Late Entry #1 - Grasse

Late Entry! From my iPod I wasn't able to post things onto here. It was strange and frustrating but not to worry, I saved them!

28 April 2010

What a fantastic day we had yesterday!! We took an earlyish train to Grasse from Nice, about an hour west. We splurged for a cab to take us right to the centre ville (town centre). We went to the first perfumerie (Grimald) and decided to go all out and create our very own scent. That wasn't until 1400 so we walked to another perfumerie called Fragonard. Gorgeous little place with a jardin beside it that had lots of the flowers used. We filmed a little tour through it, I'm sure you'll enjoy that. I found my favourite scent!! It's a plant called faux curry and smells like your memory of the best day ever. It's hypnotizing.

So had McDonald's for lunch, classy, and headed back to Grimald for our Creation! Am I ever glad Jillian convinced me to do that!! It Is the highlight so far!! SO MUCH FUN!!! We were like chemists. We started out by choosing our two fave scents from 9 choices. Then we had to choose 3 out of 6 scents for the body (illustrated by a skirt on the bottle) and then so on for the heart (a shirt with mega-cleavage, haha) and then the top notes (a face. We were so amused by these pictures). So we kept mixing these things into a graduated cylinder and smelling as we went and saw our perfume come to life. We were supervised by the perfumeriers (I made that word up) in lab coats. At one point I had chosen two sweet scents and the lady said, "I don't want you to smell like a... How you say... Bon-Bon?" haha. So cute! I thought she was going to say hooker or something, but I'm very glad that I changed it to not smell like candy.

And then! The naming of our creation. Now picking smells you like out of hundreds of choices was hard. But naming this beast!? That was the real challenge. Jill named hers Za (apparently she says it all the time but I've never once heard it) and i named mine LaFleur after our dear friend on the plane. I don't know if I've told that story yet.. If not, there is no chance it will be forgotten, this trip has been dubbed: LaFleur Does France: Back To His Roots. Haha. Oh LaFleur...

So Grasse was awesome!! And it's pronounced grass, not grassie or DeGrassi Juniour High. What a memory.

Now here we are in wonderful Marseille! Nothing to report as of yet except we have two really great roommates, a guy from Lyon and a girl from N. Carolina. We talked their ears of after arriving last night, feels like we haven't talked to anyone but each other for weeks!! It's only been three days.. Haha.

Jill's not feeling so hot this morning so we're going to take it easy today and just do some walking around in a bit. I like Marseille already and I'm glad we're staying three nights here.

Love to you all! andie.

Ps. We're just so close.. I cannot lie and say we never thought of zipping down to Barcelona. We were thinking about the logistics yesterday and contemplated it heavily! But we are not going, just going to hang around oh-so-gorgeous Provence. We both say we feel so at home here. It is not a foreign country but a place that has been a part of me forever that I am only now realizing and discovering. I cannot wait to live here in France.