The beach in Antibes....
Each morning, I'd walk past this house and more often than not, these dogs were standing guard of the house.
Since life tends to be toned down a notch in France, I spent some of the two hour lunch breaks eating my lunch on the rocks on the shore of the ocean.
On the last Sunday that I was in Antibes, our new friend Andrew, who had a car, was kind enough to drive us to some of the neighboring medieval villages along the coast. Here are some photos from various villages.
This one is actually one of my favorites
This is Andrew (from England), Krysten, and Jana (from Czech Republic). We all spent a lazy Sunday touring through the villages above.
Jana, Krysten and I took the train in to Nice one night. The following are some shots from Nice. I particularly enjoyed the old part of Nice.
Me and Krysten
Alright, I'm not quite sure where to begin with this photo. There is quite a story behind it. I left France on Friday the 18th of June attempting to make it back to Leysin that same night because my flight to Beijing left the following afternoon (on Saturday). However, there always seems to be an adventure of some sort. Due to the massive flooding in southern France, the entire train system was a disaster. My first train was supposed to go along the southern coast from Antibes to Marseilles. On Thursday night I found out my train had been cancelled so I had to catch an earlier train. When I got to the train station on Friday morning, I learned that my new train had also been cancelled. Fortunately I was able to get on a different train headed to Marseilles. This train was not a velo (bike) friendly train, but the conductor was nice and allowed me to take my bike on the train. At the third stop, in St. Raphael, about 55 km from Antibes, the train stopped and shut down. All trains stopped and there was no telling when they'd start again. I HAD to get to Marseilles. I got off the train and tried to rent a car. There were none available. Back at the train station I learned there was a new train heading to Marseilles. Excellent! The departure time came and as one should figure, this train got cancelled at the last minute. So you might be wondering what this has to do with the picture below...While waiting for the train on the platform, I met this girl, Jasmine who was also trying to get to Marseilles. She was the same age as me and was Swedish. Her grandmother lived in St. Raphael though. Her grandmother was out of town, but had a car at her house. HOWEVER, Jasmine did not have a license. She asked if I would like to drive her grandmother's car. Seeing no other option, I said "sure!". Marseilles was 150 km away. I gripped the steering wheel of this car for dear life during the entire ride. Not only could this car barely go 115 kph, but i don't think it had power steering and I was hoping for dear life that the brakes wouldn't give out. They were sketchy. Furthermore, when we got on the highway, Jasmine said, "Oh, well, my grandmother told me not to take the car far distances or on big roads." Great. On the highway traveling 150 km. Well, luck was in my favor that day and the car arrived safely in Marseilles. I did miss my train though. Fortunately, I was lucky yet again and there was one last train headed to Lyon and then Geneva that day. It was not a velo friendly bike, but the man in the train station who exchanged my ticket said it was fine. When I got on the train with my velo, the conductor did not quite like that I had my bicycle. He tried to kick me off, but I refused (all of this happening in French). I argued and pleaded and finally he allowed me to pay him 20 euros and I was able to stay with my bicycle. I made it to Geneva and finally to Leysin that night on the last cog....only to get up after 3 hours of sleep and catch the 10a.m. cog to the airport again (in Geneva). So this picture is Jasmine and her grandmother's rickety old car.
On the train from Geneva to Aigle, there was a double rainbow in the sky. It had been my lucky day.
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