EuroTrip Day 7-9: Nice and Monaco

May 3
After spending a day in Lyon, I headed to Nice - my most anticipated stop. I took the train in from Lyon to Nice and it was a good few hours in transit.

I arrived in Nice in the early afternoon and took the "scenic route" to the hostel. By "scenic", obviously I mean I didn't know which way I was going, hahaha. The hostel I stayed at was called "Hotel and Hostel Paradis" and it was in a fantastic location. Situated on rue du Paradis, it was right between a Louis Vuitton and Sofia Rykiel store.

I was told there were 2 other people in my 5 person mixed room when I arrived, but they weren't there when I settled in. I went out to explore and to find a place to eat. I never found a great little place that I wanted to eat at, so I wandered back to the hostel. By then, the 2 guys were in the hostel, they turned out to be an Aussie (Steve) and a Kiwi (Ryan). They were heading out to the liquor store, where we picked up some 6 packs to have back at the hostel. After that, we went (myself slightly intoxicated from not eating all day..) to return their rental bikes. First time riding on the back of a bike like that, especially at the level of intoxication I was at.

After grabbing some food, we went back to the hostel to await the last 2 people in our hostel. We had running bets about who would be there, but none of us won. We ended up with 2 Canadian (from Alberta too!) girls - Marli and Gina - filling up the room, and we went to the Blue Whale for drinks and pool.

The night ended basically at morning (4am) when the Aussie and I took a cab back to the hostel (it was raining). After sleeping for probably the bare minimum hours, I got up around 8 to get myself a nice breakfast - of a beautifully delicious croissant.

May 4
Ryan left on this day, on to bigger and better things in Antibes. This left Marli, Gina, Steve and me.

Marli and Gina wanted to go shopping and I didn't tag along, leaving me the whole day to do nothing. Steve wasn't doing much of anything either so we stuck together for the day. First mission? Finding food. We set out only to be met with super crappy weather. It seemed like it was raining, but it wasn't really. It was the water coming from the sea basically blasting in our faces. There was no rain or wind, yet the waves that crashed up over the wall and onto the streets was incredible. Photo op!

The photo shows us standing on the boardwalk. The railings mark the end of the road, and about a 10-15 foot drop of a concrete wall to the beachfront (really, just a bunch of rocks for the beach). As you can imagine, the waves are getting pretty strong and high up. And this is only the beginning. I stopped taking photos because the waves were too difficult to catch in action, and switched to video footage. This was about 30 minutes after arrival on the boardwalk, when so far only the boardwalk was being shut down. Steve and I were there for around 2 hours catching video and photos, and in that time period the boardwalk and 2 streets up were shut down by police.

Having enough of getting sprayed with salt water without even being 50 feet from the water, we opted to (finally) get food. Stopping in at the Irish pub around the corner, I finally got the frites I was craving all day, and we shared good conversation.

Back at the hostel, we met up with Marli and Gina again, where they went out with Steve. With them gone, I had the room to myself, and free reign of the Mac, where I caught up with people from home. Finally, about to pass out, I decided I should go to sleep, when everyone came piling back on in.

May 5
It still looked to be a golomy day, but it was my last chance to go to Monaco. The girls were leaving today, so I said my last goodbyes and exchanged emails/fb before heading off. I took the mid-morning train to Monaco, where along the way the skies lightened. By the time I made it to Monaco, it was clear blue and sunny. Perfect for beautiful photos of the Riviera.

The Monaco Grand Prix was being set up when I was there, so I got to walk around the grandstands and be where the "action" would be the following week. Too bad for the lack of beautiful celebrities, and people in general. It was quiet, but it made it good for taking all the photos I wanted. It sucks that the stands were set up though, really blocking out a good portion of the bay and obstructing the view.

I made it back to Nice in the afternoon where Steve was still in the room. He had met the girl in the room next door, and found out she's Canadian too (we were apparently an infestation). We chatted with her for a bit and she told us where she *thought* the laundromat was so Steve and I headed out to find it.

That was NOT where the laundromat was....

We eventually DID find it, after an entire afternoon adventure of scavenging for it. When we finally broke down to ask some shop keepers, they told us they didn't know of a laundromat. Turns out, it was 2 shops down from them, so I'm under the assumption that they didn't know what a laundromat was, or what I was asking. Nonetheless, we got Steve's clothes all cleaned up and did a bit of shopping too. We got gelato (drooooooollllll.............) and went back to the room. The early evening was spent inside, chatting with the girl from the other room and goofing around on youtube. Eventually she left, then we split a bottle of wine and talked more. All good things do come to an end though, as I was tired as heck and needed to be up in the morning to catch the train.