rose and i arrived in nice in the late afternoon and found our way relativelye easily (for us) to our hostel. after chilling for a while we decided to take a walk down the main street. nice is beautiful and so much fun! there were street performers everywhere in the early evening, and it was simultaneously liberating and a little hurtful that there were so many few verbal guys around telling how "sex-ay" we were.
we walked as far as the seafront and appreciated the sun setting over the beautiful mediterranean sea, before returning to the town and looking around some more. the next morning we were up bright and early to visit the beach which was absolutely beautiful and we lazed around there for a few hours; swimming, sleeping and soaking up the beautiful sun before wandering nice again for the day. this time we explored the "old town", winding through all the alleyways of nice and getting thorougly lost before finding ourselves once more! we put off having dinner until quite late and found ourselves searching for a supermarket that was adequately cheap for me as i was living on a very tight budget at this time.
our last day in nice we had to check out at 11am but weren't taking a bus to the airport until 9pm! we explored every square inch of that town; taking a long leisurely lunch as rose was desperate for a proper meal and promised that she would buy it for me because i squarely opposed it. i think we also visited both macdonalds located in the nice town centre to use their free wifi and spent an hour or more reading in the virgin megastore. when we did get to the airport it was to find the entire place shutting down for the night. we scoped out a good spot to try and catch some sleep and after reading for a little while, tried to get some sleep. i read while rose slept first of all, and after she gave up i said i would try and sleep. i was convinced i wouldn't get any rest but fall asleep i did - waking up a few times to see rose crouching in a corner, and then being questioned by airport security. apparently i even laughed out loud in my sleep!
at 5am we roused ourselves and reluctantly joined the queue to board the plane to paris!
once arriving in paris we suddenly remembered - paris is expensive! paying 14 euro to go to our hostel's suburb wasn't a great start but it got worse when we got off the train and found ourselves in what to my sleep deprived eyes, looked like a ghetto. upon later viewing i liked the town but at 11am that day i was exhausted and wanted a 5 star hotel desperately. once arriving at our hostel we found the other guests unfriendly and hurried to our room (we had booked dorm beds but were given a double room for one night - yay!) where rose calmly told me to settle down and have a nap. nap i did and when we emerged to buy food, i felt much better. we spent that day in bed and wandering around the "hostel" that seemed to be more of a sharehouse than anything. so our first day in paris was pretty underwhelming, exhausted, we finally caught up on our sleep after being sleep deprived basically since january!
the next morning i skyped my family and around lunchtime we headed in to paris with plans to see musee d'orsay and notre dame. unfortunately we came out of the metro station on the wrong side of the seine and couldn't get to notre dame easily because of the tour de france coming through paris that day. instead we went to musee d'orsay, appreciated the impressionism and i had intense eye contact with a lovely french boy.
that evening we finally met our hostel mates (a group of 3 girls and a guy from manchester university, a mexican, 2 german girls and 2 danish boys who we didn't meet just yet) and i made friends with the english group!
next next day, rose and i went to...DISNEYLAND! it was such a great day, we were out of the hostel until midnight as we stayed for BOTH parades and took tons of photos and i was adopted by a 7 year old french kid who spoke rapid french that i not only understood but replied to so all in all - succesful day! when we got back to the hostel rose went straight to bed and i decided to stay up a little longer. turns out, great decision right there as i further bonded with the english girls/boy and found myself still awake at 2am discussing music and being recommended danish indie rock by one of the fittest (and i mean that in the literal and english senses of the word) boys i have ever encountered. the next day rose and i decided to make one more attempt at paris and bumped once again into our manchester friends who were doing the same thing before they all left and different times. we saw the louvre and notre dame before polly and sian left, then the remaining two - thomas and bethan; and rose and i tried to decide what to do. we ended up buying food from a cheap shop, sitting near the louvre and gossiping until the sun was going down. then it was just a quick maccas run and back to our hostel with good ol' pierre (a middle aged man who tried to hit on all the girls staying at his hostel and was always awkwardly hovering in the background) where we shared a couple of bottles of wine between the hostel and watched greys anatomy until the early hours of the morning. next day we were meant to leave; rose didn't actually end up leaving until after 2pm as we were too busy having a late breakfast and analysing music videos with the danish boys. when she did eventually leave i hung around awkwardly until pierre asked when my flight was and i explained it wasn't until the next morning. and i MAY have left the end of my sentence hanging awkwardly but he didn't disappoint, not missing a beat before insisting "you stay with me!" i laughed awkwardly and then he rectified it "stay HERE, for free". i accepted and bailed before he could change his mind.
somehow i talked the entire hostel in to staying up with me until 4am when i had to leave for the airport and after tucking them all in to bed i made my way to charles de gaulle where i flew to vienna to meet georgie and janet!
