Nice (5/31-6/1): A Cosmopolitan Campaign

Image courtesy of Munford

"Nice was nice," as the typical response goes. Actually it was pretty awesome. The train ride there sucked though because, once again, I hardly slept. But the 26ish hours of sleep I grabbed in Paris carried me through the next day.

The train arrived in Nice at 7:30 in the morning. Luckily Nice is a lot smaller than Paris so it's harder to get too lost. I couldn't check into my hostel until 9:00 so I grabbed breakfast with a side of internet while I waited around.

Checked into an empty 3 bed room at the hostel at around 9:00 and immediately jumped in the shower. After cleansing my body and soul, I thought it would be a good idea to try to clean some of my clothes in the sink "like a real backpacker." That turned out to not be as easy as it sounds. I had a little cheap braided clothesline with me that I used to hang the few washed articles up in the room with. They took forever to dry, even with the window open on the room. The rest of the trip I managed to find washing machines to do the job for me instead, occasionally in exchange for some coins.

The reception desk was just outside the door to my room so I went to check out a laptop so I could grab some internet before heading to the beach. At the desk an awesome Norwegian guy who I got used to calling "Ness" was checking in and was given the key to the room I was in as well. After I grabbed a laptop I went back to my room and we got acquainted.

Ness and I were going to borrow some towels from the desk and head down to the beach, but when we exited the room we found three more people in the hallway: Andrew from Singapore/London, Brian from New York, and Karen from Toronto. Andrew was checking into our room in the hostel and he had stayed the previous night at a different hostel just outside of town with Karen and Brian. This became the solid crew I rolled with for most of the rest of my time in Nice.

We left the hostel and wandered around Nice for a while, checking out the St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral on our way down towards the beach. We grabbed a tasty lunch at a café near the beach and then made our way up towards the Château. Later in the afternoon we headed down towards the beach to go for a swim. On the way there we ran into a friend of Karen's from Switzerland named Katharina who was staying at yet another hostel in town. The swim was good despite the water being a bit cold still.

Post-swim we headed back to Ness, Andrew, and my hostel to change clothes really quick, then headed out to get some food at a restaurant nearby. The food was OK, but the wine was great and started the night off properly. After dinner we walked around for a while trying to find a place to buy alcohol and ended up following a French goth in combat boots and a trench coat for over a mile until he brought us to a little store his friend worked at. The store was not very good and half of the alcohol we bought there was nearly undrinkable because it was so bad. I don't remember the guy's name, or the name of the band he told us he was in (Black Dog or something?), but he was an interesting, friendly fellow. His face dropped quickly however when we failed to invite him back to come hang out with us.

Katharina was staying at a hostel that had an outdoor area in front so we headed there to hang out and have a few drinks. We hung out for a while and met some more people from her hostel, eventually moving inside due to the rain. We made plans to meet the next morning before heading back to our respective hostels to fall into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.

Karen, Brian, and Andrew had signed up for a scuba diving tour the next morning at 9:00 through their hostel, and they had invited Ness and I to come along. We decided to just show up at 9:00 and see if they had room for us, and if not we'd figure out something else to do. The three of us (Andrew was in our room now) woke up the next morning and left the hostel at 8:20, thinking we'd have plenty of time to walk down to the harbor. In our confidence we even stopped at a pâtisserie on the way to grab some breakfast. Unfortunately we all underestimated how long it would take to get around the Château, and how big the harbor was in Nice. We also ended up taking the long way to get there so we rolled into the harbor area at about 8:55 or so, steadily increasing our pace to match the rising panic of possible failure boiling up inside each of us.

Image courtesy of dbaron

We eventually figured out that our rendezvous location was on the opposite side of the harbor from where we were. We made haste around the harbor, admiring row after row of large expensive yachts, each one labeled with the country of its owner. (Incidentally, the manager of the hostel we drank at the previous night had spent 5 years working as a first mate on various yachts in Nice. He had some good stories). We rounded the corner of the harbor in time to see Karen and Brian climbing into a boat with wetsuits in hand. It was 9:05 when we arrived, and somebody on the boat kindly pointed us towards a little store nearby where we went in, paid the €42, got our wetsuits, and headed back out towards the boat.

Now I am not very good at estimating lengths by eyesight, but I'd say the boat was maybe 30-35 feet in length. We were directed to hang up our wetsuits on a hanger in the middle, and were then given flippers and goggles to keep track of. As it turned out, the 5 of us were the only non-French, non-expert scuba divers on the boat. There were somewhere around 20 or so French scuba divers all piling into the boat and loading equipment as the tourist quintet tried to stay out of the way.

After a little while the captain of the boat, Phillip, beckoned us to the front of the vessel. Phillip was a tall, thin, confident French man who spoke very good English. He wore an old beat up jacket which Karen pointed out to me contained the logo of the Sea Shepherds, an aggressive environmental activist group similar to Greenpeace. Phillip gave us a 10 minute crash course in how to use the scuba equipment and what the trip would entail. Most of us had never been scuba diving much or at all before so the instruction was both interesting and helpful. He did a good job going over everything we needed to know.

Once everybody was loaded up, we headed out of the harbor on a beautiful little tour of the harbor and the coastline around Nice. We saw some interesting and unique houses built into the gorgeous hills. We also had a great view of the Château area from the water. It only took about 20 min or so to get to the dive location and once we arrived the French scuba divers all began to gear up and jump in the water. The five of us were to hang out in or around the boat while they did their dive. At some point instructors would come back and take us out one at a time. A young French boy who spoke very little English was left on the boat to "chaperon" us. While we waited we threw on our wetsuits and flippers and went for a swim around the boat. It was a perfect day out: sunny but not too hot with a very calm sea.

The divers eventually began to come back about 4 at a time and climb into the boat to de-suit. "Instructors" also came back at about 5 or 10 minute intervals to take each of us out for our dive. Karen went first, followed by Ness and then myself. I was paired up with Phillip as my instructor. He helped me put the gear on once in the water then we swam towards shore to the actual dive spot where we began our descent. I had never even been snorkeling before this so going underwater for the first time while being able to breathe was a very weird, awesome experience. Phillip controlled the buoyancy of my vest and took care of checking all the air gauges so all I had to do was breathe and swim. After we reached a decent depth (around 6m or so I think) He stayed behind me and to the right a little while I swam forward. In order to equalize the pressure between your body and the water you need to pop your ears every couple of meters or so while you descend. My right ear never popped so it was in pain the entire time during my dive. A very tolerable and small sacrifice however considering where I was.

I swam for about 15-20 minutes with Phillip controlling our depth and occasionally pointing out interesting things or directing me where to swim. I saw an octopus, a few sea urchins, and a variety of other plant and animal life that I would not be able to name. It was an incredible experience and one I would definitely like to repeat at some point. The best part about it was not having to do any practice dives in swimming pools or any of the other stuff you would typically have to do if you went diving in the states. We were able to just jump right in. After the dive we rode back into shore while sipping on some interesting rum that the scuba divers had brought.

Once back in the harbor, we thanked Phillip and headed off to find some food. We found out the hard way that it was a public holiday in France so very very few things were actually opened. We walked around for what seemed like forever before finally finding a pizza/sandwich stand near one of the public squares. We grabbed a slice and sat down on some steps nearby to savor our find. We were all pretty exhausted from the excitement and exertion of the dive so we ate in a sort of quiet trance while watching a bunch of young French skateboarders lining up behind a makeshift ramp to practice tricks.

We parted ways later in the afternoon after agreeing that it was international nap time. I had to move into a different hostel since I had only booked my room for one night so I grabbed my things and headed down the street a couple of blocks to the new place. Before leaving we made plans to meet up at 21:00 at Ness and Andrew's hostel to go out for drinks.

At my new hostel I walked into the room to find one guy taking a nap. I tried to quietly shower so as not to wake him, then I laid down for a while to try to rest up. Sleep did not come easily however since I was paranoid about not waking up. I was without an alarm clock the entire trip so naps had become a fairly risk endeavor. Eventually I got up and went to find some food. Once again many places were closed so I ended up just grabbing a baguette and some cheese and heading back to the hostel. I wasn't feeling too social at this point so I just sort of hung out or walked around until 21:00.

Our group had grown by the time we all met at the Ness and Andrew's hostel. Karen and Brian had picked up a couple of Americans, and my replacement at the hostel was a film student from Washington. Katharina also joined us which brought the adventuring party up to 9. We headed down towards a bar that was recommended by a couple of French girls that Karen had met at the hostel.

The bar was about a mile away and was filling up as we walked in. We were lucky enough to grab a long table down near the stage where we were able to seat everybody together. We arrived just as a 4 piece band was setting up on stage and I ordered an overpriced liter of beer which I told myself was justified due to the lack of a cover charge. The band was pretty good, with a British front man and Rastafarian guitar player. They played American pop songs from the 60's-90s, every one of which was a huge hit since the bar was completely filled with tourists. Shortly after the music began one of the tables in the front became covered with people dancing on top of it. The rest of the room followed after a while and the entire bar was filled with the excitement of music in motion.

We left at around midnight and on the way out I ran into some drunk high school kids from Creighton Prep in Omaha, who I quickly disassociated myself from. Our party was down to 8 at this point but we felt pretty good making it out of the bar with only a single casualty. We walked about 5 blocks before everyone started asking why we had left. Apparently nobody had actually wanted to leave and we almost went back but instead decided to go buy some beer and hang out at Katharina's hostel again. That plan was executed without too much trouble and we drank/talked until a little after 1:00 in the morning, at which point Karen, Brian, and crew had to hurry to catch the tram back to their hostel. The rest of the party went their separate ways as well.

The next day I headed for Monaco and then passed into Italy.

...

Nice was an interesting city. It is still a pretty big hot spot for the rich and famous to vacation, but a lot of the city is kind of dirty and more poor, especially as you move away from the beaches. The water itself was beautiful and I understand why it is called the Côte d'Azur. Nice also had some very cool markets and shops in some of the narrow side streets that we visited on more than one occasion.

Nice was my first hostel experience and I somehow lucked into meeting some amazing people. I would definitely recommend visiting the city and the surrounding area, but I am not sure I would return or want to live there.