Lesson 5,047 of traveling in Europe: if you think you have enough sunscreen and are being a diligent white-girl in protecting your skin....think again.
Our morning in Nice began pretty lazily with us getting up around 9:30 with just enough time to run downstairs and make sure we could keep all of our stuff in our room since Tibby's sister, Amanda, is arriving tonight! Since we had to do separate bookings because of the difference in numbers, we were a little unsure if we could stay in the same room, but the guy at the front desk was super nice and let us bypass the cleaning lady's furious attempts to reorganize our beds.
So with that crisis averted, we decided to take advantage of what this town is known for - their azure-blue waters and glorious French-Riviera beaches!! But before we hit the waves, we stopped into a little street cafe and bought ourselves some super-yummy Nutella crepes! Tibby nearly had a food orgasm and I was pretty blown-away myself with the deliciousness...
With our tummies full of French goodness, we finally made it to the beach! Unfortunately, I must admit that we had been expecting white-sandy gloriousness in addition to the ocean, and were quite surprised and a little dismayed to find that the beaches that were free were all big, hot pebbles.
It was not the most enjoyable experience trying to hop over the steaming rocks to get to an open spot only to then have to hiss in discomfort as we tried to position our towels on the bumpy surface.
Luckily the water was glorious and it was pretty nice (once we did get comfortable) to just chill out in the sun.
However, as I said before, even though we applied sunscreen liberally and did our best to keep ourselves shaded as much as possible, this French sun is an evil mistress and did some serious damage to our legs and backs. We know you parents will probably be emailing us with reprimands and solutions for our crispy skins, but we will say that we have taken as much healing actions as possible - even presenting our injuries to a French pharmacist (who was very attractive, I might add....) who himself cringed at our pinkness and quickly shoved a variety of potions and lotions into our helpless hands!
But before we headed back to our room to nurse our wounds, we did stop at a little grocer and bought some fruits and sandwiches for lunch (and then popped some pain pills...haha).
When we eventually did make it back to our hotel, we noticed that the other beds had been taken over by rather manly backpacks and other masculine items and eventually were able to meet our roomates - three guys from the San Francisco area who just graduated college and are making their way across Europe as a celebratory pat-on-the-back. Tyler, Kyle, and Kelly are their names and we all chatted familiarly about life back home as well as how we were all surprisingly exhausted from this sun! So, feeling pretty comfortable with each other, we communally decided to take naps and try to sleep away some of the pain of this sunny day. Tibby ended up napping for close to 2 hours and I spent the majority of the time just reading my book until the night began to filter through the windows and we realized how hungry we were! Luckily the boys had told us there was a 2 euro spaghetti dinner that the hotel was putting on, so we immediately jumped on that train and headed downstairs to fill our bellies with some tasty, cheap pasta! Tibby also had some of their complimentary wine and we shared in a bowl of popcorn they provided to us too! Then after dinner, we headed back upstairs, slathered on some more aloe and 'after-sun' lotions (and shared some with Kyle who was also aching...lol) and are now eagerly awaiting Amanda's arrival! In about a few hours she should be here and then our adventure through Provence and other parts of Southern France will begin!! We just hope the French sun will be a bit kinder to us and we continue our travels...
C'est la vie!
Until tomorrow, bon soir!
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