It's Nicer in Nice

What a weekend!

Nice was amazing! After my day of train travel and exploring Monaco, I was exhausted, so my exploration of Nice didn't begin until Saturday morning. I went to a cafe with Alice and Katrina, then made my way down to the beach! The beaches here are interesting...they're rocky, not sandy. It sounds like it would not be fun at all, but it's actually not bad because the rocks are very smooth. The only thing isn't fun is getting in and out of the water if you're not wearing flip flops. As you can see below, I wore flip flops.

The first day at the beach, I got a little sun, but we didn't stay out too late because we all wanted to have a nice dinner to celebrate our vacation. There were 9 of us from IES who all went to Nice together (and all stayed together at the Hotel Baccarat, a hostel by the train station), and we all got dressed up as nice as we could with the clothes we brought and enjoyed a night on the town! After dinner at an incredible Italian place (Nice is only a half hour from Italy), we went down to Old Nice and explored the night market and found an amazing gelato place that has 96 flavors! Yes, 96! Their more unusual flavors include tomato basil, beer, cactus, avocado, and rose. I stuck with cacao, salted caramel, and coffee. We walked along the Promenade des Anglais after that, then returned to the hotel.

The next day, Katrina and I decided to join Lauren and Laura at a private beach. The beach is set up very differently in Nice than how we are used to at home. In Florida, for example, no one owns the beach...everyone can walk along the whole thing and anyone can sit on the beach wherever they want. In Nice, though, there are little plots of beach and it rotates public and private. We went to Opera Plage, where you pay 13 euro for a nice beach chair, parasol, and mat. There are mats on the ground so you don't have to walk on the rocks. There is a cafe and servers who will bring you drinks and food (at an extra charge). There are showers you can use. And, of course, there is the Mediterrnean Sea to swim in, like all the beaches. The private beach experience was WELL worth the 13 euro! I got one drink and some water from the server and it was definitely nice having the chair and mat separating me from the rocks! I got a LOT of sun on that beach.

And, of course, in France there is a certain part of your body that gets sun that generally doesn't in the States. On all of the beaches in Nice, public or private, topless sunbathing is the thing to do. Most of the women are sans bikini tops on the beach. It's cool because it's not a sexual thing at all...no one is ogling the boobs that are out in the open (or if they are, they're discreet about it). People of all shapes and sizes go topless. It doesn't matter if you're fat, skinny, flat, or saggy...chances are, there's someone who is more fat or more flat than you! Everyone wears bikinis here, too...I only saw a handful of people in one pieces.

So, now the question of course is did I participate in sunbathing French style? Of course! I had to get the cultural experience, you know! It was a very liberating experience that I highly recommend to everyone. It makes you feel much more confident about your body and, of course, makes it so there's no awkward tan lines. Here's the closest thing I'm going to provide to photographic proof (and I'm mainly just putting this on here cause my eyes look cool in it)...

After the day of sunbathing, we all had to head back to the train station all hot and sweaty to catch the TGV back to Paris. Unfortunately, though, we ended up getting delayed 2 1/2 hours and didn't get back to Paris until 2:30am! The Metro was closed by then, so we had to stand in line forever with everyone else on the train to get a taxi (my first Paris taxi experience, by the way). By the time I got home at 3:30am, I was exhausted but I had homework to do. Needless to say, I did not get much sleep that night!

Only 8 days left. It's crazy how time flies!

Riley =)