It was another week of discovering more and more about this place I get to call home! Ventured into some local areas, Garibaldi & Vielle Ville, where we took some time to snap a few photos and become more acquainted with the city itself. The tram and bus systems are not nearly as daunting anymore. There are so many things to discover here in the heart of Nice. I feel like I have only touched the surface of what this city all has to offer! School wise, we started our translation course this week. I'm really looking forward to this class, as we get to go through both an English and French book, take out excerpts, and translate them to the opposite language. It will be a great way to expand my vocabulary and enrich my writing capabilities. Some highlights from my week included eating a Croque Monsieur for the first time. Mmmm! The best way I can describe it is a grilled cheese with ham on steroids. I've also been indulging in more crêpes, gelato and tartes aux fruits. French cuisine is delicious and addicting! I'm also really learning to appreciate the French humour here. During one of our walks around the city, we stumbled upon this sign over the public washrooms. It's a spin off of "I think, therefore I am", "Je pense, donc je suis" by René Descartes. I'm sure you can fill in the rest of the blanks from there ;) Also excited to share that I have started reading a book en Français. I've had a few afternoons to sit at the beach and unwind, while reading my new book in the French language... in France! How cool is that?! Day trip to italie - Le 22 septembre 2017 As usual, we took another day trip this weekend. This time to Italy! It's crazy that we can just hop on a train and take a 30 minute ride to another country (and at a reasonable price, too!). Our stop this weekend was Ventimiglia, located 7km from the French-Italian border in northern Italy. It was a a beautifully warm day there, filled with lots of sunshine and blue skies! Our main purpose for making this trek was to head to their market. I would compare it to a flea market back in Canada: a little bit of everything at fairly reasonable prices. I got some sandals, pants and shorts for under 20 euros! Not to mention, we all tried Italian cuisine at a local restaurant. Delicious! And that's all I have for this week! I'm going to keep it short, sweet and to the point... I have some homework calling my name and also some laundry ;)
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Fresh out of our first week of classes at the Université de Nice! All in all, I would consider it a success, despite a few of the challenges we took on. The two courses we take with our Canadian professor, Spoken French and Linguistics, were great. They are both going to be courses that help us become more acquainted with the language while we are here, and also challenge us to think beyond what we already know to be true. Unfortunately, a couple of the other courses were a bit rough... we are learning that many of the French profs talk quite quickly, and some of them could care less about our academic and personal well-being. I guess with first year students, their mindset is to weed out those who are not serious enough about their studies, something we aren't used to in Canada. On the other hand, we have also found some very lovely professors and are enjoying many of our classes, such as Littérature et Cinéma. In this class, we are reading Hamlet (en Français) and comparing the play to various movie adaptations of it. Next week, we are all hoping to take a translation course, which will hopefully help us better understand the language as well. We have another course, philologie, that starts the week after. So, there are still some waters for us to navigate but embracing them all with a positive mindset! Happy to announce that I have had plenty of time to immerse my taste buds as well. We went to a crêperie the other night and, needless to say, it was scrumptious! There is also this boulangerie right up the street from me, so eating delicious pain au chocolat every morning has been far too convenient... What has been so great about our first week was that our Canadian Prof took us around Nice on a guided tour for an evening. Since he is well-acquainted with the city himself, he was able to take us on a very informative guided tour of the city core, Vieille Ville. First off, he took us to Palais Lascaris, a French museum and historic monument. This baroque-style ‘palace’ was built in the early 1600’s for the richest and most powerful family in town, the Vintimille-Lascaris family. I was excited to learn that it is also a musical instrument museum! It was incredible to see their collection 17th century tapestries, architecture and 500+ instruments. We also ventured off to the Confiserie Florian, where we were able to see their candy making process (which is all by hand of course), as well as try some of their products... and make some purchases too! We concluded our evening with a walk up the Parc du Château (Castle Hill) to the highest look out point in Nice. It is a historic hilltop park with a dramatic city & ocean view, a man-made waterfall and even a little cafe. Although it was quite the climb, the views made it totally worth it! Afterwards, we were invited back to our Prof's apartment for some Cuisine Niçoise: menthe à l'eau (mint water), Pastis (black licorice flavoured alcohol), socca (chickpea flavoured flat bread), and a charcuterie board ranked among my favourites. Antibes - le 16 septembre 2017 On Saturday, a group of us ventured out to Antibes, a resort town between Cannes and Nice on the French Riviera (Côte d’Azur). It was beautiful there! By far one of my favourite local destinations. The water was a shade of blue that I had never before seen in my life, and the yachts here were stunning. All privately owned even! We toured around this beautiful city, and then spent some time on the beach unwinding from our week. Don't worry... it hasn't just been beach days and wine tasting for me. I've had plenty of time set aside for homework as well ;) It's been great getting to know more and more of the exchange students in the area. We attended a beach party Saturday evening where we were introduced to some more of the international student community. Many come from within Europe (Spain, Italy, Netherlands etc), but we also met some students from the States through mutual friends. What I love most about living here in Nice is the fact that I can head to a local market or bakery and pick up fresh food for the day. This morning, I woke up to go to the Cours Saleya market and bought some fresh strawberries, oranges and green beans for the week. Next thing on my shopping list is a fresh baguette from up the street! One last thing... If you would like to see some of my day to day captures, check out my VSCO account at vsco.co/morgankippy. So many beautiful things to see in this city!
Happy to say that I have made it through the first week, which has proven to be a very frustrating, yet rewarding, one. I can finally say that I have my carte d'étudiant (student card) and am all registered at the University! It took a few visits, emails and rendez-vous with the International Office and our coordinating professor, but we managed to complete this very important task. On Wednesday, we had a meeting with all of the L1 (licence 1/first year) students studying in the department of Lettres Modernes et Classiques (Modern and Classic Literature). As exchange students, the majority of the courses we will take will be first and second year courses here at the University. Although this meeting was a little confusing for us, as exchange/international students follow a different registration process than everyone else, we still had the chance to listen to the different professors talk about their prospective courses for the semester. Afterwards, we met our Canadian Coordinating Professor, Alain Thomas, from the University of Guelph. We are very fortunate to have him with us, as he came out of retirement to fill this position for the year! It was also a great time for us to meet the other exchange students from the participating Universities this year: Guelph, Memorial and Toronto. We were very thankful to learn from the bureau des relations internationales that we do not have to complete our inscription (course registration) until the beginning of October, giving us three weeks to go to some classes and test them out! There have been lots of opportunity to visit the beautiful beaches here, sip some rosé and tour the local area some more. The weather here has been very lovely; in the high 20s with a warm breeze! Don't worry though... I haven't just been relaxing in the sun. I have also been to the Lignes d'Azur office to get my bus pass for the year. Another item checked off the list! I have also been getting to know the other exchange students from Canada. Two of the girls were already nice enough to host at their apartment Friday evening. We had a little potluck filled with baguettes, cheese, meat and plenty of wine ;) Cannes - Le 9 Septembre 2017 Saturday was also an adventure within itself. Three of us made the day trip to a neighbouring city called Cannes. We bought our tickets at the Gare (train station) and took roughly a 30 minute ride into the city. It was a neat experience to travel right along the coast line. Interestingly enough, it seemed that the beaches became less rocky and more filled with sand (as we know in Canada) the further south bond we traveled. To our surprise, we weren't in Cannes for more than an hour and it poured rain! Nevertheless, we made the best of it and found a lovely place to have lunch. It was a little bistro called Bobo, and I enjoyed their plat du jour: duck and sweet potatoes! The delicious meal definitely made up for the less than ideal weather. I guess I would describe Cannes as an upper-class city filled with more beautiful beaches and boats galore.... see Google Image photo at the bottom haha! One of my friends described it as the Hollywood of the south of France. Many of the streets were filled with designer stores like Prada and Louis Vuitton. Needless to say, we didn't buy anything during our time there. And that is all I have for this week! I am very excited to be starting my classes come Tuesday and to hopefully discover more of what this extraordinary country has to offer!! Suivez-moi en médias sociaux!
Instagram: @morgankippy Snapchat: @morgankippy3 It is now day 3 since I have arrived in the beautiful south of France! Words can honestly not describe how stunning and vibrant Nice truly is. Friday was mostly a day of unpacking, settling in and napping haha! I immediately felt welcomed by a friend of my landlord, who was kind enough to show me around the area and even take me grocery shopping Saturday morning. I am now stocked up on French cuisine, including my very first baguette! Unfortunately, I didn't buy myself any French wine yet, but fret not, I'm sure there will be plenty of time to enjoy a bottle.. or two ;) Saturday was filled with lots of shopping but not much spending (which I'm quite proud of). I got a new phone plan, groceries, a shopping caddy and a few other household items. Oh! And I got a sac à main for a great price too! I'm getting more acquainted with the bus routes here. I've only gotten lost once... so far... they are a little tricky to get the hang of. Craziest part of Saturday was the insane phone plan I got. For €19,99/mois (about $30 CDN/month), I have unlimited text, call and 50GB of data!! It's insane!! Today, Sunday, was a very enjoyable day. Started off by meeting up with a couple other girls from my exchange at the Marché d'alimentation, an outdoor food and flower market. We then took a walk up to the boat port, and what an experience that was! I'm sure the yachts there were worth millions. Forget about house boats, these were boat mansions. We stopped at a little sandwich shop for lunch and took it along with us to the beach, where we spent a good chunk of our afternoon. The beaches here are all stones and pebbles, but at least you don't have to worry about getting sand in your food! The water was so refreshing and, of course, salty. Interesting fact, it is very common for men and women to all go topless while at the beach. No need to worry about tan lines that way! After the beach, I took a little walking tour of Vieille Ville (Old Nice), as well as Jean Médecin. Absolutely beautiful! The architecture here is like nothing I have ever seen before. Of all the places I have been to in France, Nice is definitely at the top of my list for its attention to detail and uniqueness. Surprisingly enough, I didn't bring my camera along with me today. I've been trying to absorb as much of the experience as I can without constantly looking through a camera lens. I did snap a few quick photos on my phone though. I figure there will be plenty of beach/photo opportunities during my nine months here, so no need to rush through any of it. Taking it all in one day at a time. I'm also learning that, even when I am conversing in French with vendors, they soon realize my home language is not French and start speaking to me in English! I guess Nice is a fairly touristy/diverse area, so it is to be expected. Later that evening, some girls and I headed into Masséna, just outside of Vieille Ville and off of Jean Médecin. The pictures above were taken at Masséna during the day when I quickly toured through there, but at night, it comes alive with music and street acts. We watched an unreal show by Les Joyeux Pirates. They were quite the act, and I even had a chance to join in with them for a little bit! After their show finished, we walked along Jean Médecin and up to Notre Dame for a little bit before trying to navigate ourselves back home. Apparently, the bus system at night is much different than it is through the day. Good thing we had gelato to power through our travels! Tomorrow we are off to the school to (hopefully) start our registration process. Wish us good luck! |
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