Monday, March 22, 2010

Parle-vous francais?

For the second part of spring break, Anna and I are spending 7 nights in Nice. The idea being that we set up home base at a hostel and travel by train, bus, tram, etc. around the south of France.  So we got into Nice last night around 8:30.  We then took a bus to Terminal 2 where we then took a bus to the middle of town, where we then found a payphone to call the hostel to send the free shuttle that then picked us up and brought us to our final destination, the St. Exupery Hostel.  This hostel is pretty amazing.  It's got a huge common room with a bar, flat screen computers, and a very nice kitchen.  It's a converted monestary.  Not only is it huge but the place is packed with young people from all over.  It's been nice because most speak English which is convenient considering the rest of the country doesn't.  We settled in and met some very nice girls from Texas who live in the same room as us.  It was late at this point so we just settled in.

Today, we got up and tried to decide on a plan.  It was supposed to rain all day so we couldn't quite decide what to do.  Anna and I decided to explore Nice a bit, but we ran into our Texas roommates who (per suggestion by some guy at a hostel) were going to walk around a peninsula nearby.  This sounded like fun and we joined them.  The views were spectacular.  But what was expected to be a 2 hour walk became a 5 hour hike.  It was totally worth it.  We walked right along the coast for miles and miles.  We walked up and down countless hills.  I don't know that I've ever seen anything so beautful.  Stunning.  Pictures to be posted soon although pictures just don't do it justice.  We completely skipped lunch do to the fact that the walk was longer than expected and so around 4 pm we were famished.  We finally found some place to eat and grabbed a bite.  At this point we had been walking around in the rain for a long time and Anna and I decided to head back towards home.  We hopped a bus to the tram station, took a tram into town, and stopped to pick up some groceries for the week.  We get a free breakfast at the hostel and are going to steal bread to make sandwichs for lunches which will majorly help our student sized budgets.  We came back to hang out, I blogged about Belgium, and we settled down in the common room.  We met an Australian and a British guy who made for interesting conversation and just hung out for the rest of the night. 

Oh! And coincidences of coincidencees my roommate in London is staying in the same hostel with another friend from my program.  She didn't book anything til the last minute so we had no idea we were staying in the same place.  It was good to see her and we will probably go out together tomorrow night.  Now, it's off to bed.  Tomorrow there's a transportation strike and so it will be nearl impossible to get around at all.  We wanted to go to Eves and Monacco but that might have to be pushed back.  We think we might go to the Matisse Museum and continue to explore Nice within walking distance.  We'll see what the day brings.

Bonsoir mon amies. 

1 comment:

  1. are going to steal bread

    Don't they throw you in prison in France for that?

    ;-)

    ReplyDelete