Nadia (American), Fang (Chinese), Maria (Slovak), her boyfriend Guillaume (French), and I recently took a trip to Menton, a small city closer to the Italian border, where each March they have a famous Citrus Festival. First, there was a parade, kind of like the Rose Parade, except the floats were made of oranges and lemons. Here are some highlights:
 |
| Dancers from French Polynesia (they froze their asses off) |
 |
| Reject from The Beauty and the Beast on Ice? |
Here are some of the inflatable clowns that would come over and bonk you on the head if they didn't like you. Fang got hit as we were leaving, but she made the mistake of looking at them.
Here are some of the floats:
After the parade, we went to this park where they have an exhibit set up of huge displays they build with the fruit. This years theme was Human Civilizations:
 |
| Here's a close up of how it works. |
According to Guillaume, at the end of the festival, they tear all the fruit down and have a food fight with it (this info is unconfirmed). When I said, What if the fruit is rotten? he said, "You want them to be rotten so they hurt less." He swears people have to be brought to the hospital during these things.
Of course we could not complete our trip without imbibing some Gran Marnier coffees at the official Gran Marnier café at the end of the park, ha ha!
Unfortunately, it's pretty gross. But the crêpes they make with the liqueur are awesome. Luckily, my friend Vard and her fiancé had already gone and gave me the heads up.
Also, before I forget, we also went to the orchid exhibit they were holding across the street in a hotel. They probably had more vendor booths there selling knick-knacks, candles, memorabilia, and other crap than flowers, but it was fun to kill time. Nadia and I tried some orange wines, which were gross, and I bought a beautiful bottle of Limoncello (the most amazing alcohol ever), which was gone in two days.
It was good that we went on some kind of adventure during "spring break" because now school is over and very few of us remain in Nice. In my next blog I'll talk about how Carnaval and the end of school, but then it's time for my summer internship!
Peace!
