Bonjour Nice et Monaco!

So on the eve of my 21st birthday, my roommates and I went to our favorite restaurant around the block from our appartement. The restaurant owner who is always there (in Italy, if you own a restaurant, the restaurant owns your life) has become our neighborhood friend. He gave us tons of free food and free drinks for the special night. We then looked up train ticket prices and decided to go to the south of France which is only a wonderful 27 euro for a five hour train ride. Not bad at all. We packed that evening, slept only a couple hours, then woke up early to get to Stazione Centrale. The ride there was great--we watched the Mediterranean out of the window. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and the air was clean and fresh along the Italian coastline in the province of Liguria--a drastic contrast from muggy, polluted, congested Milano.

Once in Nice, or Nizza as the Italians call it, I felt so much more at home in regard to language. Since I've taken five or so years of French, I felt more confident navigating the city since I could actually read the signs and communicate more effectively. Even though we were only in France three days, I felt as if my French language skills got better in that short mount of time, and I was able to recall words that I haven't used in a really long time (it's been 2 or 3 years since I've taken French).

Nice is a beautiful city! It felt so much more quaint and friendly than Milano and the people seemed more casual in this touristy beach town. We stayed at an awesome little hostel where we made friends with our hostel roommates. There was Sarah who was a 27 year old elementary school teacher from Switzerland who was on break and traveling teh Cote D'Azur, South of France, by herself. There was also Salpin, a 34 year old from Hamburg Germany, though she is Turkish by heritage. Salpin ended hanging out with us in the city of Nice and in Monaco for the weekend and she was tons of fun to have along. She too was on vacation and traveling by herself and we had lots of great discussions with her. We talked about everything from European and American politics to veganism and vegetarianism (she herself is vegan). One night we went to an organic gorchery store, bought some pasta, sauce, bread and vegetables and brought it all back to the hostel and cooked ourselves a meal in the hostel kitchen. I loved the kitchen at the hostel! There were so many people, both young and old, cooking and sharing meals together and all sharing leftovers and talking in different languages. We also met Claudia at breakfast one morning--a young Brazilian girl who has spent the last couple of years living in Ireland and now she is moving to Dubai. She's moving to Dubai to learn Arabic and to overcome any stereotypes she holds, or so she told us. She was extremely kind and I admired all of these women we met while in France who are living independently, traveling alone just because they want to. There was something so free-spirited about these women and there were things I greatly admired in all of them and learned from their lives. So basically, I really live the vibes that hostels have goin' on!

While in Nice, we climbed to the top of this hill where there was a park with a waterfall, some ruins, playgrounds, a Jewish cemetary, and breathtaking views of the city and sea from all angles. That day we also hung out at the beach (despite the fact that we were inappropriately dressed and not wearing beach attire of any sort) and relaxed as we watched the gentle waves of the bluest water I've ever seen. We wandered some of the city streets, ate delicious French crepes with nutella, and looked at some cool street art and used books in an outdoor market. Later on that evening, we went to this place called Le Six. We spotted this place during the day, and there was a sign saying it was a musical pub so we thought we'd check it out. Well as it turns out, Le Six is not so much a musical pub or piano bar as we were expected, rather it was a very contemporary erotic gay bar. Oops. So we left and walked along the seaside where there was some live music playing. There were these really old drunk guys dancing like maniacs to the music and my roommates Tara danced with them as we watched and laughed heartily. By then we were very tired, went back to the hostel and crashed. The next day we had breakfast then took a very crowded bus ride with beautiful views of teh coastline to the Kingdom of Monaco. Monaco is technically under its own juristiction, it's not a part of France and it has its own ruling Monarchy. So we visited the famous Palace on the hilltop with more incredible views of the sea from this little park and botanical garden. Later we grabbed some lunch accross from the docks where all the multi-million dollar yachts are parked, then went to the train station and rode home. The train ride was pretty legit (we had our own box all to ourselves where we could fold the seats down into beds and close the curtains).

Overall my time in France was very relaxing and refreshing--we didn't want to come back to Milano and go to class the next day. Next week I'm going to Prague which is exciting--it's one of the places in Europe that I'm actually most excited to explore. Even though I'm just about flat broke, I feel so incredibly blessed to have these opportunities to travel!

c'est la vie!

ciao!