Day 99: Monday, April 25, 2011

St. Tropez

This morning we woke up and went right to the train station.  We lugged our humongous suitcase onto the train, then took the short ride to St. Raphael.  When we got off, the directions said it was only a three minute walk to our hostel.  Once again, not for us.  Again, the directions began with "head east."  GRRRR, no idea what that means.  And of course, the one street we were supposed to turn on happened to be an unmarked street, so we walked passed it five times!!  We were super nervous about our hostel.  There were virtually no affordable places to stay here, and

This yacht was pulling out right as we were walking up, wouldn't it be nice:)

the one hostel we did find had a 60% rating from its previous visitors.  Not promising.  However, I must say we were pleasantly surprised.  They were in the midst of doing construction, so the place was a mess, but our room wasn't bad at all.  We had a private double, and as far as hostels go, we didn't have much to complain about.  We dropped our stuff and headed back to the train station so we could catch a bus to St. Tropez.  We had heard from multiple people that St. Tropez is a must see city, so we took their word for it.  I had googled it before we left and it was only 12 miles from St. Raphael, so we figured it couldn't take very long to get there.  Wrong.  It took almost two hours!!!  I think we went the most indirect route possible because how anyone can make 12 miles take two hours is beyond me; I was so frustrated.  And I can't say that when we got there, everything started looking up.  Just kidding...kind of!!  Hehe ok, we may be getting spoiled, but we totally didn't see what all the hype about St. Tropez was for!  Yes, it's a beautiful little town on the French Riviera, but not that cool!  There were some awesome yachts lining the port, with artists painting and selling their art along the water, so it was pretty.

Art lining the port in St. Tropez

But other than that, the city didn't have that much to offer.  There were a few small pebble beaches, but nothing spectacularly pretty.  Definitely nothing I would have ever traveled two hours for.  There were hundreds of little stores, but everything was insanely expensive, so we stopped even going in them.  I did find an awesome chicken salad sandwich...highlight of my day. Hehe just kidding!  We kept joking around about how we couldn't wait to get out of the God forsaken city, but we knew we were just being spoiled.  It was beautiful, but just not as pretty as some of the other awesome places we've been two.  And frankly we were just mad that it took us two hours to go 12 miles.  I can almost walk 12 miles in two hours.  After window shopping for a little, we hiked up to the top of this mountain where we got some really pretty views.  The city below was bustling, but there wasn't a soul at the top of the mountain (besides a woman who was breast feeding?), so it was very serene.  We walked around the mountain for a little, we got the entire panoramic view.

We got to the city at 2pm and we ended up taking the 4pm bus ride home.  This one took over two hours, with two guys harassing me and Caitlin the entire time.  There was a man sitting next to us and we kept hoping he would stand up for us and tell them to go away! NOPE!! He just got up himself and moved away because he was tired of hearing them talk to us!! They were so annoying.  When we got off the bus, we explored St. Raphael a little.  There were a bunch of outdoor markets right next to the port so we walked through them for a little.  The goods definitely weren't as cool as they were in Cannes, but I love markets so I still thought it was really fun.  All the goods are always so unique, and this time they were actually affordable!  Afterwards, we went back to the hostel to shower and get ready for dinner.  We ate at this Italian Grill (we realized that France only has Italian restaurants, we were not picking Italian over other options).  We split a pizza and pasta...typical.  After dinner, we walked along the beach for a little, then headed back to the hotel.  We re-watched some episodes of Dexter, because let's face it, Dexter never gets old, then went to sleep :)

Day 98: Sunday, April 24. HAPPY EASTER!

Baguette for breakfast! Yes, I ate the entire thing

Happy Easter!!  Today, Caitlin and I woke up around 9:30 to go to mass.  We stopped and got some breakfast on the way, and when I say breakfast, I mean that I ate an entire baguette.  It’s crazy, I know we’re in France and everything but EVERYONE is ALWAYS eating bread.  Just walking down the street munching on a baguette.  So I decided to jump on that bandwagon because I was definitely struggling.  We got to church a little early, but still had to sit on the upper level behind a massive concrete pillar.  We couldn’t see one thing, not to mention, we obviously couldn’t understand one thing that was said.  So needless to say, I got a lot of thinking done during the sermon.  After church, I needed to embrace the fresh air, so we walked along The Croisette.  The Croisette is pretty much everything that people imagine the high life of Cannes and the French Riviera to be.  There’s the beautiful beach on one side and designer shops and luxury cars on the other side.  The infamous blue chairs line the shoreline where people sit and enjoy their rich, luxurious lives.  We grabbed some ice cream and sat down next to the beach.  We relaxed for a little, people watching and enjoying the scene.  We wanted to hike up Le Suquet, so we walked back to the hotel to swap the heels for sandals.  Cannes is actually a relatively small town.  We were able to walk everywhere the entire time with relative ease.  After we changed, we made our way to Le Suquet, the city’s Old Town.  On the way, we passed a Mercedes Benz car show taking place in front of Vieux Port.  It was really cool to watch all the super rich people gaze at the cars in front of port filled with jaw-dropping yachts

 

After taking some pictures, we made our way up to Le Suquet, a picturesque little village perched on a high hill facing the sea.  The view was awesome, and with the weather so clear, we could see for miles.  We walked around the neighborhood for a bit, taking pictures and loving life.   

Lunch in Cannes, France

At this point, we were starving.  We walked back down the mountain and attempted to find an affordable place to eat; we quickly realized that Cannes is sinfully expensive.  Much more so than Nice.  Every single restaurant that had any view of the sea was so far out of our price range.  We ended up eating at a little Italian restaurant on the strip behind The Croisette.  It was still overpriced, but slightly more doable.  Afterwards, we walked through an awesome antique market.  It was huge; there were so many people selling all sorts of neat things.  Except everything was still super expensive! I was so bummed, I thought the whole point of outdoor markets is that they’re supposed to be thrifty.  Well that wasn’t the case at all, but it was still really fun.  People were selling everything from paintings to clocks to old Louis Vuitton luggage.  We walked around for about an hour, attempting to find some bargains!!    

Antique market place

So many cool things

After buying some goodies that we couldn't really afford, we decided to sit by the beach again.  The weather was so nice, it was impossible to not want to sit outside.  

I could definitely get used to this :)

It's sad, but by this time it was almost dinner, and we were hungry again.  We felt like the entire vacation was starting to revolve around when we were going to eat next.  Pathetic, I know.  We went back to the hotel and showered and got ready.  We attempted to look through guide books and find cheap places to eat, but the honestly don't exist in Cannes.  We even surfed the web to find good deals, but even that didn't help.  We went to this site where you put in your budget and location, and and it brings up restaurants accordingly.  $$$$ = over $200, $$$ = between $150 - 200, $$ = between 50 - 100, and $ = up to $50 PER ENTREE.  When one dollar sign is up to $50, we have problems.  We decided we needed to get out of Cannes ASAP.  While it was one of the prettiest cities I have seen, it was so freaking expensive!!  We finally found this place in our of our guide books that had salmon entrees for 13E, and we decided that was doable.  We walked there and immediately both ordered the salmon, only to have the server come back five minutes after we ordered and tell us that they were out of the salmon.  Heart broken, we both ordered overpriced pasta.  After dinner we went back to the hotel and watched a movie.  We were catching in early train out of Cannes in the morning!

Day 97: Saturday, April 23, 2011

Trying on my scuba gear!

Today, we woke up bright and early to go scuba diving!  We were told to meet at the Nice Port at 9am.  We had seen the port from the top of the Chateau the day before, but we had never actually walked there, so we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time.  We left the hostel at 8am and hopped on the tram.  We decided to just take the tram in the direction of the beach and then get off when we saw the water!  Terrible plan.  We ended up in the middle of the city having no idea where we were.  We couldn’t even figure out what direction the water was.  We finally found it at exactly 9am.  Not that it mattered, this is Europe.  Nothing is ever on time.  We ended up waiting outside the scuba store for about half an hour until all the instructors arrived and got prepared.  

And we were quite cold.  For some reason Caitlin and I didn’t think to A) check the weather before hand, or B) realize that no matter the weather, sitting on a moving boat on it’s way out to sea is freezing!  Everyone else was wearing long pants and jackets, and there we were in shorts and light tops.  Rookie mistake.  We were also the only ones on the expedition who were first time divers.  Everyone else had all their own gear, including oxygen tanks, mouthpieces, etc.  Once again, we totally stood out as newbs.  The boat ride to the scuba spot was about 30 minutes out.  When we anchored, all the experienced divers began suiting up. 

Ride out to sea!

All suited up!

I saw enough overweight, hairy men in Speedo’s for the rest of my life.  And they walk around in those things with no shame; it’s not pretty.  One man bared a shocking resemblance to Mr. Incredible.  The way his wetsuit hugged him in all the wrong places really made him look exactly like Mr. Incredible.  And when he put his weight belt on, the physical similarities were undeniable.  I tried to take a picture but it wasn’t working.  It would have been way too obvious.

It took everything we had to not burst into laughter the entire time they were all putting the gear on.  After they were all suited up, they dove right in, with zero hesitation at all.  Including our instructors?  Caitlin and I were told to wait on board until our tandem divers were ready to go with us.  So I guess they were going for a joy dive before they took us?  We never really figured that one out.  Caitlin and I were then the only ones on board; it was very odd.  We felt neglected.  And then the sky opened up and it started to rain, so it was very cold!

After about 40 minutes, the divers slowly began coming back on board.  Our instructors came on board, and then practically shoved us in the water!  I was terrified to take the plunge.  It was freezing on board; I could only imagine how freezing the water would be.  But shockingly, it wasn’t as bad as I anticipated.  I swam over to my instructor who helped me strap up.  He put on my oxygen tank for me while I floated there idly.  I wasn’t quite sure if I was supposed to be doing anything, but he didn’t speak any English so I just let him do all the work!

Looking good :)

He gave me the mouthpiece and motioned for me to start breathing above water for a couple seconds to get use to it.  After I got the hang of it, he put on my weight belt and I sank right to the bottom!  Tandem diving was really cool; I literally didn’t do anything!  He swam on top of me the entire time, holding onto my waist, and he literally swam for me.  He was constantly pushing buttons on my tank and adjusting things, and I just gazed out the whole time.  And it was amazing.  The water was so blue underneath and I was literally swimming alongside of hundreds of fish.  It was so cool how they weren’t scared of us at all!  We swam around for about 30 minutes then came to the surface.  It was definitely one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.  Worth every penny we paid!!

So one of the coolest experiences of my life was quickly followed by one of the most miserable 20 minutes of my life.  I don’t think I have ever been so cold.  Soaking wet and virtually no clothes to put on to keep warm, that boat ride back to shore was literally painful.  And by this point, it was raining pretty hard.  After we docked, Caitlin and I jumped off the boat to get some lunch.  We were walking around in the rain with shorts and t-shirts and flip-flops trying to find an affordable place to eat!  We literally looked homeless; we were soaking wet and using the towels we took from the hostel to keep dry.  We were so inappropriately underdressed.  Every single person had on long pants, basically winter coats, umbrellas, and rain boots.  And then there was us.  It was embarrassing.  We finally found a little restaurant to grab some lunch at, and I’m pretty sure the store owner was bummed when we walked in.  We looked like a mess.  We ate lunch very slowly; I was not in any hurry to get back out in the rain.  I’m pretty sure we overstayed our welcome.  The workers were not friendly to us

After lunch, we walked back to the hostel, grabbed our luggage, and caught a train to Cannes.  The tickets were really cheap, we only paid 4E each.  When we got to Cannes, the instructions we had said it was only a ten minute walk from the train station.  So, naturally it took us almost thirty.  I’m sorry but I absolutely hate it when directions start out with, “head northwest,” or “head east.”  THAT MEANS NOTHING TO ME!!!  We finally found it, checked in, showered and relaxed for a bit, then headed out.  We grabbed some dinner at a terrible sandwich shop, and then went straight to a bar.  We had passed one on the way to our hostel with a sign that said 10 shots for 16E, and that is just way too good of a deal to pass up.  

Killing it on the karaoke floor :)

So we immediately went in and ordered!  We were stoked when people started piling in and karaoke began!  Throughout the course of the night, we sang three different songs.  And looking back, it was really embarrassing.  Surprisingly, a lot of people that sang were actually really good.  And of course we were terrible.  And our song choices were even worse.  Backstreet Boys, Barbie Girl, and Britney Spears…could we have been more classically American?  And we were also the only people singing songs in English, also embarrassing.  I bet people were really bummed out when we went up for the third time.  We met some boys who were very generous, and also very wealthy, and paid for our alcohol all night long.  Always a bonus :)

New friends!

Day 96: Friday, April 22, 2011

Beautiful Nice <3

Today, we woke up around 9am.  Our goal this spring break was to come back tan, so we needed to spend some serious hours on the beach in order for that to happen.  Last night at Wayne's, we saw on the menu that they serve breakfast everyday of the week, and even better, they had pancakes!  And I saw a picture, they weren't crepes (like they were in Amsterdam).  They were fluffy, delicious looking, drenched in maple syrup, straight up pancakes.  So obviously, we headed straight to Wayne's.  We were utterly disappointed when we got there and were informed that breakfast didn't start until noon.  Not only is that incredibly bizarre, it was also extremely inconvenient.  We were starving.  Reluctantly, we decided to go to the beach for two hours, then come back.

Pebble beaches

Spring Break 2k11

After a few hours of our stomachs rumbling, we left the beach and headed back to Wayne's.  There was no way I was passing up a stack of yummy pancakes!  We got there exactly at 12:00pm and ordered within two minutes.  They actually came relatively fast.  And not to anyone's surprise, they were disgusting.  While they may look like your average Bisquick pancakes (see right), they were nothing of the sort.  They definitely Googled the picture of the pancakes they put on the menu, because the real thing looked nothing like them.  They were not half as fluffy.  And they even weren't cooked all the way, so they ended up tasting exactly like a crepe.  So disappointing.

After breakfast, we walked through the flower market that Nice is apparently so famous for.  And it definitely lived up to the hype.  I have never seen so many arrangements and so many incredibly beautiful flowers.  It went on for blocks and blocks.  And it smelled so good!!  There is nothing better than the smell of fresh flowers :)    

View from the top of Chateau de Nice

Afterwards, we went back to the beach for a little bit longer.  It was SO windy though!  I'm talking like hurricane winds, it was crazy.  There was virtually no sand on the beaches, but the little sand that was there would whip across our faces every once in awhile when a huge gust of wind would come through.  That part wasn't that fun.  After we decided the prime suntanning sun was gone, we decided to hike up the Chateau de Nice.  It's a tall overlook with beautiful panoramic scenes of the entire city.  Well worth the hike.  The views were spectacular.  The contrast of the sparkling turquoise Mediterranean sea against the shinning gold tin roofs was beautiful to say the least :)

The beautiful city of Nice

How picture perfect :)

After hiking back down, we decided to walk through "Old Town."  Nice has some of the most expensive shopping in the world, but we read that Old Town is an awesome alternative to the designer goods.  The shops were full of individualism and authentic souvenirs.  We walked up and down the tiny little streets for about an hour, peering into one store after the next.  Afterwards, we paid for an overpriced Italian dinner (did we really choose Italian food??)  By this time the sun was setting and we were freezing and covered in sand.  With the wind blowing like it was, there was sand on every inch of my body.  Including in my ears, all in my hair, under my bathing suit, etc.  I couldn't wait to jump in the shower!  We relaxed then went to bed early.  We had an early scuba diving expedition the next morning!!

Day 95: Thursday, April 21, 2011

SPRING BREAK!! :)

Hehe...today spring break officially began! (As if we haven't been on "spring break" for the last three and a half months!)  We had made several spring break plans over the last few weeks, but they all sort of fell through.  So pretty much on a whim, Caitlin and I caught the 7am train to Nice, France (the 9am one was sold out).  So the night before, we packed up our travel backpacks...and an additional humongous rolley suitcase.  The backpack suffices for weekend trips, but when I'm leaving for six days, it simply just doesn't work for me.  I convinced Caitlin we should bring an additional suitcase.  MISTAKE.  It was huge and heavy and the biggest pain ever!   We literally regretted it before we had even left the house that morning.  We knew it was going to be a huge pain.  But at that point, we had already packed it and we were heading out the door.  So we decided it was coming with us!

Nice from the train!

The train ride wasn't too bad.  It was about four hours before we had to switch trains at the French border, then a quick 45 minute ride to Nice.  We had tentative plans to hit Nice, Cannes, St. Tropez, and Monaco, but we didn't really have much of plan beyond that.  We arrived in Nice around noon, dropped our stuff off at our hostel, then ventured out to find a beach!  While we were walking, we passed the Nice Basilica, which was beautiful.  Something about palm trees makes every scene seem more picture-perfect!   We found it relatively quickly; I absolutely love the color of the Mediterranean Sea.  It is literally turquoise.  Much to my dismay though, all the beaches in Nice are pebble beaches.  I don't really understand the appeal...who wants to lay on rocks???  I mean I'm not a huge fan on sand, but I'd pick sand over rocks any day!  But I got over it very quickly; we laid our towels down and enjoyed the sun for a few hours!

Nice Basilica

Streets of Nice

View from Castel Beach

Caitlin and I <3

Pebble beaches and the Mediterranean Sea

After a few hours, we headed back to the hostel.  Or attempted.  We only took one turn after leaving the hostel before arriving at the beach, yet somehow we managed to get epically lost on the way back.  If only you knew how typical that was.  We went in about five circles before we finally saw something that allowed us to regain our bearings.  When we got back to the hostel, we showered and got ready for dinner.  We had heard rave reviews about Wayne's Bar, so we decided to give it a shot.  It was a very Americanized atmosphere.  All the servers were either British or Australian, so they obviously spoke perfect English.  Even the menus were in English!  We definitely weren't mad.  Yes, sometimes it's nice to enjoy a meal in a restaurant where you are surrounded by the culture.  But other times, its comforting to enjoy a hamburger and a cranberry vodka while listening to a live band play all American music :)  And while the atmosphere was all American, the service was still as European as ever.  We didn't finish dinner till around midnight.  We were exhausted from waking up at 5am and being at the beach all day, so we have one more drink then called it a night :)