My wonderful Nice layover

My time in Nice was wonderful. I made some new friends at the hostel, had the chance to get better acquainted with my fellow intern/roommate, and practice my French. On top of all of this I was reunited with my two long-lost loves: la Cote d’Azur and la langue francaise.

Andrew (my fellow intern) and I buddied up with three other travelers from our hostel: Hilda, Stephanie, and Sebastian. To give you some background, on them Hilda was born in El Salvador but raised in Calgary, Alberta. Stephanie is also from Calgary, but the two had never met before this. Most of Sebastian’s family lives in Argentina, so he has spent half of his life there and the other half in the U.S., in the Denver area. All three were traveling solo. All five of us had just arrived in Nice that evening.

On Wednesday night we all hung out in the hostel’s common area (which was so bustling it sort of reminded me of a night club) and then went out on the town for a drink. On Thursday morning we split into two groups. Stephanie and I took the bus to Eze while the other three went on a little further down the coast and went to Monaco. Eze was very interesting. We ended up hiking during most of our time there. The Eze Village is on top of a little mountain so we walked up most of the way and took the bus the rest of the way.

Near the top of the mountain there is a “Parfumerie” that gives free tours, and then a little further up the mountain is the very picturesque village. I actually watched that David Bowie movie, Labrynth, a few days ago and there’s a battle scene at the end of the movie that takes place in a village. Well, Eze reminded me of the village in that scene. After exploring the cutsie village stuff we hiked back down the mountain. And might I add that we had a spectacular view of the Mediterranean along the way.

We took the bus back to Nice and spent the rest of the day at the beach. We enjoyed some delightful French snacks in the process, such as goat cheese and baguette. To save money, we stayed in and Sebastian cooked us all dinner in the hostel kitchen. Afterwards we went out on the town once again. After wandering through some random back streets we stumbled upon a small bar called “Shapko” where a bluesy-type band was playing. It was nice and relaxing—a good way for us to spend our last night in Nice together even though everyone was super tired from the long day.