Nice

The first steps out of the Nice train station were the first in a long trek. With only a clue as to where our hostel lay, we set out to find our lodging for the next few days. We first took the space-age tram down the main boulevard of Nice, past designer shops and kebab stores. We stepped off at a stop at the base of a mountain face. Nice is built on a slope that abruptly ends at the ocean. There is little room for horizontal growth, so they slowly but surely built their way up the bluff. On the hike up we passed a footbol stadium and a supermarket where we stopped briefly for provisions. This turned out to be a very bad idea. As we did not know exactly where our hostel was (the directions simply asked us to call their number at the base of the hill, except we had no cell phone and pay phones in Europe are ridiculously expensive). At about halfway up my 40+ lb bag was killing me, and I had to convert it to its rolling position in order to continue. The sun was out, the humidity was up, and here Mike and I were climbing a hill that had no end in sight. We took the road all the way up till it forked. I took a moment to sit down, have a heart attack, and take this cool panorama of the town:


I asked a waiter at a restaurant at the corner for some directions, and discovered that we had passed the entrance and that it was actually much closer to the bottom. Luckily for me I could roll my bag back down the hill with greater ease than dragging it up. After retracing our steps most of the way back, we realized we had to turn at a street with no name. The reason this street had no name was because some French punk teenager had spray painted the sign white. I took another moment to sit down, stroke out for a minute or two, and then we walked no more than a hundred feet before we arrived at the hostel front desk.

After recouping for an hour or two, we decided to head to a pub in town called Thor. This pub was supposedly famous for insanely hot bartenders who served liters of beer out of hollowed-out horns. Upon reading the description of the place (courteousy GoEurope!) I had immediately conjured a mythological Nordic fantasy of sex and beer. Yet as we arrived at the pub, a few stark realities began to become clear: first, the bartenders were all men, and British men at that. Secondly, they did not serve beer in hollowed-out horns… ever. And finally, we were sitting in a British pub on the night of the European League Championship final game, featuring two of Britain’s finest: Chelsea and Manchester United. The reality was that we were sitting in a British pub, on the night of a British championship game, surrounded by about a hundred British soccer hooligans. The cacophony was deafening. It was hard picking sides, but I went with Chelsea as the lesser of two evils. Chelsea had knocked out Liverpool, my second favorite team, from the semis, while Manchester had eliminated FC Barcelona, my favorite team. Also, I loathe Ronaldo. It didn’t matter. The bloody Manchs won it in the end, much to the chagrin of myself and most of the bartending crew (at least I had them in my corner) and we soon finished our beers and left. On the way back to the hostel I snapped this picture of the main strip of Nice lit up with groovy blue Christmas lights:


The hostel we were staying in had been voted one of the best in some hostel survey. This was because the majority of people staying here were either American, Australian, or British, with a hand-full of New Zealanders and a couple Canucks. In the hostel brochure, it advertised a “legendary breakfast.” After a night of sud slinging, I was ready for a hearty meal. That hearty meal turned out to be a variety of cereal, a breadbasket with butter and jam, and artificial orange drink. I could tell this was not going to be a good morning. It did not seem to get any better when the desk manager came over to us to give us a pep talk about Nice. It was at this time that she informed us that we had arrived in Nice on the eve of a French train strike. Apparently the rail workers union up in Paris called a strike and the effects were being felt across the country. While the Nice station was operational, a slowdown was in effect. It would not be until later that this turned out to ruin our plans to seek out the Cannes Film Festival. Damn I hate when my morning intuitions are correct. After finding out that we were young Americans, she went into a 5 minute rant about Obama and how it was essential that he be elected, less she be forced to “expatriate” the country. This made no sense to me seeing as how she was already living in Nice, France, but since she was obviously imbibed on the Obama kool-aid, I decided to let this slide. Instead of taking 10 minutes to shred her misguided enthusiasm with facts regarding his campaign financiers and questionable voting record, I decided to swallow my pride and allow her to finish her debriefing of the train situation and the cool things to see and do in Nice. Sometimes you just have to know which battles to pick.

Wandering back into town, we decided to hit up the famous Nice beaches. Contrary to popular belief, the French Riviera here has less to do with sand and more to do with small and medium sized black slab rocks. Also, on this day, there happened to be more old people at the beach than young, making the topless aspect of the beach particularly revolting. I immediately ran into the ocean, hoping the salt water would blind me. Unfortunately, sea water, despite its high salinity, does not blind you. I did not know this, and then immediately began to question why you are required to wear goggles whenever you go snorkeling or diving and such. Anyway, here is a panoramic of the Nice beach, minus the prehistoric titties:

After a few dips in the frigid water, Mike and I made our way along the boardwalk. Along the way we found a memorial to the French troops who had died in both world wars. Here’s a pic:


Making our way around, we came back into town and walked through the main quadrangle which featured some French artwork. Here are a few example:

Blockhead

Pole Squatter

There was also an interesting look at the ocean I will share with you now:


Overall the stay in Nice was pleasant. The trick was to navigate the rails with a slowdown in effect. I had heard real horror stories involving French rail strikes at the peak of tourist season. In France the right to strike is protected by the government, meaning that employers cannot fire workers on strike (like it matter, most of France’s major industries are owned by the state anyway, pinko commie bastards). Such a thing is unheard of in the US. If a vital industry like the railroads or the airlines decided to strike, the strikers would end up getting their heads thumped by Pinkerton men. Ok, so this ain’t the 1880s and 90s anymore, but the American government has always sided with business when it comes to labor disputes. Look at what Reagan did during the air traffic controller strike crises of the 1980s and you get why strikes are not done in America. On the way out of town I bought my first kebab ever. The kebab is the Middle Eastern/North African version of the burrito. It was fine tasting, and became a signature food for this long-distance traveler. What I would soon find is that wherever Muslim communities existed in Europe, kebab stores were to be found. In America we like to think of the individual cuisines of the French, the Italians, the Germans, the Spanish, etc. but here I was tasting the future cuisine of Europe. Consult European immigration and fertility charts and you’ll see what I mean. Anyway, we were able to catch a train out of Nice, and we continued our way along the Mediterranean coast.