France - Nice

After seeing Mazen and Wawie off in Geneva, Bobo and I boarded a train heading to Nice, France. On one of the trains Bobo and I were caught trying to cheat with our Eurail passes; we had to pay a 20 Euro fine :( ..

When we transfered trains in Avignon, one of the ticketmasters told us to board the wrong train.. So for the first part of the trip we got fined.. for the second leg we had to sit with the luggage.. it was lots of fun!

We arrived in Nice on a nice sunny afternoon.. This time we made reservations at a hostel. However, when we asked the tourist information lady where exactly this place was, she told us it was a 20 minute bus ride away from the beach; on the internet it was a "3 minute walk"!! We decided to pick a closer hostel.. but had problems locating it since the street it was on, was not on any map.

In our search/quest we bumped into a German backpacking couple.. They told us that they just left the hostel in question.. Apparently it was closeby, but they couldnt really tell us where to go, since they were both quite high. The girl kept pointing randomly at our map with her rolled up ganja. They were quite friendly though.. They asked us where the train station was, we told them it was just down the road and to the right (The next day I saw them in the hostel starring at a map of the world.. I think they were still trying to find the train station or perhaps figure out what country they were in).. We wandered around a bit more.. I remember at one point we were in a really beautiful area.. There was a really old Church surrounded by palm trees, lots of kids playing football, lots of colours.. and lots of arabs! Nice is full of North African arabs.. Anyways, I asked a very nice old man for directions ( he looked like that fashion designer guy, Karl Lagerfeld.. he had the black suit, silver hair and big sunglasses). He was also Arab, so when he found out I was Arab, he affectionately grabbed me by the arm and walked with us, insisting that he will show us where to go. He was bang on the buck, we followed his instructions and found the elusive hostel, on its non-existent road.. I think I'm rambling.. ahh I'll show what little pictures I have..

Here are some pics from the train ride.. The ride along the French Riviera was beauuutiful.





Mulling over our fines..



When we arrived the weather was great, by the time we found our hostel it was starting to get overcast.. Bobo wanted to hang out at the beach.. which is one of the reasons we picked Nice.. We didnt do our homework though.. b/c Nice only has pebble beaches! We passed through Cannes before arriving in Nice, it had nice sandy beaches.. they were nearly deserted too.









out of focus



We made ourselves a nice big horsemeat, swiss cheese, and tuna paste sandwich. We were starving!! Interestingly, the horsemeat was from Canada.



Yum yum!!



Sorry, I don't have any more pics! We only stayed there a night, and left in the morning.. we were on a tight schedule.. In retrospect, I think we should've stayed another day at least.