We’re Like Legit Backpacking… Okay lets Call A Taxi

Thursday February 24, Day 6

 After braving yet again another subway with our backpacks we headed to the train station and said goodbye to Annie. Annie went to Southern Spain to visit her best friend from home who is studying there while Caroline, Megan and I (the Blonds we finally managed to get rid of all the brunets) were heading to Portugal for the rest of the trip. We decided to go to Portugal as Caroline’s mother is from Brazil and she therefore grew up speaking some Portuguese. So with that we hopped on a bus at  the train station and headed to the airport.  

There had apparently been a slight computer glitch with Megan’s ticket as it printed as Megan Fett5 and we were nervous that there would be a problem as her name wouldn’t match her passport, however no one really noticed / cared and we have subsequently started calling her Megan Fett the V. The flight went perfect and because Portugal is an hour behind the rest of Europe the hour and five minute flight was actually only five minutes long when we finally arrived.

When we got to the airport in Lisbon we decided to go to the tourist center, as I couldn’t find where our hostel was on the map. We then found out from the very nice Portuguese woman that we were in the wrong city. My initial reaction was denial… we had flown here it wasn’t like we had gotten off at the wrong train station. We realized that we must have booked the wrong hostel accidently (it was actually located 300 miles away from Lisbon in Porta Portugal). After some quick thinking we called and canceled our original hostel and started calling hostels off the sheet that the woman at the tourist center had given us. On the third try Megan found one with three available beds and we then got directions to our hostel that was now in the right city. After taking a bus and a tram we got off at the stop that the woman told us to. It is in the old medieval part of the city. The streets wind and twist almost without reason or logic. We proceeded to get lost and the city started to become kind of sketchy. I was starting to think to myself that I was not staying here when Carolyn turned to me and said “ABSOLUELY NO”. We then went to plan B, while taking the Bus I read my guide book and had read a couple good hostel recommendations, we called the one and they amazingly had 3 beds! At this point Megan cheerfully goes “we’re like legit backpacking making this up as we go along” when Carolyn went, “yep its great, and I’m getting the hell out of here and taking a taxi”.

Five minutes later we were in the nice part of town and had arrived at the world’s nicest hostel. The hostel was extremely nice with high ceilings, freshly painted, hardwood floors and eclectically decorated. If you ever travel to Lisbon don’t pay for a hotel stay at this hostel. 

The best hostel in the world, living room and reception

living room and looking into dining room

cozy dinning room, the chandelier was made out of tea cups

really nice kitchen

sitting room outside our room designed to look like a park

 After dropping of our bags we headed out to find some dinner and explore. The city has a lot of open squares with narrow streets. We decided to eat at a cute little restaurant that had delicious fish and was absolutely amazing. I however didn’t like it as they charged us for the bread (I had let my guard down I though we were far enough away from Italy for that madness to have stopped). 

delicious dinner in Lisbon Portugal

 After dinner we went on a wild goose chase for gelato (its not hard to find gelato but its hard to find quality gelato which we have now grown accustom to). We ended up finding the most amazing homemade and unique gelato. I decided to be adventurous and try the pineapple-mint, which sounds absolutely disgusting but was absolutely amazing. We then headed back to the hostel and as we were all enacted we decided to stay in for the evening. Carolyn even fell asleep at like 9 pm (which was really 10 pm in the time zone that we are use to but still). I took the opportunity to catch up with my blogging which is where all of my previously blogs that were filled with all kinds of spelling mistakes were written. 

The best gelato in the world - I think that is what the window says in Portuguese

Free? Seriously…. We’re There!!!

Wednesday February 23, Day 5

Annie had taken a free walking tour in Berlin through Sandemans, which is a company that believes in offering free walking tours throughout major European cities so that everyone has an opportunity to learn and experience Europe. They had just restarted in Madrid as the Spanish government had refused to give them tour permits (because the free tours were unfair competition for the state organized “official tours that were between 15 and 20 euros) and subsequently discontinued their operations. However the company was able to successfully sue the city for permits as in the EU charter there is apparently a clause that made this illegal and they were subsequently allowed to restart operations in January – GO EU!!! 

Outside the Royal Palace of Madrid with our tour guide. Left to Right: Me, Megan, Matt (tour guide) Caroline and Annie

 The tours are lead by tour guides that are a native speaker (in the language that they are leading the tour in) and who have a degree from university relating either to the history, culture or language of the country, which makes them very informative, accurate and good as they are also geared more towards our age demographic.  The tour was over three hours long and too us through the major sites of the city. While the main streets are not as wide as Barcelona the buildings also aren’t as tall and matured trees (not palm trees) line both sides. Most buildings are only five stories tall soothe streets don’t feel as cramped as Barcelona however in may ways the two cities are very similar in feel, vibe, and predominating sense of architecture.

Typical City street in Madrid Spain

Royal Palace in Madrid Spain (the largest in Western Europe)

The tour was the perfect amount of fun facts, trivia and legends. Our tour guide was great and really energetic and easy to follow and listen to. I loved the tour as it was a great way to get a feel for the city, culture history in a quick dose.

Afterwards the tour had a promotion for a lunch for 6.50 euros. As we weren’t starving the 4 of us split 2 meals (hard to beat a decent amount of piaya and Sangria for only 3.25 euros). After lunch we wandered around for a while. In the evening in Madrid they open the two largest museums for their final 2 hours for free, which is the perfect amount of time for a museum (enough to enjoy, and no need to feel obligated to stay longer in order to get your money worth and subsequently burning out).

In the evening we decided that it was absolutely necessary to gain perspective on Madrid’s thriving nightlife. The company that ran the free walking tour also ran a program in the evening that took you to good bars / clubs and that way we didn’t have to search for places with cover, or pay ridiculously expensive cover and worry about getting lost or wandering into the dangerous part of town. I had so much fun, one of the places we went to was a salsa club and a really sweet guy attempted to teach me how to dance (don’t worry I am equally as uncoordinated at Salsa as I am at every other form of dance).  The evening was so much fun and resulted in the four of us laughing more than at any other part of the trip. It ended with us going to a 24 hour churro restaurant and having chocolate churos at 4 am which is always a great way to end a day / evening. 

Ready for a fun night out in Madrid. Left to Right: Annie, Me, Caroline, Megan

Eating churos at 4 am (horrible photo of me though) but they were delicious

Gaudi… Wow that’s so Gaudy (not sure if the two are actually related)

Tuesday February 22, Day 4

 We slept in this morning till 10 figuring that our bodies needed to recover. We then went and grabbed some stuff for a picnic at the market again – I told you that I loved the market. I tried another juice this time raspberry banana they are so delicious and refreshing. We then hopped on the metro to La Sagrada Familia. I really had no idea or concept of Gaudi architecture and therefore didn’t know what to expect. The cathedral is absolutely amazing and huge. People had recommended that we go inside, as the stain glass is incredibly beautiful. Unfortunately the line wrapped around two sides of the cathedral and we decided that we didn’t have time or want to wait to go inside. 

Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's most famous design, still under construction scheduled to be finished in 2026. Barcelona Spain.

 I originally thought that the cathedral was under major reconstruction / renovations. However I realized /earned later that the cathedral is still under construction and hasn’t been completed yet. Only 8 of the 18 towers are completed which is why there were 4 massive cranes. They are planning on completing the cathedral by 2026 (125 years after beginning). It was somewhat interesting – when you tour cathedrals, the Vatican they all took over a century to build but is weird to consider the intervening period while they were being building. It is cool when I consider that I am witnessing the construction of a landmark that tourists will probably visit for centuries.

Gaudi architecture can be a little bit over the top /over kill but it can also look magical and beautiful. We then went to Parc Guell, which was also designed by Gaudi. The park was originally designed / landed in the early 20^th century to be an exclusive community for the wealthy Barcelonans. However because of a financial crisis the park was never completed and was eventually purchased y the city as a large public park. 

Parc Guell, Gaudi Park over looking the city the perimeter is all covered in beautiful mosaics.

Caroline and Me in front of some of the beautiful mosaics in Parc Guell

One of the houses built in Parc Guell in the Gaudi Style - kind of looks like candy-land.

 The park is an interesting combination as the winding paths, stone bridges, tunnels, caves, mosaics are obviously designed and planned and yet they fit so well into the slopping hills of the park that in a strange way it actually works. Parc Guell sits onto of a steep hill on the western side of the city looking out towards the ocean. It is here that I absolutely feel in love with Gaudi architecture / style the colors and designs are whimsical and add cheerfulness to anything. I have decided that when I have a house some day I will decorate a small bathroom in the style.

By the time we finished shopping for postcards we realized (and by we I mean Megan remembered) that Parc Guel was actually the site of an America’s Next Top Model finale was located! 

Parc Guell Barcelona Spain, Site of an America's Next Top Model Finale.

 On our way back to the hostel we stopped at a restaurant and tried chocolate churros which are exactly like regular churros except that they are served with a type of thick hot chocolate that you dunk the churro into. They were delicious but I mean how can something friend with sugar dunked into chocolate be bad? As it was already late afternoon we went back to the hostel grabbed our bags and headed to the train station.

            After some confusion on whether or not we needed reservations (we did) we were on our way to Madrid. Spanish train stations are more like airports they are new and you even have to go through security and have identification checked. This is probably a result of the 2004 terrorist attack in Spain but I kind of agree with their logic. It takes a couple seconds to scan a passport and run it through the international programs (they then asked me for my residency papers) its not fool proof but its better than nothing. After going through security you go down to the tracks where you greeted by a very friendly man who checked your ticket for our seat assignment and will take you there. When he realized we were English speakers unlike the French who make you play charades he got the designated English speaking seat assigner finder who was very friendly, asked about our journey, where we were headed… such a more enjoyable way to travel. Once on the train there was a movie playing and they even gave us free headphones. We later learned from someone in Madrid that the high-speed train between Barcelona and Madrid is brand new and is the model for train travel in the future. However it is extremely expensive and the ticket are priced more like airline tickets 300 euro which basically means that this one train covered what I spent on my Euro rail. The train ride was an enjoyable nonstop and 3 hours later we arrived in Madrid at 20:45.

After checking into our hostel, which is nice but not, as nice as Barcelona we went out for dinner. We went to a restaurant that the guy at the hostel had recommended. We struggled with the menu and I reserved myself for picking something at random. When the waiter came back and we asked him a couple of questions, “what is in this” etc hi goes “you know that there is an English menu in the back” which subsequently made ordering drastically easier. 

Delicious restaurant in Madrid Spain and our great waiter who helped us find the English menu.

 I had (I think) some form of a traditional Spanish omelets, eggs, potatoes, ham and delicious sangria (with large chunks of fruit and ICE CUBES!!!) After dinner we went back to the hostel we figured that we would explore / go out tomorrow night when we had our bearing, it was also after 12:30 and w were exhausted after a whirlwind experience and 36 hours in Barcelona.

I Got Lost in A Cemetery…. Don’t Ask How

Monday, February 21, Day 4

After waking up around 8 am we all showered and got dressed and were ready to go by 9:30. We started out by having a quick breakfast of coffee and a chocolate pastry – nothing glamorous but absolutely delicious – and thus began our experience of eating our way through Spain.

The Streets of Barcelona remind me of New York, wide busy with cars and throngs of tourists. The buildings lining he street are primarily early 20^th century that but still with amazing and beautiful details that establish and set a distinct personality. Its an interesting mix between wandering tourists referencing maps to people on their way to work and who know exactly how to get there. Barcelona however is beautiful as palm trees line the sides of the road, vibrant flower beds, beautiful fountains make the busy active city feel like a tropical escape. 

 We first went to St. Josep La Boqueria, which is an enormous market with stands selling everything from delicious fresh fruit, seafood, meats, breads, spices, nuts. It was a total sensory overload and absolutely incredible. I wish that I could shop here everyday we did get a fruit juice that the girl on the train had recommended. There ere so many to choose from and so many interesting combinations. I was brave and tried her favorite “Mona” blackberry and banana. It was so good and refreshing. We the hoped on the subway to go to Monjuic and the castle as everyone says that it is beautiful. We got off the subway and started heading up the mountain. Beautiful gardens and fountains line the stops. As you climbed higher up the mountain you get to a museum (I skipped this as I only have a day in Barcelona not enough time to go there plus its way too nice to be indoors). We then continued u to Olympic park where the 1992 Olympics where held. It’s in a beautiful spot overlooking the city. It is around here however that we made a wrong turn that resulted at us ending up at the entrance of the cemetery. We were hoping that there would be an exit on the other side so that we could “cut through” so we went in. One the cemetery was huge, I am pretty sure that anyone who has ever died in Barcelona is buried there. Secondly everyone is buried on “shelf’s that are built into the side of the mountain. The cemetery kept going and going and going… it was incredible. After accepting the fact that the cemetery wasn’t continue to have an exit that would be right by the castle we started searching for the exit. 

St. Josep La Boqueria, the enormous outside market in Barcelona

colorful inside of St. Josep La Boqueria, Barcelona Spain

Delicious and extensive variety of fresh fruit juices at St. Josep La Boqueria

Olympic Torch of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona Spain

Steps leading up Mont Monjuic, a series of museums and the Olympic park are built into the side of the mountain.

 It was an absolutely beautiful day – bright blue skies – nice warm sun. After several miles (we made some kind of a wrong turn) we were starting to get desperate and jokingly even considered catching a ride from a student driver. We eventually made it to the castle, which was ell worth the journey. I had no idea of how large the city o Barcelona was until standing onto of the mountain. It is smushed between the mountain range on west and the sea on the east. After exploring for a while we headed back down. Along the way we passed amazing parks and charming playgrounds. When we finally arrived back in the city we attempted to find the restaurant that the girl on the train had recommended. We quickly discovered that her map was neither drawn to scale and was missing some major streets. Caroline eventually went tint a hotel where the concierge found the map hilarious; he told us that it was about a 15minute walk away. As we were all famished we decided that we would go to a restaurant in the area. This ended up being a brilliant decision as the food was absolutely amazing. We all chose three Tapas where are different types of small dishes so you can combine different ones to make your own customized meal. (We learned a couple days later in Madrid that story behind Tapas. Apparently when Spain was mainly small towns with poor farmers the Farmers would come into town for Lunch and wouldn’t be able to buy both lunch and a drink at the bar so they did the next logical thing and just got a drink. This inevitably began to hurt the local productivity of farmers so the king at the time made it a law that if a bar tender served an alcoholic beverage he also had to serve a small amount of food – hence Tapas.

Monjuic Castle, a fortification over looking the city of Barcelona & the port

Left to Right: Annie, Caroline & Megan overlooking the city of Barcelona Spain

View from the top of Mont Monjuic over looking the city of Barcelona Spain

Attempting to orient ourselves using our hand drawn map that the girl on the train drew for us

 I chose green pepers, which were amazing, asparagus and squid. The best tapas however were the fried potatoes. The outside was crispy and it literally melted in your moth. It was one of the best things that I have had in Europe thus far. We also got a pitcher of Sangria, which was delicious and officially my new favorite drink. All and All not a bad afternoon. After lunch ended I was ready for a siesta however we keep exploring as we had such a small amount of time in Barcelona. After a quick stop for gelato we began to just wander around the city.

My favorite spot was the Placa Reial. I though that it encompassed the culture entirely – very laid back and intellectual with people causally sitting around and chatting. I loved Barcelona the man streets lie La Rambla are wide bright an airy with shops lining the sides, pedestrians walking everywhere. It’s colorful, energetic and vibrant. And then when peering downside streets they were narrower, buildings having tons of balconies covered with plants, flowers, laundry. They seem more mysterious and yet oddly charming. 

Placa Reial a beautiful square off La Rambla in Barcelona Spain

Typical side street off La Rambla in Barcelona Spain

 The highlight of the afternoon was stumbling upon the best park in the world (none of us have been able to figure out what it was called) It had an incredible fountain that was actually reminded me of a pond with plants and trees incorporated into it with cascading stone waterfalls. 

Our favorite park in Barcelona, and beautiful fountain.

 If I were to describe Barcelona’s defining characteristic it would be parks – which is something that I absolutely loved about the city. After this I was ready to head home and enjoy a quick siesta, everyone else wanted to see the ocean (not like we weren’t just in Nice, however they all live in landlocked states so I’ll let them see the ocean). Overlooking the ocean at twilight was beautiful and I fell absolutely in love with Barcelona as it is the perfect mixture of university, city and ocean.

Enjoying one of the beautiful parks in Barcelona by writing in my journal

The beach at dusk in Barcelona Spain.

We got home around 7 pm and took a quick rest as we had dinner plans! A good friend from high school is studying abroad this semester in Barcelona. We made plans to meet up with her and her roommates for dinner. Claudia and her friends (one girl was also from Cornell and the other girl was from Greece) met us at our hostel at 10pm (I have decided that the Weinschenk Family isn’t weird but is instead just Spanish. In Spain restaurants don’t open till 8:30 at the earliest and most people eat dinner around 9 or 10 pm. The reason why you should always met up with a friend who is studying locally is that they know the bet local haunts with amazing food at an even better price. I had a delicious dinner of Paella, an appetizer, wine and desert for only 10 euro. It was a great group and everyone got along with everyone else great so it was a great opportunity to meet other people.

We got back to the hostel around 12:30, Caroline really wanted to go out however because Annie wasn’t feeling well I stayed in with her while the other two went out (I also don’t like clubbing enough to spend 20 euros on it). Staying in actually turned out to be a really fun experience. There were seven or eight other people and we were literally from all over the world. With the exception of one other guy from California everyone else was from a non English speaking country. However as everyone spoke different languages (there were people from Belgium, Germany, France, Hungry, Brazil, Slovenia) everyone spoke in English. It was an amazing evening and I really enjoyed myself this is every bit what I imagined my time in Europe to be like. Meeting up with old friends halfway around the world, meeting people from around the world – seriously when will I ever be able to do that again in my life?

These are the Moments That I am Going to Remember

Sunday February 20, Day 3

Well the amazing weather can’t last forever – we woke up to gray overcast skies and a light drizzle… at which point I realized that I had managed to leave my umbrella in Luxembourg. Considering today’s weather I am glad that we figured out bus 82 yesterday instead of doing it today. After eating breakfast at the hostel, and dropping our bags off at the train station we went exploring the market/ older part of Nice. The flower market/fruit/produce was amazing and the entire way down the street were dozens of people selling anything that you could think of. The colors and vibrancy were breathtaking. After a little shopping we purchased lunch – focacia bread and the freshest most delicious strawberries of my life. We then crossed the street and had a picnic lunch while sitting on the pebbled beach.. the sea gently lapping onto the shore (while still overcast it had stopped raining).  It is these quiet undisturbed moments that I will inevitably remember most and will have the fondest memories of. 

Street Market in Nice France

Enjoying lunch on the beach in Nice France. Left to Right: Annie, Me, Caroline, Megan

After perfect lunch we had to start heading back to the train station. Stopping along the carnaval route to marvel and the scope and size. The train to Barcelona was confusing… the French liking to be different and difficult actually make you make a seat reservation when traveling with eurorail (although it doesn’t tell you this anywhere) we decided that it is the French just deciding to be difficult. Either way we got charged 10 Eros, which again isn’t that expensive. However several stops after purchasing our tickets a couple men got on the train and apparently we were sitting in their seats… so we had to get up, however at this point the train was extremely crowded so we had to sit on the floor. Sitting on the floor of a train for over 3 hours makes you really feel like a student traveling through Europe but again is the type of experiences that you can only have while traveling with 4 friends and will probably be a memory that I will always cherish. 

Sitting on the floor on the train and journaling & blogging

 We arrived in Montpellier at 17:45 and had about an hour till kill before our next train, we decided that we would check this time to ee if we needed a reservation. Unfortunately my French really isn’t strong enough for this, which is what is starting to become annoying about being in Europe for such a prolonged period of time – simple task are so difficult. The woman who would only speak to me in French and in the process of making fun of my high school French managed to communicate that it was obligatory. 10 euro later we had our seats.

After sitting down on our rain to Figures the girl sitting across the aisle started speaking to us. She was originally from California had gone to school at Indiana University and was now working in Barcelona as a journalist. She was really friendly and started asking us about our travels and plans. She then started giving us all of these recommendations of places to eat, types of food to try, things to see, clubs to go to. She basically became our personal travel agent. She ended up drawing us a map of the city (although as we learned the following day really wasn’t drawn to scale).  After sitting next to her on the train we decided that it was fate that the woman had made us make reservations (no one checked this time) and that she had sat us there.

After a quick transfer in Figures we were finally almost to Barcelona at around 22:45. We then took the metro to our hostel (I absolutely hate getting into crowed confined spaces subways, trams, busses) with my hiking backpack as I inevitably end up taking people out with it.) I was shocked by how crowded the subway was given it was after 11.

Our Hostel Sant Jordi was only a couple block from the subway and we made it there with limited problems. The first thing that we saw hen we exited the subway station was a building in Gaudi architecture Perhaps it was because I was schlepping all of my things but I wasn’t that interested or in love with the architecture. The hostel is actually very small. Three bedrooms, two showers, tow bathrooms a kitchen and a tv room. Because there were only 18 people it had a really homey feel, as we discovered over the course of our stay we absolutely loved this hostel the staff was amazing and the place had a great vibe. 

Kitchen of our favorite hostel St Jordi, Barcelona Spain

Cozy living room in hostel

 Because the hostel was so small, and the staff was so great the organized evening outings. They were taking everyone to a bar and club, we said that we would meet up with everyone as we needed to freshen up a bit first. The club was really cool after going through a small front room it emptied into a large bar with dark mahogany wood. There was also a balcony around the perimeter of the room. Sunday nigh was also Karoke night which meant that it was mostly drunk Spanish students singing American songs (literally it ranged from the Lion King, to Shout, to Michel Jackson) Around 2 everyone from the hostel headed to the club where the hostel had a relation so we didn’t have to pay the cover. When we got there was a live band playing music which was more local so it was really interesting and good although difficult to dance to however after they ended their set and went on a break around 3 the club started playing mostly American music at which point we decided that it would be better to head home and get a good night sleep before our insanely busy world wind day of sight seeing. 

Fun night out in Barcelona Spain

Carnaval…. You have NO IDEA!

Saturday Evening, February 19, Still Day 2

I am not sure if you will ever grasp how crazy carnaval is unless you physically go to one. They completely closed the main street (the one that the tram runs through) and an two adjacent squares. 4 large grand stands line both side of the square…. 1,000 of people were squeezed into the square wearing insane costumes, throwing confetti squirting silly string at you. The floats were absolutely bizarre and insane. The constant stimuli was exhilarating. When we left at 11:30 the parade was still going on we left however because we were concerned that the tram would be ridiculously crowded once the parade ended and our hostel stopped running its shuttle from the tram at midnight and we were too tired to climb any more hills today.

I am so happy and excited that I saw this carnaval parade. It runs two days a year, so the chance that our one night matched up with it was amazing. It was n incredible insight into Europe culture and something that we would never have been able to experience elsewhere. 

BUS 82

Saturday February 19, Day 2

After we got on the local train we continued on to Nice, which a beautiful journey along the coast. It was a gorgeous day – crystal blue skies with wispy white clouds. The Caribbean blue sea reflecting the bright sun and Palm trees blowing gently in the wind. To imagine that we were in Luxembourg 15 hours ago was hard to imagine. The landscape was especially beautiful as it was a unique combination and juxtaposition. Red cliffs along the coast resembled Arizona, the sea looked like the Caribbean the mountains and houses built into them resembled St. Thomas while the white snow capped mountains looked more like Switzerland.

After we arrived we took a tram, which runs down the main street in Nice – after figuring out the ticket machine (it was more challenging that you would think) we smushed onto an incredibly crowded train a difficult and uncomfortable experience exasperated by the fact that we had enormous backpacks strapped to our backs. The hostel that we are staying at has been repeatedly voted one of the best in Europe, is on top of a steel hill in a very tropical setting. I will say that with the exception of our first hostel in Bruges every hostel that we have stayed at has been incredible. I think the “sketchyness” of hostels has diminished significantly with the internet. Hostelword is a website that you can research and book hostels through. Hostels pay and adhere to certain standards in order to be on this website and to be considered a “hostelworld” hostel. For example hostelworld mandates that participating hostels have certain security and cleanliness standards and they have to be non smoking! Hostels participate in this as most people don’t book or research hostels any other way so if you aren’t in Hostelworld you aren’t going to have a very successful business. Also when researching a city if I were to type in “Nice” it lists them in order of Rank… best first. All of this I think has influenced hostels to offer a lot of amenities (free wifi, included breakfast, free walking tours etc).

After dropping off all of our stuff we headed out to go exploring the city. A girl at the hostel recommended that we go to Eze Village and Monaco for the day. She told us where to take the tram to, what bus (#82) to catch and gave us a map – easy enough. After a little confusion we made it to the bus stop 82. It looked like we had a while till the next bus so we went to a café right next to the stop and had a crepe. It was really local places as inside there were about a half dozen men playing backgammon. I had an amazing sugar crepe it was so great (sorry crazy baker). While we were enjoying our crepes outside a carnaval parade passed right in front of us – we serious could not have planned for it I we had tried. The floats reminded me of the rose bowl as they were all covered in different types of flowers. 

Apart of Nice's Carnival celebration. Floats are made out of flowers.

 After a parade and a crepe we went back to the bus stop. However when we finally saw the bus it drove right past us. I still cannot tell you why – but it did. We then wandered through the city trying to find another bus stop. After much aggravation a cal to the hostel and four bus stops later we found it (or more like it finally stopped). 

Finally on Bus 82 and very happy. Left to Right: Megan, Annie & Katie

 While we were waiting for bus 82 we went down to the port – I guess that I never appreciated or understood how incredible the French Riviera (Cote D’Azur) is. I can’t get over how much I love Nice, I never imagined that I would make it to basically st. Thomas on a MUDEC break. 

 Finally at 15:12 (I am not trying to be obnoxious with the military time but I am desperately trying to get better at it / make it more natural as I am constantly afraid that I am going to miss a train as I will have interpret the wrong time) the bus came, and actually stopped – it was really exciting. We were heading to Eze Villae, which is a small 14^th century village on top of a cliff over looking the water. After getting off the bus we went to a little market and bought cheese, salmi and a baguette and cookies for lunch. We then climbed to the top of the hill which ahs the remains of a medieval fortification. The hill is a collection and network of winding narrow cobble stone streets with buildings built into to side of the cliff. It was absolutely amazing – sorry that I don’t have any better adjectives. After eating our picnic lunch we continued up to the top which was a garden which had hundreds of varieties of cacti. 

quaint winding streets of the 14th century Eze Village.

At the top of Eze Village overlooking the French Riviera

Me in Eze Village, Nice France

As the sun was starting to set and it was already around 5 pm we headed back to our favorite bus stop. As it was the end of the day there were a lot of people waiting to go back to Nice – it was at least nice to now that we were at the right bus stop this time. The bus was late and then extremely crowded (at this point we had definitely developed  love hate relationship with Bus 82). We decided to cut Monaco out as we wanted to go back to the hostel to have dinner and wanted to go to carnaval which started at 9 pm.

After showering (very necessary after an overnight train, surviving bus 82 and hiking through an exotic cactus garden) we went downstairs to dinner. As one of the best hostels in Europe there is a legit chef who for 6.50 euro cooked a meal (chicken, potatoes and risotto and absolutely delicious). We ate quickly so that we could go to CARNAVAL!!!!!!!