TripJournal Part 2...
1.3.04 (continued)
I'll never forget the first words addressed to me in France. Going through immigration, I was a little nervous because my French is rusty, considering that the last time I really spoke it was in high school (four years ago -- wow). The immigrations officer looked at my passport, then looked at me. He elbowed his co-worker, who was facing the other direction, and they both looked me in the eyes.
"Il est trop grand." He stamped my passport and handed it back. Appropriate.
Mostly thanks to Sarah, we made our way to the information desk, go a map, and figured out how to get into the city from the airport, which was relatively simple. Both Sarah and I were a bit stressed out from the long-ass day of traveling and the seven or eight hours of sitting in the airport, but most of the stress seemed to dissipate during the bus ride, where we rode along the riviera at night, taking in what was really probably the most gorgeous city we stayed in. They really like flashy things in Nice. The architecture is all very gawdy and Mediterranean.
Our hotel was about two blocks away from the bus stop , and very charming:
The concierge spoke perfect English and gave us the key to our room. The room was a bit smaller, but the bed was much more comfortable, and the television had U.S. television shows dubbed over in French, which we both really dug. Sarah Michelle Gellar is a lot hotter with a French voice.
It was somewhat late, but we were starving, so the concierge directed us to Place Massena, which is really the heart of Nice. It's a completely pedestrian district, with a million tiny stores and restaurants galore. However, the restaurant situation presented a problem that haunted us for most of the trip: Sarah's allergic to wheat, which makes finding something to eat really difficult. We were okay with the Indian food in London because the wheat free options are plentiful, but the thing about Nice is that since it's on the Riviera and so close to Italy, Italian food abounds to the point of ridiculousity. Seriously, pretty much EVERY restaurant was an Italian restaurant. We walked nearly a mile down Place Massena and gave up, settling on Taverne Massena, an Italian place where everyone speaks French, but the decor is indisputably German. Identity crisis anyone?
I had my first taste of non-veganism for quite a bit, eating Massena's eggplant parmigiana. Holy shit, literally the best food I'd had in months. Sarah had fried codfish, which came with a side of fried eggplant that was to die for. We walked in somewhat irritated that we'd had to settle, but left stuffed and happy from the fantastic meal. Wanting to get some sleep and get adjusted to the time difference, we drank beers afterward and popped a couple klonopin before going to sleep.
1.4.04
Sarah woke up before me and went out to get coffee and call her parents. When she came back, we showered and headed out to the city to look for a restaurant. However, it being Sunday, there were very few restaurants open, even at 1pm. We decided to instead head to the beach for awhile and go restaurant searching when it was a little bit later. This turned out to be the best idea EVER. Even though it was January, the beach was relatively temperate, about 55 degrees or so, and I was even able to sit out there in a t-shirt. The sun was shining on the water, and everything was just really gorgeous. Pardon my indulgences:
As you can see, there's no sand on the beach in Nice, rather, it's all these gorgeous, round stones. We sat on the beachfor a couple hours, just chatting, watching the waves and chatting. While it's far too cold to be swimming, we did see one obese man in bikni bottoms jump into the water and start swimming around, which was rather fantastic.
We ate lunch in the pedestrian district again, at a different Italian restaurant, which was not nearly as good as Taverne Massena. Sarah had seafood salad (?!?!?!!), I had pizza. After lunch, we went back to the hotel for the best nap I've had in a while. We decided to go back to the beach, just because it was so great before, then back to the Taverne for dinner. Stick with what ya know, stick with what ya know. Goat cheese salad is the truth.
We drank a whole lotta beer tonight.
1.5.04
We had another late start today. I stayed in bed until about 2:30, and got up while Sarah stayed asleep. I called my mom to check in and fill her in on the tamer details of the trip thus far. After rousing Sarah, her and I made our way to the antique/flea market, which proved rather disappointing, but it was on one of the most fucking gorgeous streets in the history of ever:
We headed back to the beach just in time to watch the sunset:
Then we had our third and last dinner at Taverne Massena. We shared a bottle of Cristal and had a fabulous time. The staff was starting to recognize (and love) us, so I had to get a photo of them as well.
This was our last night in Nice, and the entire time there, we'd been wanting to go to Monte Carlo because we heard that it was beautiful. So around 8, we decided to suck it up and try and find our way there. The S.N.C.F. train station actually provides trains to MC every half hour on the hour, so we caught the 9pm one. The only problem was that the last train returning to Nice left MC at 11:30, so we'd have very limited time once we got there.
So we made it. But we had no idea what to do, and since the two of us really aren't big gamblers at all, we weren't going to fuck with the casinos there. Instead, we decided rather to see as much of the city we could in the two hours that we had...
When you get off the train and leave the station, you walk out to a street that's at least 20-30 stories above the rest of the city, which makes for a really great view. We didn't realize that there were elevators in the train station to the lower part of the city, so I bought a beer and we walked down, down, down, down, down...here's a shot from the bottom:
I didn't really look at the beer when I was buying it, but it turned out to be vodka flavored. WHO THE FUCK WOULD EVER WANT TO DRINK VODKA FLAVORED BEER? WHAT? Whatever, just one large can got me drunk.
After walking around we settled on the pier for about half an hour before going back to the train.
We were a little bit freaked out because there was a question in the air as to whether the train would go direct to Cannes without stopping in Nice, but it all ended up turning out okay.
Paris is tomorrow. This trip is going really quick.