highlights of living in france so far:

1. day trips to surrounding cities. so far i’ve only been to monaco but there are so many quaint cities just a bus ride away. i’m going to the alps this weekend for a church retreat and i’m planning on going to cannes with a friend in a few weeks.

2. walking everywhere! since nice is pretty compact, i can walk almost anywhere within 20 minutes. though i do have blisters to show for it, i love walking here and admiring the beautiful people and architecture.

3. homework at fnac and emilie’s cookies.

4. eating in the old town with friends. even though old nice is the more touresty part of town, there are a lot of great places with traditional nicoise food. and i also found socca, which is my new favorite thing to eat and its usually only a few euros!

5. classes alliance français. the highlight of my day everyday is going to class. my teacher is hilarious and quirky, the class is challenging but not so much so that i’m lost and the students are all so much fun to get to know. we are all from different parts of the world which makes it extra interesting. my class partner is from sweden but he has lived in ireland most his life, one of my friends in the class is from iceland and loves sigur ros too and i think the girl who sits next to me was a russian mail order bride! other students in my class are from australia, saudi arabia, brazil, china, thailand, africa and a few other countries around the world. we joke that we have every continent represented.

6. getting settled in. nice is finally starting to feel like home. my room feels really homey and i’ve been making quite a few really nice friends from school and church.

so excited to see what the rest of this year brings because if its anything like these past couple weeks, it will be by far the best year of my life