"L'Aventure, C'est Extra!"

It's only Wednesday, but it feels like it's been at least 2 weeks since I last posted. We've done what feels like a ton of stuff since then!

Saturday we went on another hike with M. Bosco and saw an old fort sort of thing (I have no real word for it in any language) in the mountains that was used during World War II. We also, as usual, got to see new angles and aspects of the Alps. I'm telling you now: I don't think I could ever live this high up in the mountains, but I'm really going to miss the scenery. It's nothing like what we have back home!
A couple of shots from the hike:

Old military building.

Entrance saying it was built in 1935.

Look outs.

 The lovely Alps.

Sunday morning we left for Nice/la Côte d'Azur bright and early for 2 days. It was a bizarre road trip.
On the road with the highest altitude in France, which we used to get to Nice, we unexpectedly encountered a little snow storm. It was made especially bizarre by the fact that we all had warm weather and beaches on our minds only to encounter freezing temperatures and real, falling snow on the way there.
Picture:

The other minibus.

After that, we had another bizarre happening: we encountered a parade of sheep being moved from one tiny city to another place nearby. There were TONS of sheep. Thousands. Everywhere. Followed by a tractor pulling a platform with a band.

Jessica looking at all the sheep.

 

Sheep EVERYWHERE!

 The band.

After that, we also saw a bunch of antique cars - some sort of show/convention, I guess? - and a real, working steam engine train which was pretty cool.

We finally arrived in Nice, hung out on there for a while, ate (gelato and later I tried beef tartare), and finished up the evening by drinking several bottles of wine on the beach. We put a note (on which we all wrote a sentence or two in several languages) in one of our empty bottles and threw it out to sea. I've always wanted to do that! I wonder if anyone got it...

The Mediterranean Sea!

On the beach in Nice, France!

White chocolate & pistachio gelato.

Carla says this is the best gelato place in Nice.

Our group went 3 times in 1 day.

Tried beef tartare. (Yes, it's completely rare.)

Liked it. :)

Nice, France.

Nice, France at night.

We left Nice the next morning and headed to Menton to actually spend the day on the beach. We stopped for a visit and photo op. in Villefranche-sur-Mer (I want to live here one day) and drove through Monaco on the way. Once we arrived, we ate at a restaurant right by the beach (most of us had paëlla) and then played on the beach. I swam in the Mediterranean (It was COLD!) and tanned a little. It was an excellent day. We headed home after that.

Villefranche-sur-Mer.

Villefranche-sur-Mer.

Villefranche-sur-Mer.

I'm definitely going to live there when I grow up.

Monaco.

View from our table at lunch - Menton.

Beach in Menton, France.

Getting a tan!

Great day!

Yesterday we gave presentations about Lousiana and the links between Arnaudville and the Ubaye Valley (mainly the town called Jausiers) to two groups of elementary school kids. They were adorable and knew way more than we thought they did about some of the subjects we talked about - especially crocodiles (here) vs. alligators (LA), which was one of the subjects I was assigned to present. I guess they talk about stuff like that a lot with these kids. Afterward, we had lunch and went parapenting! It was an absolute blast! To parapente, basically you take a big parachute, attach yourself to it using this seat sort of thing (and for us, there was a guide attached to us and the chute too), and run as hard as you can to get the air in your chute then get yourself off the cliff (it's extremely difficult).

We were up really high!

The launch pad/runway.

Carla helping me get geared up! It's almost my turn!

My takeoff:

Not so graceful, huh?

Some cool footage & my landing:

We made a sort of vortex motion in the air at the beginning of the footage. BEST ADRENALINE RUSH EVER! (If you listen, you can hear me a little bit.)
My landing wasn't the greatest either, but the whole thing was amazing.
(We were supposed to land running. It's way harder than it seems like it should be.)

There was also a little fête de la musique kind of in honor of us last night. They played some LA folk music (mostly of the zydeco persuasion) and then some folk music known well to Ubaye Valley. Angela sings a little cajun music, so she sang with the group a little, we did some basic two-steps and waltzes, and then we learned the folk dances to some of the music from here. It was really fun and a great experience altogether!

Kim, Carla, Angela, & Jessica dancing.

Angela singing.

Today was a really easy day: just a tour of a really old church in a nearby teeny tiny mountain village followed by lunch, naps, then watching USA win their match against Algeria! Yes!

It's hard to believe that we only have about 2.5 more days in Barcelonnette! That's crazy!
Tomorrow we will be doing some mountain climbing involving cables, harnesses, and carabiners all day followed by a free day Friday for packing then our farewell dinner with all the people we've met here. I'm going to miss it, but I'm also excited to start the next part of my adventures.

PS
I'll give $1 to the first person who can name the movie from which the quote in the title came.
Hint: It's an American movie than has been translated into French, & it's new.
And the winner is: Brian!