the week in Nice

I didn't blog much this week because I wanted to sit back and relax. So this is what I did.

Monday: I saw a museum, saw the view of an old fortress, went shopping, and had FHE.
The museum was small and not very interesting, but the one we wanted to go to was closed.
The fortress was super cool, and because of a tip from an old guy who gave us directions, we took the elevator and not the stairs, which was a very good idea. The view was phenomenal and there was this cool waterfall.

Shopping was great, and I finally got the one thing that I told myself I had to get while I was in France: the striped shirt.
FHE was essentially a party, and after that I partied with my friends.

Tuesday: I saw a Russian Orthodox Church and spent the afternoon at the beach.
The church was cool because it definitely didn’t look like it belonged in Nice, but apparently there are a lot of Russians who spend their vacations here, so the royal family had it built way back when.
As for the beach…when will I ever learn? I know that in the last hour of my stay, I will always get burned. The three hours before that mean nothing. If I had left an hour earlier I might have been a little pink, but because I stayed that extra hour I spent the next three days gingerly moving around.

Wednesday: I left the country.
I went to the principality of Monaco. Yeah, that’s right Monaco. Not Morocco, like I keep saying whenever I talk about it, but Monaco. You might remember it from the movie Casino Royale. If you don’t remember it, watch that movie again because part of it takes place in the Monte Carlo Casino. I’ve been there.
While I was there I also saw the royal palace and the royal cathedral where Princess Grace Kelly Grinaldi is buried. Those Monacoans really did like Princess Grace. Her name is everywhere.

Thursday: this was kind of a hodge-podge day.
I did laundry (way too expensive and half of my clothes now have mysterious red streaks on them, so not worth it), took a nap, went to the store for some last-minute shopping, nearly got blown away by the wind, and then went to dinner with the group in Old Nice. Old Nice by the way, is super cool. It has a ton of shopping and eating places and GELATO! There was this place with about 50 flavors (beating the pants off of Baskin Robbins), some of which were fig, rose, lavender, speculoos, avocado, tomato-basil, black olives, pepper, and beer. After the gelato we walked back to the residence along the pier, which was probably the coolest thing I’ve done in Nice. The wind had died down to a cool breeze, there were lights every few yards, people strolling along, and colored lights on the buildings. Awesome.

Friday: this was a bad day full of finals and tracking people down for a study I’m helping with. However, at the end I ate dinner with friends and ate more gelato.


There wasn’t a whole lot of relaxing in there, but I’m glad I did all of it.