Nice is.... Nice

Haha pun! Anyway, I'm sitting in the Montpellier train station for the last 45 minutes of my 4-hour connection. Yes, a trip from Nice to Barcelona, which should normally take around 8-9 hours, will take 13 today because the earlier Montpellier-Figueras train was sold out when I bought my ticket. Yay planning ahead far enough in advance so that I didn't find this out when I got here!

So, after 2 full days in the Cote d'Azur, I think I'm sufficiently sunburned enough to last me the rest of this trip and into most of the summer. Who knew that going to the beach at 4pm on a day in April when the high temperature is 65 would result in such discomfort?

Nice was very relaxing and not only free of herds of tourists, but also free of herds of tourist traps. This may have been because I was there on Easter Sunday and Monday, but still. Good choices.

On Monday I took advantage of the rail pass I had paid way too much money for and explored Monte Carlo (Monaco) and Cannes. Both were nice to walk around for the afternoon, but I'm glad it was only for that long. One, there wasn't a whole lot to do besides walk around, look in shops, and sit on the beach. Two, both cities are full of people who are ABSURDLY WEALTHY, making everything cost way more than it should (for example, a crepe with Nutella costs €7 in Monte Carlo). Luckily I packed a lunch!

Two of my roommates, Chinese girls studying in London, described Monaco as "very beautiful, lots of clear water, people are very rich, and many free toilets!" And they were right.

The hostel where I stayed was beautiful. My guidebook said it was supposed to have been the house that Napoleon gave to his mistress. This morning I actually paid money for the breakfast they had, since I was leaving fairly early and didn't want to have to search all over for a bakery like I did yesterday. I actually chose coffee to have with my breakfast over tea, hot chocolate, and orange juice! It wasn't as amazing as the cappuccinos I had been drinking in Italy every morning, but I actually enjoyed it.

Montpellier is a surprisingly beautiful city (not that I didn't think it was going to be nice, but I guess I had kind of assumed that it was just a city where a lot of trains happen to pass through, and not much else.... Kind of like Ventimiglia). Here's some irony: there was a group from Greenpeace doing petition gathering or something on this one really touristy street, and I actually kind of wanted to talk to them (as one can imagine, I haven't really had much opportunity lately for discussion on issues I really care about, besides travel). Out of the four (4) people who stopped me, not a single one spoke English! I tried to speak French with the first guy who stopped me, but he didn't seem interested once I said I was just traveling. Out of all the other groups on Florence, Rome, Venice, and others I saw who were doing similar things, out of all the creepy French and Italian men, out of all the homeless people I ran into, the ones who didn't try to talk to me after I said I only spoke a little French were the ones I actually really wanted to talk to!

Other than that, my afternoon hasn't been exciting. I spent too much money on too little gelato, but it was incredibly refreshing. I bought a ring from a French hippie. Now I'm sitting on the floor of the train station in front of the one outlet I found in the entire building. Yay!

The platform from which my train is departing was just announced - next post will be from Barcelona!