C'est Nice

So, whew, what a week! I'll try and do a brief roundup:

• Tuesday, 12-7-05: This is the night before the infamous bust, as outlined in detail in the previous post. While a good majority of the program was out (assumedly at a bar... most likely CheckPoint), a couple dozen students who stayed in helped us out with our Trashbag Fashion Show. Yours truly was a designer, helping to create these two stunning fashions, modeled by Anne and Meaghan. There were several other models, pictured to the right. Oh... the last moments of having only mild suspicions of wrongdoing, and not blatant evidence....
• Wednesday we've talked about at great length.
• Thursday, Bastille Day! Everything was closed, so I did a lot of hanging out at the Lycée. Most of the senior staff was busy making phone calls all day to parents back in the states, the time difference making many of those parents irritable before accusations were made about their child. Although most of the parents were unhappy towards their kid, and understood where the program was coming from, there were a few that demanded evidence of their child's wrongdoing, including, but not limited to, asking if we had administered a breathalyzer test. Yikes.
• Fortunately, by 20h or so, all the calls were done, and the Lycée emptied out so that people could head down to the waterfront to watch the Fireworks. I've seen many-a-firework show in my day, and this was a pretty good one. It had been a while since I'd been so close to the fireworks, and I feel, to a certain extent, that, like a Rothko painting, proximity increases the fullness of the experience. Even the expectation, usually based around an appointed time in the states, was increased here by the bustling Promenade, the way the ship towing the firework barge slunk into the harbor silently; how, at 21h58 exactly, the bright white lights that line the beach from the Port to the Airport shut off in unison; and then, how each volley of fireworks used more and more sky, until all you could see, looking up, was colorful light. Okay, okay, I know I'm waxing a bit more than necessary. Besides, the night had little of the idyllic air one might expect: I was at the display with Meaghan, Sabina and Suzanne, and the four of us were on Town Duty--originally meant to be a lookout/outpost for students who went otu at night, the position has since morphed into outright policing of bars and such--so, before the fireworks, we had spent forty-five minutes ducking in and out of bars, scanning the beaches for students with Heinekens in their hands, etc. etc. Not that we wanted to catch anyone, really; the night before had been so long and, quite frankly, hellish, that none of us wanted any reason to be in anymore bureaucratic quagmires. Granted, if we saw someone who was stupid enough to drink the day after half the program got caught drinking, I'd definitely want him or her packed away ASAP, but still. Back to the firework display: I just wanted to mention that they had these really cool fireworks that they launched onto the water, and exploded upon contact... I tried to get a good picture of them, this is the best it came out.
• Okay, this didn't happen on Friday, but I can't seem to remember when it did... I guess it must have been before the whole to-do. Anyway, this bullet and the next are from a different day. I took a group of kids to the Palais Lascaris, a mansion in the middle of Old Nice. It was very nice, very, very French. They had an exhibit there on figurines of St. Anne, the guide/teacher, with hundreds of different statuettes. I felt like I was in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, trying to figure out which one might belong to Jesus (yes, yes, I know Jesus wouldn't have had a statuette of St. Anne...). Anyway, it was nice.
• After the Palais, Meaghan, Suzanne and I strolled through the brocantes (flea market) in the Cours Saleya. Besides finding a pair of glasses that are obviously the height of fashion (see picture) I picked up a pretty classy deck of French Cards (you know, with Roi, Dame and Valet instead of King, Queen and Jack). It was beaucoup de fun.
• Friday Night definitely did see both a hardcore volleyball match and a Casino Night, wherein I was a Texas Hold'Em dealer. No pictures, though. Sorry.
• Saturday we had an excursion into the mountains to see the town of Vence, home to the Matisse Chapel, and St. Paul-de-Vence, a very perched village, with one of the best maintained town walls in France. The chapel was beautiful; the art teacher for the program gave us a very interesting talk about it. For instance, none of the paintings in the chapel have faces, inviting the viewer to attatch a visage of their own choosing to the figure. The stone used for the altar was chosen specifically because it looked like bread, and the three-colored stained glass windows (representing the Trinity, with a whole bunch of other triplets) give a purple glow when the sun shines through them, a whole color-where-there-was-none effect. They didn't allow pictures to be taken in the chapel itself (blah-blah, rabiditah), but I did snag a few of the outside, which, while not quite as impressive as inside, is very beautiful. The picture on the left here, of the painting above the door, shows St. Dominic on on the left (the chapel belongs to an order of Dominican Nuns) and Mary and Baby Jesus on the right. Now that's something that will make you want to get spiritual.
• The town of Vence was nice, but not really all that remarkable. There is an interesting--but tiny--mosaic by Marc Chagall in the cathedral there, of Moses being found in the reeds by Pharoah's daughter, but there wasn't enough light in the Cathedral for me to take a picture.
• On the trip, we passed a piano made out of shrubbery. I didn't get a chance to try and play it.
• St. Paul de Vence was lovely, its tiny, cobbled, winding streets packed with all sorts of Atelier's and galleries and knick-knack shops. Here are a bunch of photos:

I hope everyone appreciates the shag carpet we met walking down the street in that last picture on the right.

Okay, so, despite my best efforts, I didn't get through the weekend. Pllbbbffft. Well, it'll leave me something to write tomorrow in case I have a super-boring day today.

I'd also like to give a shout-out to my pops, whose in the hospital with a basketball injury back in New York. Heal quick! Don't go nuts!

Chahles.