http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/NikiLecander/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from NikiLecander en-us Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:48:48 +0000 Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:48:48 +0000 I met Dad in Barcelona to begin our adventure in Spain and Morocco. We were both really tired so after resting we visited the Sagrada Familia and then had some dinner at a small local restaurant. We had to leave pretty early the next day for Madrid so it was a short stay but we saw quite a bit of Barcelona just by walking around that night. We saw La Rambla and all the street vendors there. They e http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Morocco/Marrakech-Tensift-El-Haouz/Marrakech/blog-299230.html I left Cannes at the end of May and met up with Morgan and her friend Brittany in Munich. I took the night train and it was a pretty long trip but everything went well and I arrived in Munich right on time. Munich was one of my favorite towns We went on a pub crawl and saw several different beer gardens where beer was sold by the liter The next day we visited some castles in the German countrysi http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-297711.html The end has come of my time in Cannes. I packed today and I will leave tomorrow night. It's been a great trip I've met a lot of cool people and been able to visit a lot of places The film festival was a really cool experience. I saw a total of eight movies. They were all very different and honestly I would only see a couple of them a second time. My favorite was La Silence de Lorna which was http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Provence-Alpes-C-te-d-Azur/Cannes/blog-281508.html I had a number of visitors the other weekend It was the very beginning of May and first Grammy and Papa stopped by during a cruise they were taking around the Mediterannean. That was really nice to see them I walked down the the port where they were tendered in and found them without a problem. It took awhile for them to be tendered in but the weather was nice so I didn't mind waiting. We ate b http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Provence-Alpes-C-te-d-Azur/Cannes/blog-277214.html The 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival began last Wednesday. It's been really interesting how much the city has changed in the last few weeks Within two weeks many restaurants had put up additions that pretty much doubled their size. It definitely is turning into tourism season too It had been getting busier and busier down by the palace where the festival takes place and now it's crazy Wednesday http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Provence-Alpes-C-te-d-Azur/Cannes/blog-277198.html Last weekend a couple of friends and I took a trip to Geneva Switzerland. It was a nice short trip It only took about an hour to get there on the plane and we were there from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. Geneva is the part of Switzerland that speaks French so we felt at home there one of the girls speaks French quite well so I didn't have to worry too much. Friday night we went out for som http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/South-West/Geneva/blog-267777.html While we were in Cork Ireland we took a daytrip to a wildlife park that we had read about randomly in an atlas. My friend Kate and I thought it looked like a really cool place the other girls weren't interested but they dropped us off on their way to a different tourist destination. The park was amazing The moment we entered we could see giraffes and they had a huge field and even though there http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Cork/Cork/blog-265042.html I spent a day of my spring in London and the rest in Ireland Since Mom was here during the beginning of spring break I had to catch up with friends who were already in Ireland at the time. My flight went through London to get to Ireland so I decided to spend a day there just to see what it's like I got to my hostel just fine and then walked around the neighborhood a bit. I saw some typical Engl http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-264710.html Mom came to visit a couple weeks ago I was so excited I had been looking forward to her visit since I arrived in France She got here Easter Sunday and I picked her up at the airport from there we walked to the train station and got to Cannes fine then we walked to my college. I thought the walk was shorter than it actually was since I've done it so much I guess I'm used to it but it turned ou http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/blog-264464.html A couple weeks ago my school offered excursions to both Ile St. Marguerite and to Cassis. Ile St. Marguerite is an island right off the coast of Cannes. We took a ferry that only took about twenty minutes so it's really close. The island has a maritime museum where we learned about the history of the region. It was also a prison for a time and the man in the iron mask was imprisoned there No one http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/blog-264091.html This last weekend my friend Diana and I met up in Amsterdam She is studying abroad in Florence and was on her spring break and wanted to meet up in a random city so we decided on Amsterdam. I took a couple days off school the other Americans were gone the same days anyway on a trip to Paris and got there around noon on Thursday. This was my first trip ever where I had to be responsible for fin http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Netherlands/North-Holland/Amsterdam/blog-257435.html This last weekend I visited Morgan in Barcelona It was amazing I got into Barcelona late Friday night around 11 but there was still plenty of time to go out Barcelona is a huge party city appartently bars dont close until like six or so and people stay up until five so they can take the metro again when it reopens in the morning I was pretty tired though so we didnt make it til five only fou http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Catalonia/Barcelona/blog-255188.html A couple friends and I went skiing on Saturday It was great We woke up early and got on a bus that took us to the resort called Isola 2000. The ride took two and a half hours which wasnt bad but it was kinda scary We were never really on a highway but were on very curvy mountain roads with a ton of switchbacks. I was a little nervous because there werent too many guard rails or anything plus a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Provence-Alpes-C-te-d-Azur/blog-252386.html The Carnaval de Nice is all week and we went on Sunday to one of the parades. It was really cool kids were shooting silly string and there was confetti all over the place The floats were amazing too they were all decked out and the costumes people of the float wore fit perfectly with the theme. I liked the theme a lot it was cats rats and bats. Each float followed the theme some way and ther http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Provence-Alpes-C-te-d-Azur/Nice/blog-248018.html The college had an excursion to Monaco on Saturday It was very nice It took only an hour and a half or so to get there by bus so its pretty close First we stopped at the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino we didnt go in but it was cool just to look at everything is really clean and nice and there were a lot of expensive stores around. i guess the police are also really strict because we had to hur http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Monaco/Monte-Carlo/blog-248012.html This is what the school is like There are some things that are pretty different than schools in the US but some are similar. My room is a pretty good size its really narrow but long and it has lots of storage space when i first saw it i didnt know if the closet would hold all my stuff but it does with room leftover there is a sink in our room which ive never had before but its pretty nice to http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Provence-Alpes-C-te-d-Azur/Cannes/blog-248010.html We went to AixenProvence last Saturday it took a couple hours to get there by bus but it was really interesting and very pretty First we walked around the city and were shown the important tourist destinations. This excursion was hard for me because everything was explained in French so I picked up on it a little bit but I was the only American with some Swiss students and a lot of Japanese s http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Provence-Alpes-C-te-d-Azur/Aix-en-Provence/blog-245960.html International Collge de Cannes took us on our first excursion to Grasse where we visted a parfumerie. The city of Grasse is only about half an hour away so it was a nice day trip. First we stopped by where the plants are grown that are later turned into perfurme. Our guide showed us a bunch of plants a lot of them were brown since its February but they still smelled good and strong Later we wen http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Provence-Alpes-C-te-d-Azur/Grasse/blog-245952.html Here are some pictures of Cannes I wasnt expecting to be living in a place with palm trees The weather has been great here so far It rained real hard one day a week ago but otherwise it has been in the 60s I still need a jacket but I wont complain My project director took us out to dinner the second night here and showed us around the city. She showed us La Suce which is the oldest buildin http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Provence-Alpes-C-te-d-Azur/Cannes/blog-245927.html