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!