Last days in St. Laurent du Var

Our last 5 days in St. Laurent du Var were busy as usual! I didn't have much time to blog, so now that I'm home (more on that later :( ) I'll summarize what we did. Although Antibes was beautiful, the weather was not. When we got there there was a storm approaching and we couldn't go to the beach! We went to the Musée Picasso in hopes that it would rain while we were inside, but it didn't yet. The museum was great anyway, there were lots of interesting works by other artists as well as Picasso. After the museum we had about 3 hours of free time to wander around Antibes and explore. It started to rain lightly during the last half hour so most of us hung out under the huge tent covering several cafés and artists selling their work. So instead of using our towels for the beach, we used them to cover ourselves while we ran to the train station in a full on downpour! It was a pretty funny experience looking back, but we were all pretty embarrassed when we got on the train soaking wet and panting. The next day it was back to great weather and we were off to St. Tropez in maxi dresses or skirts (it was maxi-dress Monday). To get there, we first took a bus to St. Maxime and from there a boat to St. Tropez because the traffic to get into the city is crazy! The boat was fun and as soon as we got to St. Tropez we were released for free time! I went to a restaurant with 4 friends and then we looked into some boutiques (which were very expensive but really nice) while walking around. After free time we went back to St. Maxime for some beach time and a great French dinner at a brasserie. For the next couple of days we prepared for the talent show we were putting on for our host families! There was singing, dancing, and slideshows. Fallon and I compiled a slideshow of the photography classes best photos for the show. It was also a potluck, so we made some pastries and a tomato tart with our homestay mom. All the food that the families brought was very good! On Friday we went to a Claude François tribute concert at the mairie which was silly but also fun. Saturday was our last full day with the group! We were in Nice for almost the whole day. We went as a group to the Musée Chagall, which was absolutely amazing. There were 12 of his Bible paintings which were very interesting, and a lot of his other work as well. There were also some Kandinsky and Picasso works there that I enjoyed. After that we had free time until 4:30 to do last minute shopping and appreciate the Mediterranean for the last time in a while. When we arrived back to St. Laurent we had about an hour and a half to shower and get ready for our last group dinner and the restaurant we all ate at together the 2nd or 3rd night. We had an awesome meal together and did some karaoke afterwards, although we were more trying to enjoy our last moments all together. Sunday was our last homestay family day and our homestay mom Delphine took us to her sister's house to have lunch with her family and parents. We had a nice, long typical French meal together outside. Since her sister lives in a gated community, Delphine suggested going to the pool and we swam around and laid out (it was an extremely hot day) with her, Alma, and her sister and husband for an hour or two. Afterwards, Delphine and her sister took us to Grasse which is the perfume capitol of France. We went into both Molinard and Fragonard (again!), walked around the old village, and saw the beautiful view from the city. We went back home in St. Laurent for dinner and spent a last night with Delphine and Alma (Alex was on a shift), and had to finish packing! The next morning the whole family drove us to the airport at 11:30 and after a long check-in, we had a tearful goodbye with our family and our friends who were going on the Paris extension. It's still strange being home but I'll write about that in about 2 weeks when I have a better perspective on everything. Here are some photos of our last days in the meantime!

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