"I'm going to look like I'm falling and send it to my mom"

Twisted chips on a stick. My new love

We had traditional Irish food.. so lots of potatoes. Good thing we walk a lot else I would be a billion times heavier. Can we just take a minute to talk about the how nice the Irish people are?? We were seated at the Duke's Pub and immediately our waiter, this darling man,  was there and asking where we were from and if we were in Dublin on holiday. He called us loves and patted my shoulder and continued to chat with us. Like it was just so nice, and literally every place we went the people were just oozing kindness. We should live every day live we are Irish, that's all I'm saying. 

Sunday was Easter and we had heard about a parade but we had a walking tour all lined up. We went to find the walking tour but it was cancelled for the parade! So this must have been some huge parade right, and it was!!! It was the Commemorative Day Parade, so we got to see a bit of Ireland history. Then we did our own walking tour and saw St. Patrick's Cathedral, Trinity College, and just random stuff! Our hotel hooked us up with a swanky lunch! It was quite the Easter, but I did miss being home with my family and getting an Easter basket. 

St. Patty's Place

That's on fire! Talk about scary. 

Hoppy Easter Every-Bunny

So our moms sent us an Easter package and included were these bunny mouths. They are like ring pops but a bunny mouth on the end. So we decided on Easter we'll take a cute picture and send it to our moms as a thank you and cause we're super cute like that. But every picture we took we couldn't stop laughing! They looked super weird, and people kept walking past. So we waited until no one was ahead of us, and hurried and snapped our picture. That resulted in this lovely couple photobombing our precious Easter picture. But it's spring and love is in the air, so we'll let it slide. 

Ireland surely supplied us with plenty of green pictures and amazing times. Dublin, you'll be added to me list of places to revisit. You are loved and missed.

For your enjoyment.

Until next time,

-O