"J'aime la vie"

This past Thursday, we helped our dear friend Lana celebrate her 21st birthday! We made a reservation for 13 at an Italian restaurant called "Le Bellagio" and had a big pasta dinner, paid for partially by Lana's incredibly generous parents. Then, the Cabanon girls and I brought the party back to our cabanon (which was TOTALLY cool with our landlady) and we surprised her with amazing white dessert wine, candles, and a raspberry vanilla mousse cake from Paul, a very popular French patisserie. After having spent the last few days running around the town, cleaning our apartments, unpacking and organizing, running errands and trying to situate ourselves here, it was really really nice to be able to host people for the first time in our humble abode and entertain our friends.
But the BIG kahuna of breathtaking experiences was definitely something that happened today. Monsieur Lydgate and Melanie rented a van and took us to swim in the Mediterranean Sea. YES. THE FREAKING MEDITERRANEAN SEA. The drive to the shore was about 30 minutes long and very very picturesque. We could see the ocean to our right in the midst of fog and pale gray skies. But no one could predict what we would see as we turned around the corner of one of the cliff faces. There was a collective deep breath in the van as the blue-green waters of the sea appeared in front of us, and it seemed all of a sudden that all of the colors we were seeing were suddenly more brilliant. We parked in a small lot from which we could look over the little harbor below us and see far out into the horizon. After taking an obscene number of pictures, we began our descent down a winding road that cut down the side of the steep hill towards the water. There wasn't really a beach. Take note, the Southern French shore doesn't really have sandy beaches. They're mostly rock formations and shells. And so, we put our stuff down on a stone dock, lay out our towels, and after Monsieur Lydgate and Melanie got in, Claire and I held hands and jumped into the water. Eventually, everyone got in although some did the dip-your-toes-in-shit-it's-freezing thing :)
Here are some wonderful photos of myself and my lovely lovely friends messing around in the water:

During our experience in France so far, we've spent so much time and energy trying to acclimate ourselves, so I've found that I often end up unintentionally skipping over moments to be amazed and just sit for a moment to appreciate what I have been so lucky to have had the chance to experience. But this was one of those times when I could just sit, look out across the water, look down at the bottom of the ocean floor and take a moment to be impressed.

P.S. The title of this entry is a quote from Jacqueline Klapak (in the picture with me above in the water). It was completely quiet in the van on the way back because people were thinking, sleeping, daydreaming, still thinking about how beautiful it was when she suddenly just shouted "J'aime la vie" and everyone in the car couldn't help but just smile and agree. Translation: "I love life".