Skiing in the Alps!

So while some Marseillais headed to the beach to sunbathe this weekend, my host family and I headed up to the mountains for some spring skiing! My host family has a small house (that's 150 years old!) near Serre Chevalier in the Alps...we spent the weekend there with two collegues of my host dad (2 other math teachers) and some family friends (one family had two daughters 7 and 4 years old...soo cute!). It was my first time skiing anyplace other than Colorado, but after Colorado the Alps aren't too bad :) I think I still like Colorado snow better, but the Alps (at least the ski area that we were at) seemed huge! The runs seem to be a little more open and we were able to go up to the top of a lot of different peaks which had wonderful views! It's also interesting that they label their runs a little differently...they have green (easy), blue (intermediate), and black (difficult) runs but they also have red which is in between blue and black, but no black diamonds, double black diamonds, etc...I was trying to explain the diamond system to my host dad and he thought that was kind of funny :)

The town at the base of Serre Chevalier is also known for its natural hot springs and so we went to the "bains chauds" (or "hot tubs"!) after skiing. There they had two different warm pools with lots of jets (like big hot tubs) and a hamam (turkish bath...like a really really hot sauna)...they also had "les trois bains" which are three bath: one really warm (40°C) which you are supposed to spend 20 minutes in, one lukewarm bath (24°C) which you spend 10 minutes in, and one freezing cold bath (7°C) which you are "supposed" spend 2 minutes in :) (yeah right, i only made it like 10 seconds in the really cold bath!)

Here are a few pictures from the weekend: http://picasaweb.google.com/erichards20/SerreChevalier?authkey=Gv1sRgCKv8mszD2smSAw&feat=directlink

More travels...

So, I like the French system of breaks...during this semester, I have a winter break AND spring break (and a few random 'holidays' in the middle of the week just because!) which makes traveling around a little easier :) This past week for winter break, my friend Emma from Colorado College (who is also studying in France) and I went to Nice, France. We stayed the full week in Nice - there is a ton of stuff to do! We went to a few museums, some cool parks, hung out on the beach, and shopped in the marchés. It was also the week of Carnaval (which is quite popular in Nice) so there were parades in the afternoons and at night. Its kind of funny that silly string is so popular at these parades...not only do kids run around spraying each other but adults will spray other random adults with silly string and just laugh at each other! Throughout the week, we also took a few day trips to some other cities (and a country!) that are close by...Cannes, St. Paul de Vance, and Monaco. (Monaco is actually a lot smaller than I realized...Emma and I walked across the whole country in just one day! :))

Here are some pictures from my week...the first few are in Nice, then Monaco, St. Paul de Vance, Cannes, and then some more from Carnaval in Nice :) http://picasaweb.google.com/erichards20/NiceWinterBreak?authkey=Gv1sRgCLXm1uiJ_IaLIQ&feat=directlink