Côte d'Azure, and all it's gloriousness

Last week was pretty uneventful for most of the week, thanks to the combination of having a paper due on Friday and the grève. The grève being, of course, the infamous metro/RER strike across the whole country. It started on Thursday, and so those of us who had class had to walk an hour there and an hour back. I was surprised and dismayed to discover that Paris was so hilly. And France being France, the strike, though scheduled for only Thursday, stretched into Friday and parts of Saturday. All in all, that isn't that bad, considering the fact that the last two strikes lasted 3 and 5 weeks, respectively. But the most irritating thing was the reason for the strike: the workers wanted to keep their 30 hour weeks and retirement age of 50. Considering their salary (pretty hefty for people who press buttons on a train), it's ridiculous they'd expect to keep the old laws from back when they actually had to shovel coal.

Anyway, despite the various difficulties that some of you may have heard about my trip planning, Nice worked out. I was able to find someone to go with me who was willing to take a plane and not give up at the slightest planning difficulty. So, we took a cab to Orly (no train, of course) and took an hour flight to Nice very early in the morning. I had been up late the night before finishing my paper, so I had only gotten 2 hours of "sleep." Phil was still working on his paper all of Friday. We get to Nice, and it's absolutely gorgeous, with perfect sunny warm weather that is equally friendly to tank tops and sweatshirts. We missed our stop on the bus into the city because the bus driver doesn't announce anything, and we were kinda spaced out with all the beautiful water and palm trees. It turned out not to be so bad though, because we had day passes for the buses, and we were able to find a bus with a nice bus driver who told us when he passed by our street. We checked into the hostel, which turned out to be more like a cheap hotel (so, a step up, with a TV and a private bathroom!) and only two blocks from the beach. Since our room wasn't quite ready, we stopped for a sandwich at a small little shop and took our food to the beach. Not only were they the best sandwiches EVER, we were eating them and looking at the Mediterranean. Afterwards we went to a restaurant that was on the beach so Phil could use the wireless internet to send his paper in, and we had dessert and coffee. The rest of our day was pretty much spend wading in the water (because neither of us had brought bathing suits) and napping on the beach. Though the beach was rocks and not sand, it was actually pretty comfortable, and the rocks are all super round and smooth.

We wandered around Vieux Nice and found a nice seafood restauraunt. The meal, and the wine, were fantastic. I tried mussels, and much like the escargot, I'm pretty apathetic. I don't particularly care for them, but I'm not opposed to eating them. Next I'll have to cross cuisses de grenouilles off my list of French things to eat. After dinner we headed back to our hotel and called it a night.

Saturday we woke up with the plan to take the bus to Monaco and see Monte Carlo. We walked to the bus station, but on the way discovered the shopping center of Nice. It was pretty grey and windy instead of the beautiful sunny day we had Friday, but once we got on the bus we got a great view of the whole coastline and the cute French towns dotting the coast. After about an hour we arrived in Monte Carlo. We wandered around, taking pictures of yachts with names like "Miss Money Penny" and James Bond themed arcade games. Since we had hopped right on the bus, we hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch yet, so we found a little pizza place in a square and ate. We walked back up the hill overlooking the harbor, and then we went to see the famous casino. Pictures weren't allowed, but I managed to snap a few without being noticed. It was chock-full of tourists, though. After about 3-4 hours in Monaco, we had our fill of glitzy stores and policemen with golden helmets and Lamborginis speeding by every few minutes, so we got back on the bus and headed back to Nice.

Our last night in Nice was spend shopping, where the prices are good and the salespeople are really, really nice. I got a pair of boots that are exactly what I had been looking for. We had dinner at a restaurant that was showing the rugby final, although because it was crowded we were seating literally inches from the giant screen. I was able to watch up until halftime before I got a headache from being so close, and we finished watching it at the hotel. England lost to South Africa, and I was sad.

Sunday morning we had to get up early to catch the bus back to the airport, and while we were waiting we got to see the sun rise over the mountains. It was amazing (hello, understatement). Since we were leaving before the front desk was open, we had to leave our key in a safe box. We got to the bus stop, and there were already several people there. Apparently the bus was late. When it finally came, it was packed, and the other people were able to squeeze on, but the bus driver told us he couldn't take us. So, after a brief debate about whether or not we should bother waiting for the next bus, which might be just as crowded, we took an overpriced cab to the airport, seeing as how we only had an hour before our flight at this point. We got back to Paris in good time, and promptly commenced putting all our pictures up online to silently gloat over the fools who didn't go.