We're back from Corsica.

Darin and I just got back from our belated honeymoon to Corsica. We spent 13 days on this most beautiful island. It was absolutely lovely. We had delicious food, great wine, saw fantastic sights, and relaxed on gorgeous beaches. We took a small cruise ship with Corsica Ferries to/from the island. My first time on a ship. We lucked out on the weather...mostly sunny and warm. We took our little Renault Clio with us so we could do a tour of the entire island. We hiked in the mountains, enjoyed the beaches, snorkeled, and admired the yachts/massive sailboats sailing around the Med. Sea.

Both of us got stung by jellyfish. The Med. is full of them! One day we go to a beach on an island where one must walk through the sea (in shallowish waters) for about 300 meters to get over to the island. We walk over to the island...no problem. I decide to snorkel and once I dip my head in, I see these pretty purple things floating near by. I stare for a moment and soon realize their jellyfish so I turn around and run back to the shore screaming to Darin not to go in. Then I learn what the word for "jellyfish" is in french...une meduse. This knowledge is very helpful to me later in the day. As the sun starts to set, we decide to go back to the hotel, so we start walking back through the waters thinking we are on the shallow path that we took initially to get over to the island. Darin's carrying our backpack over his head and soon enough we find ourselves in deep waters and start to tread, trying not to get the backpack wet or drown. We're also following 2 other couples who we thought were on the right path. Soon, one of the girls points out a jellyfish (une meduse) and then another one and another one, etc. Darin's not really with the group as he's busy searching for the path. At this point, I'm treading around these other couples and trying to get Darin to come over because I have no idea what they're saying and am starting to get scared. Next, we find out that there is a huge path of jellyfish that we would need to cross through in order to get back to the shore. Soon, one of the individuals tells everyone to turn around and go back and hopefully we can find someone with a boat that will take us over the wall of jellyfish and back to shore. As we're turning around, I get stung and freak out a little because I have no idea what to do now that I'm stung. After remembering an episode of "Friends", I ask if Darin he will pee on my sting. He looks at me like I'm crazy and says, "Emily, we're immersed in water with only our head's sticking out...how the heck will I be able to accomplish that?! Plus I don't need to pee." OK, OK...fine. I'll live with the sting. We did find a nice Italian who took us back to shore. At every beach after that, we would spot at least one jellyfish and I soon decided to stay out of the waters. Darin...not so much. At our last destination, we goes into the water and soon walks out with a massive sting. It looked as if he tried to befriend the jellyfish by putting his arm around it, but the jellyfish would have none of that.

Most of the tourists were Europeans. We did meet a young family from Atlanta and briefly chatted with a woman from New York. During one of our dinners in Calvi, Darin spotted a group of people drinking at a bar. One of the guys had a baseball hat on backwards and D instantly pinpointed the group as Americans. His observation was confirmed once we heard them speak English with American accents. Only someone from the USA would wear a baseball hat like that.

I know that Corsicans are not thrilled to be a part of France and luckily we didn't observe any of the anti-France violence one might see on the news. I did notice the hatred on the street signs. All the signs are in French and Corsican languages. From time to time, I would see signs where the French words were crossed out. That'll show 'em who's the boss.