What a Nice(France) Experience!

The weekend after my Mediterranean adventure with the crew (Sept 25-27), a group of girls and myself decided to go spend the weekend in Nice. Even now, saying that I am in travel distance of Nice or other parts of France amazes me truly.

After a rough week of classes, getting out of Montpellier was such a relief. Planning a weekend trip with a lot of people is hard, but we managed to find a hostel and transport for us all. Europe or at least France, Spain, and Italy (that I know of) has a transportation system called BlaBla Car, which is basically Uber. Due to conflicting schedules and me being the only one with class on Friday, all of us had to travel in separate groups meaning we would all arrive at different times. Of course my crew, Lyd, Grace and I, were traveling together on Friday afternoon.

All of us had our concerns about using Blabla Car because the concept is great but has an equal level of sketch. On Friday afternoon we met up at a local MacDo (McDonald’s) to rendez-vous with our driver Thomas.

SIDE NOTE: MacDo is a completely different experience here. Although I have yet to eat it here, every one that I have seen is as clean and well regarded as a Panera back home. (C’est bizarre!)

 Our trip with Thomas went way better than we could have expected. He didn’t speak any English, but he had this David Beckham vibe about him which obviously made us less nervous about the possible creepiness or the chances of us being kidnapped. To avoid awkwardness, we all whipped out our headphones pretty quickly so that we didn’t have to engage in copious amounts of small talk.

The ride from Montpellier to Nice is about 3 hours by car, but one forgets about the length of the car trip when they are driving through the south of France. The French countryside is filled with green pastures, hills stacked on top of hills, beautiful farms, and cute little country towns. More than once did I have to pinch myself just to marinate that I was actually there and my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. We were pleasantly surprised by Thomas’ music choices, and continued to enjoy our trip with Fetty Wap, Drake, and Migos as the background to our experience.

It wouldn’t be a trip with the three of us without a hilarious story to remember our experience. As we got closer to Nice, Thomas asked us where he should drop us off. We explained that our hostel was near the train station in Nice and we would be fine if he left us there. Now, Thomas was not from Nice so he wasn’t entirely sure where the Gare (train station) was either, so we kept driving and passed a large structure that looked like a train station and got out there. We soon figured out that we had been dropped off, hungry and tired, at the Cote d’Azur airport about 5 miles from our wanted destination. So that was great! Frustrated and Hangry (Anger caused by Hunger), we decided to walk into the airport grab some food and find a taxi to take us to our hostel. After we revived ourselves, we walked to a taxi stand and proceeded  to get into the nicest cab ever. Little did we know, this cab was going to cost us an arm and a leg because apparently it was a “private car taxi” not  a “regular car taxi”. We should’ve guessed that seeing it as a sleek black Mercedes. Oh well!

The beauty of hostels are that you are surrounded by people from all over the world. In our hostel we became fast friends with a group of Australians who were backpacking through Europe. I received the nickname “Stralia” from them because my name is Assi and the Australians are Aussie’s. (Aka: Best moment of my life because if you know me whenever I introduce myself I say, “my name is Assi like the Australians”)  

As the sun began to set and our stomachs were filled with food, we all got dressed to go out for the night. The Australians, Reese, Jay and Max, had all been in Nice the night before and knew where all the good bars were so we hung out with them. 

Walking through Nice at night is just as amazing as it is during the day! 

A Cathedral right next to our Hostel

The whole crew headed out to the rocky Nice beach for a pre-bar adventure. Sitting at the beach, staring at the Mediterranean Sea at night is an experience that I will never forget. All in all the night was one of the best I have had in my life! 

Day 2: 

After a really fun night we woke up exhausted and probably a little hungover! (Sorry Mom!) After eating breakfast at a cafe, I decided to head back to the hostel to catch up on some zzz's. After about a two hour nap, we went to the grocery store to buy some snacks and headed through town toward the beach. Considering it was the end of September, the Mediterranean weather was on our side! The water again was so clear, refreshing, and therapeutic and by far the best beach I have ever been to in my life. I am so much of a water baby that I never wanted to get out but eventually we all laid out for some sun and snacks. 

 a fountain in the square near the beach

 Pano of the rock beaches

 The blue waters of the Mediterranean 

 Another beach Pano

 

While we were all relaxing, I noticed this man, first because of his speedo and then because he was sketching people all day. A few minuets pass by, and he showed me a sketch that he had made of me. About an hour later, I went over and asked him if I could take a picture of the sketch and he showed me two more pictures. His name is Victor, an artist from Nice who spends time in public places sketching people in their relaxed and natural elements. He willing let me pick one of the sketched for me to have and we packed up and left. 

 Victor and his speedo

 Images of Victor's sketches

 More images of Victor's sketches

Later that night we all went out searching for a seafood restaurant because we would be doing ourselves an injustice if we didn't eat seafood in Nice! The food was great and we all went to bed happy!

Overall, Nice was an amazing experience and we were all sad to leave but I can guarantee that I will be back!