France: Nice, Antibes, and Monaco

We woke up the morning after the World Cup Final in our stuffy airbnb. Surprisingly, we were not hungover, but every muscle in our bodies hurt and our voices were raspy from all of the intense dancing and cheering.

We packed and cleaned. Hannah and Jake were on their way to Brussels for a long layover before heading home to San Diego. I was just starting my trip. I hugged them goodbye and hopped on a mildly air conditioned train from Lyon to Nice and watched the beautiful, sunny French countryside pass by. The train was peaceful, but the 'air conditioning' felt like someone was barely exhaling warm breath on me. 

I arrived in Nice, on the southern coast of France, in the late evening. I walked out of the central train station and it was bustling, crowded, and hot as hell. My hostel was right across the street and I checked in. I planned to walk to the ocean that evening, about 2km roundtrip. But I was exhausted. I walked halfway down the promenade, bought some Turkish food from a street stand, shopped at H&M, and returned to my hostel for happy hour. I sipped cheap chilled red wine and chatted with mid-20s men and women from the U.S., Nigeria, Canada, and Korea. 

I was in an all-girl 8 person dorm room. I had the top bunk directly beneath the air conditioning unit. Which, would have been nice, except the hostel only gave out a sheet. When I attempted to sleep that night, I was so cold, even after dumping out my backpack at 2 am and putting on my fleece and socks, that I couldn't sleep. The poor night's sleep coupled with extreme heat, thousands of miles in travel, the previous day's heavy drinking, and a wet hair-AC combo, culminated into a nasty cold. I was not surprised I got sick, but annoyed. Out of stubbornness, I resolved that it would not slow me down in the slightest.

I had a breakfast of coffee and nutella toast at the hostel the next morning, and walked across the street to the train station. It cost me 15 bucks for a roundtrip train ticket to Monaco. The train took less than half an hour, but was packed. On the train, I chatted with a guy who was teaching an English camp for French kids and was trying to wrangle about 30 kids scattered up the car. I was flattered he thought I was French; he was flattered I thought he was British.

It was muggy and overcast in Monaco. The tiny country is settled in the steep Rivirean mountainside. I walked down the hill to the Monte Carlo. 

 

  

I fed a 5 euro bill into the slot machine, and pushed buttons until I steadily lost my money. Gambling's not for me.

I bought a surprisingly reasonably priced glass of red wine from the bar and sat in a fancy cushioned chair to sip it. I people watched British, Chinese, and German tourists for awhile.

The wine was delicious, but I remember feeling sooo sick here. 

Outside I felt better, the fresh air soothed most of my symptoms, except the sweating and fatigue. I decided I desperately needed spaghetti, the real European kind, and set out on a mission to satiate that need. It helped distract from my bizarre cold.

Monaco is tiny, and densely packed with millionaires. It is 0.78 sq. miles and has a population of under 40,000. (Fewer people than my hometown!) Over a third of the population of Monaco are millionaires. I walked the length of the entire country while I was there. It was not hard. I saw literally the entire 2 sq km of country while I felt like I was dying. And yet, I was craving spaghetti. I walked aimlessly east for awhile down the coast, and stumbled upon a tourist information center. "Bonjour. Je veux des spaghettis." I told the teenager manning the stand. He smiled and pulled out a map and circled a restaurant for me. "Merci!" I thanked him and was on my way. A short walk later I came across the restaurant he recommended, right along the beach. I ordered spaghetti pomodoro and drenched it in freshly grated parmesan. It tasted just like the spaghetti we used to have while we were in Germany: fat noodles, mildly sweet and tangy tomato sauce, perfectly soft cheese. I hadn't had that dish since the last time I had been in Europe, and it was just how I remembered.

I peacefully twirled my spaghetti against my spoon, savoring every bite, as dark storm clouds rolled in. Bite by bite, I kept twirling, even as the sky opened up and the thunder clapped. Other patrons rushed into the covered restaurant, irritated by the sudden storm. I was just finishing my food when the old Italian waiter came out to my table. "You should come inside now," he told me. By the time I finished paying, the storm had passed, and I walked out to the beach and soaked my feet in the clear Mediterranean water.

I then decided to hike to the top of the hill, to the castle, (with several stops on benches to catch my cold-weakened breath along the way). On the way, I passed a harbor full of yachts that were each larger than my entire apartment complex and contemplated what you could possibly do with such an absurd amount of space. 

Finally, I made it to the top of the hill. It was charming. The stacked homes looked so lovely, and the view over the dense city-state was spectacular. The Mediterranean buildings poured out of the mountain side into the sea. And Monaco was so clean.

But oh my god, I felt so sick. I got to the top, mustered up the energy to take a halfhearted selfie, and trekked back down to the train station.

I was happy to be there! Just nauseous

Monaco was cool, but I am just really unimpressed by conspicuous consumption. Which, it seemed, was prevalent on every block I walked. There was so much dense, excessive wealth in that tiny country. Every other car was a lamborghini revving its engine and making sharp turns on the narrow streets.

I made it back to my hostel, inhaled a to-go pasta salad from the grocery store next door, chatted with a few hostel-mates, and did a desperately-needed load of laundry.

There was a laundromat behind the hostel, owned by an outgoing Nigerian. I looked ridiculous in my wet hair, jeans, and long sleeve tshirt, but they were the only clean clothes I had left. I chatted with him as he helped me buy soap and start the machines, as the instructions were all in French. When he found out I came to France for the World Cup he started cracking up, wiped the tears from his eyes, and high-fived me. "A white girl who likes football!" he laughed.

Shaynie was arriving that night from California and I promised to pick her up from the Nice airport. Due to multiple bad instructions, I messed up opportunities to take any of the three of the public transit options to the airport and ended up paying for an overpriced taxi. Shaynie arrived shortly after I did. We took an uber back to the hostel, and passed out immediately.

I felt so much better after Shaynie arrived. I was still sick, but having her around helped me feel calmer. I always want to prove to myself that I'm capable of traveling alone, but there is something so nice about sharing experiences with someone. Sometimes those experiences are mundane, stressful, tedious, or frustrating. But more frequently, they're thrilling, exciting, new, different, challenging, and wonderful. And being with Shaynie, one of my best friends of almost ten years, is so relaxing. Sometimes traveling with other people can be stressful. But Shaynie is so level-headed and reassuring and nice even when things go wrong, that it always calmed me down even when I got overwhelmed.

The next morning we showered, chugged cups of coffee in the hostel foyer, and left our backpacks behind in the hostel locker room for a morning in sweltering Nice. I made Shaynie stop by the bakery on the corner for savory pastries and espressos.

chaque jour, s’engager par amour du pain

We then walked to the Nice castle and back down again to catch some nice views.

Some of the World Cup games were in Nice!

There was a surprisingly long line to take this photo, which is at best an okay photo. We got delayed by repeat queue jumpers trying to perfect their photo. It's not a great photo, but it was hard earned, so I included it.

We thn walk to the beach that was covered in fat, smooth rocks and stuck our feet in the water to cool off.

We walked through the market in Nice and bought mini macarons, berries, and a satchel of lavender, all for under 4 euro.

We then took the tram a few stops, and found a fountain. Children and adults were splashing barefoot in the spray of the jets. It was a welcome reprieve from the sweltering heat.

The fountain also had a fancy water stand where you could refill water bottles for free. You could choose chilled or sparkling water. I am obsessed with this concept, and the support of reusable water bottle culture. Not only is it helping the environment, it's good for public health! It was important to stay hydrated during the relentless heatwave.

We picked up our backpacks from the hostel and hopped on the train west to Antibes. It was only 5 bucks and 20 minutes. We walked from the train station to our hostel, which was located 100m from the beach and right in the heart of the charming old town. When I asked the friendly native Antiban for a key to our room at check-in, he shrugged and said, "Eh, you don't need one." None of the doors in the hostel locked, but we never felt unsafe. 

the door jamming was the highest level of security

The hostel was filled with people looking for work to crew on a boat. Antibes is a large port city and the harbor is full of boats. Multiple businesses lined the streets advertising their assistance in securing crew work and there were businesses that advertised crew work. Two of the girls we shared a room with were British 20 year olds looking for crew work. Every morning they got up early, dressed in crew uniforms, and took their printed resumes with color headshots at top go to interviews. We also met two guys in the kitchen of the hostel who were also looking to do engineering work on boats.

Shaynie and I walked to the huge, hot square in the center of the old town in the late afternoon. Restaurants lined the perimeter and their chairs and tables spilled into the middle. We shopped around the menus outside the restaurants until we found one we liked. All the restaurants were pretty empty, but we were eating at 3 pm. Neither of us being huge foodies, this was one of the only restaurant meals we bought the whole trip. Fewer people spoke English here, so we stumbled through ordering our delicious raviolis au saumon in French. Luckily, the very tall local who took our order was very helpful and encouraging.

We went for a short walk around the old town and checked out the views of the Mediterranean from the rampart walls surrounding the old port town. 

We couldn't resist the waves, so we changed into our suits and headed for the nearest beach. We swam for hours in the super salty Mediterranean. We passed most of the time floating in the warm water. We swam out to the entrance of the cove which had a series of large, submerged rocks we chilled on.

I love the water!

Eventually, we swam back to shore, pulled on half our clothes, and climbed to the top of the wall to watch the sunset.

Salt water and sun soaked, we walked back over to the main square. We sipped 3 euro glasses of wine, purchased using the last of the coins in our pockets, in the relaxing late evening dusk.

The next morning, we found a covered farmers market for breakfast. My coworker Julien sent me with a list of food I needed to eat while in France, and I did my best to eat my way through the list. We found one of the food items he recommended, socca, a chickpea pancake. It was 5 euro for a huge piece, made fresh in front of us. Shaynie and I split one and snacked on it while drinking espresso.

We spent the rest of our morning hiking along the wall that surrounds the town.

A lot of the walk was spent trying to harness the power of the intermittent breeze to cool off.

We ended up back in the main square and went to a bakery. We ordered the rest of the food on my coworker's list and the baker refilled our water bottles.

 pissaladière et pan bagnat

 On an aimless, self-guided walking tour of Antibes, we stumbled across the newer part of the town. It was a modern, bustling town with high-end shops on the streets and cars buzzing around. We considered walking out to the peninsula, but we certainly had gotten our steps in, so decided to head back to the old town, which we found to be so much more charming. Next stop, gelato.

 

 necessary

We ended our foot expedition on a narrow beach on the other side of the rampart. We stood, soaking our feet in the salty sea water, until it was time to catch the bus to the Nice airport.

We hopped on our short EasyJet flight to Geneva, Switzerland.