Saturday 10/1: ROMAN LEFTOVERS
Today we left Greece. I was feeling sad, you know, the kind of sad when your vacation is coming to an end and you wish you could just make time slow down forever so you never have to go back home? Well... then I realized that I didn't have to go home, or back to work but my vacation was continuing on just to a different place! Then I got excited for more of Italy. We caught a shuttle to the Athens airport, but this shuttle was pretty slow and we were stuck sitting close to a nasty, greasy couple who was just a little too "in love" for my comfort zone. PDA is so gross...especially when the people are gross and it's early in the morning and they are sitting directly in your view.
Once we finally got to the airport, it was super nice because everything was really well-organized and efficient. They freaked out a little when my bag went through because they thought my camera lens was a bomb! So they had to do some tests on it and made me take the cap off...Weird. Strangely enough though, we got to keep our shoes on. The flight was quick and we arrived in Rome with plenty of the day left to explore. We found a shuttle from the airport to the center for only 4 Euros! (The Info lady at the desk said that 8 was the cheapest, so we learned our lesson about walking a little further past the first shuttle companies to find the best price.) Never take the first shuttle you see! Nine times out of 10 you will find one cheaper if you just keep walking.
One thing we really wanted to see was St Peter's Basilica. We couldn't go our first day because we were both wearing shorts and sandals. This time, I wore a dress but we still saw a lot of women in shorts who had to buy scarves to wrap around their legs. The paintings and architecture were so beautiful! The giant dome was impressive and the intricate design was just breathtaking. We agreed that it was even more impressive than the Sistine Chapel. We were lucky enough to go on a Saturday, so we got to attend part of Mass (it was all in Italian though so we had no idea what was going on). My favorite part of the basilica was the gold ceiling...simply beautiful. Christopher was also super excited because he saw a nun AND got his picture taken with her. She was so cute :)
Then we headed over to the San Pietro in Vincoli chapel where St Peter's chains are stored and Michaelangelo's
Moses painting is hung. It was a very simple chapel, but a few neat things to see. It was an interesting journey trying to find this chapel. We walked around the general vicinity for a good 30 minutes. When we asked, no one understood what we were trying to say. They just kept sending us to the Vatican. We then asked for the Colosseum and they said they didn't know English. We even said "Colosseo" in an Italian accent and they just stared at us. It was super frustrating because we really were trying. I'm not sure if they were just annoyed of tourists, or they really couldn't look at a cartoon map of the Colosseum and know what we were talking about... but it was
beyond frustrating.
While walking around the city, we saw lots of graffiti, beggars with elephantiasis, little kids playing accordions on the metro, and young girls trying to wash windows for just a few coins. It was such a sad economy. At times it felt almost like a third-world country. Since it was a bigger city, there was also a lot of trash, TONS of people everywhere, and the air was really thick with dust and pollution. It wasn't the most enjoyable city to walk around in, but the sites made it all worth it.
As it started to get dark, we made our way over to the Cestius Pyramid. It was pretty cool. We never knew it existed or even heard anything about it. We just saw a little graphic on the map and decided to go check it out. We didn't go inside, but it was a neat site that I didn't expect to find in Rome.
We were starving by this point, so we walked around to try and find a good restaurant. It was one of my life goals to eat spaghetti in Rome so we wanted to find a cute local place with tasty food. But once again...no one could understand us. I kept on saying spaghetti and even busted out the charades moves pretending like I was eating but they just stared and shook their heads. I seriously just wanted to scream. The people who finally understood us said they didn't know, or just pointed and said "there is food over there." But we didn't just want any old place, we wanted a place that was special. We soon figured out that the people we were asking, were the people who never go out to eat, they always make their own at home.
While I'm on this rampage... I also have to add that Italians are
horrible at giving directions!! Either that, or they just hate American tourists. But literally every time we asked they would say, "walk straight a few blocks or so and then go that way and ask someone else." They honestly were that vague or sometimes even worse. I SO missed the Irish people. They are the nicest people on the planet. If you ask for directions, they will walk or drive you there themselves.
But anyway, after about an hour we finally found a good place to eat spaghetti!! We were both extremely tired and starving but luckily the food was pretty cheap and tasty. However, the service was really poor. It took almost 2 hours just to get our food. Plus they gave us a dirty look for sharing a plate and for not getting a drink. But we enjoyed it anyway and I got to accomplish my life goal.
To end our day in Rome, we walked to the Trevi Fountain again because we wanted to see it at night. It was SO beautiful and is still our favorite part about the city. It was funny because exactly 7 days ago we threw a coin in and the myth says that when you do it will "ensure your return trip to Rome"... so the myth came true! We decided not to throw in another coin because that means you will find true love, and we're all set in that department. :)
Once we got back to the campsite, we explored the local store and I found some vanilla wafers for 62 cents. I didn't expect much but they turned out to be the BEST wafers I have ever eaten in my life. I ran back and bought like 5 packs to stash for the rest of our trip.
Sunday 10/2: PANORAMIC FLORENCE
Today we met back up with BusAbout and continued on our journey, heading north. We were happy to find that the bus also had charging docks so we could charge the camera battery and our phones. Another neat thing about our tour was that we made "Photo Stops" (I especially loved this.)
Our first one was in Orvieto, where we stopped for a few hours in the morning. It is a beautiful village on the top of a hill overlooking beautiful Italian countryside. It's most famous for its big, beautiful Duomo.
The lighting was perfect when we first arrived so I hurried and took my photos before the sun casted shadow lines. Then we wandered around the little village admiring vibrant handmade pottery and romantic alley ways. We came across a little tiny church that Christopher wanted to go in. When we walked in, there was one beam of light shining brightly through a window, like a giant spotlight illuminating in a direct line. I'd never seen anything like it before. It was a simple, beautiful moment that even my trusty Nikon couldn't quite capture completely.
Then it was back on the bus to Florence! We decided not to stay in the "recommended" hostel but instead found another campsite hostel (for half the price) near the Piazzale Michaelangelo. It was definitely the right choice! Just a few minute walk up the road was a gorgeous panoramic view of Florence, with a bronze replica statue of Michaelangelo's
David. We walked up to watch the sunset and enjoyed the beautiful view with a bright orange and pink sky. It was amazing.
For dinner we were happy to enjoy some more delicious Italian style pizza! The fresh mozzarella and mushrooms definitely hit the spot. The campsite also had Wifi so I was able to Skype with my parents. It was the first time I had talked to them since our big backpacking adventure and it was so fun to tell them about our trip and to just hear another familiar (English-speaking) voice. I was starting to get a little bit homesick at this point... but more like sick of living out of a backpack and
walking for miles every day. But this feeling never stayed long as the amazing sites and places reminded me how lucky I was to have this experience.
One funny thing about Italy is
they love to trap tourists with their souvenirs of crazy-shaped pasta. They literally have pasta in every color and shape you can think of: stars, hearts, animals...and even in the shapes you wouldn't think of, like male private parts? haha seriously Italy, you're crazy.
For the evening, we just hung out at the hostel's outdoor lounge and happened to make some new friends. We met Carly and Jed, who were another young married couple from Alaska. We got along really well and they were the type of friends that just "clicked" with us.
Then we also met Svenja, a little blonde girl from South Africa, who was nice but all of the sudden got really angry at Chris when he asked her about the best places to hunt wild African animals. She was appalled that he wanted to hunt a lion and said it was really "swock" (aka: crappy) and she almost started crying. We felt bad, but we tried to explain to her that we would use all of the meat and wouldn't be wasteful... but she was offended for the rest of the night. She also used funny South African lingo like "hoot" your horn. She was entertaining to listen to. We all stayed up until about 1am just chatting about our travels and lives. It was fun to have some good conversation.
Monday 10/3: BEAUTIFUL DUOMO & ITALIAN CUISINE
Today we experienced Italy's rebellion against Mondays. I'm not sure why, but so many things are closed. But despite their strange schedule, we still enjoyed our day in Florence. For breakfast, we ate some croissants filled with chocolate cream/pudding. It became a typical breakfast for us because we could buy them in a big package and eat them for a few days. They weren't fresh; I'd say they are equivalent to a PopTart for Americans.
We walked down to the city center from our campsite and saw all the main sites. First, the Duomo which was really beautiful. It seems to be the city's landmark attraction, like the Eiffel Tower for Paris or Big Ben for London. The dome was really beautiful with nice paintings and architecture. Then we walked over to the Ponte Vecchio bridge. It's the only bridge that's left from the WWII bombing so it has a neat historical background. It was nice to walk across. There was a lot of pretty jewelry that wasn't even that expensive. I was surprised.
Since most of the sites were closed, we visited the churches. We also saw another copy of Michaelangelo's
David outside one of the museums. We decided not to pay to go inside because it wasn't really worth it to us. The replicas were sufficient for us. We also saw a lot of other large white statues with some crazy and violent interpretations like people's heads getting ripped off and others portrayed love and betrayal... it was interesting.
Our tour guide said the markets were closed on Monday but we happened to stumble upon the famous San Lorenzo markets which were full of people and tents. They were selling the most beautiful leather goods - coats, bags, suitcases, purses, wallets, bracelets, shoes, belts... it was torturous! I wanted a big leather duffel bag SO badly...but I couldn't rationalize the 300-500 Euros they cost. The markets also sold pots, dishes, scarves, artwork, and tons of tourist-trap trinkets. We mostly just admired and looked at all our options. We didn't want to buy something and then find another item later and regret our purchase.
After mulling through the markets, we found a little dessert shop and I ate my first Canoli! All I can say is, YUM! If you haven't had one before, they have a graham cracker/cookie-like crust with a chocolate coating and powdered sugar on the outside and then a cold creamy inside. (Oh, they are addicting... I'm craving one right now just thinking about them!)
Then we hung out at the park and people watched for awhile. While relaxing, we saw how the city's crazy underground dumpsters work. There is a big crane that drives around to each metal trashcan (looks kind of like a U.S. mail drop) and then it picks them up with a giant magnet which reveals a big container that was underground and empties them into the garbage truck. Someone told us a crazy story about a kid who was playing hide-and-seek and actually crawled inside the trashcan and was stuck down there! Gross and scary... but he ended up being fine so it's kind of funny.
After our little break, we did some shopping. It started out as window shopping at Louie Viton, Gucci, Prada, etc. and then I wandered into the middle-class mall and found a perfect skirt at H&M for only 10 Euros! I was super excited...and even though my bag had no room, I made room. Then we finished up our market/shopping day with a little good luck rub on the hog (For some reason Europe likes to make statues that people rub for good luck).
As the sun set, we walked along the river and looked out toward the Ponte Vecchio bridge. It was a beautiful site. For dinner, we went to a cute little restaurant and Christopher got pizza and I got the Carbonara pasta and then we shared. The pasta was crazy...it was made with egg and bacon! They were both really tasty and we knew the pasta was a good choice because the 3 people around us got it too. To end our day, we sat up by the Piazzale Michaelangelo that overlooked the city of Florence to see the view at night. Then we hung out with our Alaskan friends again back at the campsite and fell asleep fast because we had been walking all.day.long.
Tuesday 10/4: BARGAIN HUNTING AT THE MARKETS 
Today was designated as our official treasure hunting day. We woke up pretty early and took a bus outside the city to a little suburb across the river where the Cascine Markets are located. They are only on Tuesdays, so we were lucky to be in Florence this day. They are a lot different than the San Lorenzo markets because they are way less touristy, which means things are cheaper and also means less people speak English. But just as I suspected, they were amazing!
I found two blazers, one black and one khaki for only 5 Euros each!! I couldn't believe it. I had been searching for blazers this whole trip but just couldn't bring myself to pay 25-30 Euros. They also had lots of jewelry (from India), fake Italian bags, shoes and second-hand clothes. We walked around, found a few treasures, ate a super tasty pig sandwich...they had the whole cooked pig, in the shape of a pig on a giant platter inside of a little trailer and his body was stuffed with spices!
While we were walking around, we saw a crazy one-man band. He was wearing a contraption that allowed him to play the drums, symbols and harmonica all at the same time...people are definitely desperate to entertain to try and make a few extra Euros and they are starting to get more creative too. After the market started to close up, we walked back over to Florence and returned to the San Lorenzo market to see what we wanted now that we had seen the variety of options.
Chris tried on a bunch of leather jackets and ALMOST bought one... but decided to hold off. The cost ranged from 80-500 Euros. They were really nice, but he decided that he would rather spend that money on a coat we could find on sale in America, so we didn't have to pay the extra "American tourist" fee. I admired the leather duffel bags again...they were so beautiful! But despite how much my heart ached for one, I knew that it wasn't a good idea for our budget. Someday :)
Our second big bargain of the day was some really cool Italian ties. For only 10 Euros, Christopher got 4 ties! He picked out some matching ones for him, his dad and his brothers. Then we got some food from the supermarket and treated ourselves to some delicious gelato. We ate on the square whiled we listened to some cute street performers playing Italian music and watched the bright orange-red sunset turn to night.
Throughout the trip, we learned a lot of things but one specifically was how to share. We didn't realize how spoiled we are! We are used to each having our own phone, our own iPod, our own computers... but when we went to Europe we decided to bring just one so we cut down on weight and the possibility of theft. Overtime we got better, but it was still a little annoying. It was clearly good for us though, hopefully we became a little bit less selfish.
Wednesday 10/5: THE LEANING TOWER & LOVER'S WALK
It was rough waking up today. And even worse when we had to fork over 100 Euros for a crappy campsite. Yuck. But at least the view, the location and our new friends made it worth it. We found another couple from New Zealand who was on our BusAbout trip and they were heading back to the pickup point too so we walked with them and chatted about our Florence adventures.Then we caught
the bus that took us to the other side of the city where most of the bus was staying in a hostel. There was a gorgeous red sunrise as we drove across the river.
While we were on the bus, the tour guide turned on a few
episodes of Family Guy (click to watch). Normally I don't like this show but watching something was better than being bored. It made the time go by quicker too. Today, we heard the funniest line of any cartoon, EVER. (Probably mostly just funny due to the timing.) So the episode was about some undercover Russian spies/"sleeper agents" and the government set an "activate phrase" as one sentence that no human being would ever utter. So the dog asked, "How do you know that someone wont say it on accident?" And then they responded, "Not
possible." Then the little boy asked what the phrase was, so the government said, "Oh my gosh, that Italian family eating at the next table sure is quiet." Hahaha the whole bus couldn't stop laughing.
Today we had our second Photo Stop at the world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa! We joined the crowd and took our classic pictures of pushing, kicking and climbing the tower. It was fun but also a little annoying trying to get a picture without someone in the background... so we kinda gave up and just did our best. The tower was cool to see and I'm totally glad we did, but I'm glad it was just a photo stop and not a hop-off stop because other than the tower there wasn't much to do.
A few hours later, we arrived in La Spezia and got train tickets to Riomaggiore, the first village of Cinque Terre ("The Five Lands"). Right as we exited the train, we found an old lady who offered us a
hostel for 20 Euros per person, per night. We decided to check around just in case we found something else but the cheapest we could find was 65 Euros per person! So we stayed at Mamma Rosa Hostel - a little bit of a "dive"... but we bartered her down about 50% to only 50 Euros for both of us for 2 nights :) I knew it was
meant to be when our key was for Room #7!
I was so excited for Cinque Terre so we did the Lover's Walk right away. We saw lots of locks along the way, graffiti messages, and of course...a
beautiful view of the coast!! We also did our own "Lock of Love" and found the perfect place for it...locked it to two other locks, one was red and heart shaped and the other one said "forever." It was cute. Then we kissed our keys and threw them into the ocean.
After our walk, we made it to the second village, Manarola which had the
MOST amazing view! This is where most of the famous paintings and photographs are from. We saw a bunch of swimmers, cliff jumpers, fishers, boats, and explored all the little shops. Then we walked back to our village and found some great photo spots by hiking past the boat marina and across the rocks. Even though some paint was chipping and the colors were fading, it was almost better because it gave the scene more personality and life.
Then we got some gelato and watched the sunset on the ocean horizon. That's one thing I loved most about our trip... it gave us time to really enjoy the simple beauties of life and to appreciate the miracle's of nature. Time spent on vacation is so much different than the hustle and busyness of every day life. After the sun went down we found some tasty THICK CRUST (rare) Italian pizza! It was definitely the best yet!!! And it was so filling, it lasted 2 meals for us. (Thankfully, Mamma Rosa's had a fridge!)
Thursday 10/6: HIKES, CLIFFS & JELLYFISH
This morning, I woke up from a super crazy dream! I was in some alternate world like Alice and
Wonderland combined with the Christmas Carol. It was a journey through all my memories and the people I have impacted or those who have helped me in my life. It was an endless maze/labyrinth, and I came across a few famous people who wanted to meet me. Then the news came and said they wanted to interview me about this million dollar project that was created just for me... haha yeah, it was a pretty cool dream.
Anyway... we took the local train out to the 5th village called Monterosso where we laid on the beach for awhile and just relaxed. I decided to go for a swim and the water felt so nice! It was also really clear and beautiful. Once Christopher got bored (which is always way too fast for my beach-bum liking), we started the HIKE. Although we had no idea just how much of a hike we were in for.
Since we started with the Lover's Walk, we assumed the rest of the "hiking" would be similar. We were very wrong. The walk from Monterosso to the 4th village, Vernazza had SO MANY steps up!!! Then for awhile it would have steps down (just to trick us into thinking we were headed down), just to walk back up again. To make things worse, the view wasn't even that great.
Every once in awhile we caught a glimpse of the coast or a mountain through the trees... but mostly for us, it was just a big mistake. It took almost 2 hours, when we expected it to take 30 minutes. It was super painful on the legs, when we expected it to be a nice afternoon stroll. So mostly I think if our expectations would have been different, we wouldn't have complained so much. But if you're going to do the hike, especially starting at Monterosso... BEWARE. Your legs will hate you.
The one positive thing about our torturous (sweaty, sweaty hot) hike was that we did have a great view of Vernazza on our final decent down. This was Christopher's favorite village. We had both stripped down to our swimsuits by this point, so we were totally ready to dive off the dock into the harbor. Cold ocean water never felt so GOOD!
We did a few cannon balls and then dried out on the rocks as we ate our packed lunches. To my dismay... a few minutes after we had gotten out of the water, we saw a jellyfish floating by! I am TERRIFIED of jellies and I was pretty traumatized that had we jumped in 4 minutes later... we could have been tingling with poisonous pain.
Since we were both completely hiked out, we took the train to Corniglia, the third village, and then took a bus up to the top. We were happy that the ride was free with our park pass because we were definitely done with steps. This village had nice views of the coast and you could also see a few of the other villages in the distance.
My favorite part of Cinque Terre was Manarola.
Mostly because this is where I took
my favorite picture:
AND...where I had a brave moment and
cliff jumped! However, I'm not sure which I was more scared
of, the jump or landing in water where people had been spotting jellyfish all day long. Even though the sun was almost setting, I was getting cold, I didn't feel like getting wet and I was terrified... at this moment a quote kept running through my mind, "
Most of the time you regret the things you didn't do." I decided that I was most likely never going to have the chance to cliff jump in Cinque Terre again so I might as well stop being a baby and just do it. And I'm SO glad I did. It was a blast. And I found a cute mini starfish clinging to the rocks.
After we dried off, we watched the sun set, again. This evening was probably one of my favorites from the whole trip. I especially love it when there are clouds on the horizon... it just makes each sunset so much more unique. On our way back to our hostel we walked down the lovers path to visit our lock, only to find that it was already GONE!! Someone had come by and chopped them off :( It was a devastating moment. For a split-second I felt like maybe our love really wasn't going to last forever... but then I realized it was silly to even think that way. But it sure was a romance-killer.
Later that night we decided to take a stroll down the Lovers Walk one last time, but at night so we could see the cliff houses of Manarola in the moonlight. It was so beautiful with the moon shining brightly and reflecting off the water, illuminating the houses on the cliffs. I tried to capture it but a picture just can't do it justice. It was magical.
Then the path closed, so we took the train back to get some dinner. It was about 9:30pm...perfect time to eat dinner in Italy. We adjusted quite well to their culture because real food just never sounded good during the heat of the day. We looked for our favorite pizza shop, but it was closed, so we went to a different one who gave us a special deal since they were about to close. We got 7 slices of different kinds of pizza, plus some focaccia bread which is famous in this part of Italy. They only charged us 12 Euros! It was so yummy! The focaccia was really puffy bread with domes of melted cheese and flavors...simply delicious!
Friday 10/7: BUS RIDE THROUGH THE FRENCH RIVIERA
We spent our last moments in Italy waving goodbye to Mamma Rosa's hostel and then walking through our village, Riomaggiore looking for some croissants and juice. After turning to corner to head up to the shops, I
saw a girl that looked familiar. Then as we made eye contact we both got that feeling like, "I know you...but I'm not sure how." Then it clicked. She was a friend of a friend from Utah State! We actually played on the same intramural basketball team together. Christopher happened to know her too so he said her name and her whole group was super surprised. She was studying abroad in Sienna, Italy and just happened to come to Cinque Terre...and we just happened to be walking down the same street at the same exact minute. I mean really, what are the chances? Had there been one or two minutes difference in either of our schedules we never would have crossed paths. It was fun to see a familiar (English-speaking, American) face. Earlier on our trip we met a few Ohio State alumni in Florence and some more Aggies in Monterosso. Crazy how things like that happen. On our train ride back to La Spezia, we actually got checked by the train enforcement! It was the first time in Cinque Terre because the train rides are so quick that they often don't get a chance to check. Luckily, this time we had validated our tickets because Christopher liked to be a little risky when deciding whether or not to validate. If you don't, you could get a huge fine, so we were relieved that we did.
In La Spezia, we met up with our BusAbout crew and continued our journey northwest toward the South of France. We saw beautiful views of the coastline and also enjoyed learning about the French Riviera. One thing we didn't know is that Monaco is actually like it's own country. AND you have to pay 1 MILLION dollars just to
apply to live there! So ridiculous and crazy. It's a tax free country with the highest GDP and lowest unemployment rate. The views are really nice but we decided that it's a little overrated and mostly just a status thing. Plus, (apparently) Brad and Angelina Jolie have been trying to get a house here for awhile and they got rejected. haha, I guess being a celebrity isn't always the golden ticket.
While on our bus rides we enjoyed listening to many Australian accents around us. They say funny words and phrases like, "that's rubbish," "ages ago," "heaps of fun," and one of them called me "fresh." haha it's fun to listen to because even though it's English they have different lingo that
sometimes makes them hard to understand.
Once arriving in Nice, we took the tram to our Couch Surfer, Morey's apartment. He is a nice old guy, who is super friendly and just happened to be very outwardly gay. He told us a lot about his hobbies, his artwork and the great gay community Nice has to offer. It was fun getting to know him and learning about his artwork. He also enjoys photography, just like me. For dinner, we walked down to the local supermarket and found some tortellini to cook in Morey's flat. He was really kind to share some of his food with us.
Saturday 10/8: BEACH DAY
Today was a really low-key day. We woke up and took a bus to the cape and explored a couple
different beaches, Paloma and Passable. They were both pretty rocky and the views weren't that great so we eventually asked around and
made it to a sandy one surrounded by pretty palm trees. But we soon came to find out that it wasn't
even natural sand, they had brought it in from another beach. Plus the water was dirty with pollution and trash, so we just stuck to our beach towels.
I took a couple walks along the water and since the sand was a little rockier than normal, it served as great pumice for my heels. They had gotten really cracked and dirty from all our walking so it felt great to exfoliate them. We had a little picnic for lunch, enjoyed the views and then relaxed back at the apartment. We were pretty exhausted from site-seeing, so it was nice to just have an evening in with cereal for dinner and free Wifi to keep us entertained.
Sunday 10/9: NICE IS NICE
Our CS friend Morey gave us a personalized tour around Nice (pronounced "niece"). We saw a lot of contemporary art pieces like a giant square head made of stone. We also walked through the old town which is home to a big
fruit and veggie market. Morey pointed out many illusion art painted on buildings and homes.
It was nice to walk around with our friend because he has lived there for many years and shared fun-facts with us. One story he shared was that in the old days people put windows with no glass above their doors to serve as a type of air conditioning and fresh breeze, and they also built apartment buildings five stories high for shade and to help with the hot summers. While walking around we saw a place called Finochios that sells more than 100 gelato flavors! Some were super weird like cactus, rose and tomato basil? It was a little overpriced, so we decided to save our money for some gelato flavors we love.
My favorite part about Nice was taking the elevator up to the look-out point. It was such a beautiful view of the "Côte d'Azur" or blue,
blue coast! And I can definitely see how it got it's name. It was such a vibrant color and the water sparkled as the sun rose in the sky. Just looking down, I couldn't wait to get to the beach!!
We spent the afternoon on the gray pebble beach. It was kinda painful and we wished we brought chairs or a mattress, but then again it was also nice
not to be sandy when we left.
We saw lots of topless women (most of them old). It was funny though because they would wear normal, everyday clothes to the beach and then just take off
their clothes and get naked or change into their swim suit bottoms right out in the open. Whereas in America, people usually wear their swimsuit under their clothes/beach coverup in public and then don't need to change once they arrive. The cultural differences between the U.S. and Europe are interesting. I always wonder if Europeans see people they know at the beach, like... "hey there's my math teacher and she's topless." haha umm, awkward.
In the afternoon, we walked around Nice some more and tried a local food called socca which is like a chickpea pancake. It was tasty with salt and pepper. Chris didn't like it but I thought it was pretty decent, maybe just because I was so hungry.
To end our day, we found our favorite fast-food restaurant in Europe, called Quick. They had a super cheap student deal and the best perk of all...
unlimited refills! Hooray!! (Refills are
so rare in Europe; basically non-existent, so it was pretty special).
We had a really relaxing time in Nice with perfect sunny, 75-degree weather so we enjoyed our last sunbathing day in our beachy French Riviera paradise.
