Where in the World is Chelsea Gibbs?: The French Riviera

We're still in Nice, France, and we're still staying at this hostel that good ole Rick Steves (mom's hero) recommended. I just have to write about the "real" hostel experience, because the hostel we stayed at in Florence was like a five star hotel compared to this place.

Right now, I'm sitting on my mom's bunk, because she has a lower bunk and mine is in the next room and the girls in there don't speak good English (or don't speak it at all) and aren't very friendly. The 12 girls to one bathroom situation is a little bit of a crisis. If someone isn't in the bathroom, I feel like I need to make myself pee, because soon it's going to be occupied, and when it is, I'm going to have to pee like I just drank 6 gallons of water. The bathroom floor is always wet. The shower curtain covers a little less than half the shower, and there are no bath mats, so that has something to do with why it's always wet. The beds are decently comfortable, but they give you a down comforter to sleep with. I woke up around 5am, had to pee like I drank 6 gallons of water, and was so wet from sweating, I thought I might have actually peed myself. I stumbled out of my top bunk, staggered towards the bathroom and went in. The floor was wet as usual, and I couldn't find the light switch because it was pitch black. I felt around the whole bathroom for that stupid switch and I was about to bust so I gave up and started feeling for the toilet instead. Found that, peed, partially in the toilet, partially on the floor and partially on myself. Then I couldn't find any toilet paper. Yep. I stumbled around hoping I could at least find the sink to wash my hands, found that, found a random towel. Felt pretty gross getting back in bed. This morning, I found out the light switch was on the outside of the door.

Anyway, sharing a "dorm" with 10 other girls means that we have to lock all our stuff back in our bags before we go anywhere, which is a lot of work. Like I put on facebook, they also do laundry here for you. I told mom that I didn't want them touching my clothes. She reminded me that I didn't have any :). She got them to do a load for her, and when we got them back this morning, they were clean and dry, but they were wadded up in a laundry basket. They wash and dry them for you, but they don't fold them for you, and they don't allow you to do your own laundry. Makes a whole lot of sense. So that's our "real" hostel experience. I'm thankful nobody has tried to climb in my bunk in the middle of the night and sleep with me (yet) and nobody has thrown up in our dorm (yet) but the night is not over!

So, today we went to a really beautiful beach, that was about a 30 minute bus ride outside of Nice. We were just going to go to Nice beach, which is only a 5 minute walk from our hostel, but a girl who works at the hostel said this beach was much better, and she was right. The beach was called Cap D'Ail and it's the stop before Monaco. We didn't have any problems getting there today, which was wonderful. The beaches here kind of remind me of California, the way they have cliffs all around them. This beach was in a bay area, and the water was crystal clear (and really cold) and instead of sand there was smooth stones. It kind of made me appreciate sand after I'd laid on rocks for about an hour. There was a diving platform out in the bay for people to swim out to and lay on or jump off of and mom swam out there. I didn't, that water is too cold for me. It's like our water in March. I think she felt proud of herself for swimming all the way out there though. We relaxed for a while, which was really nice, and ate a really good lunch at place overlooking the bay. Mom got to eat a real salad, which I think she has been missing. Then we hiked up the cliff and took some pictures before we went home.

Tonight we ate dinner in Nice, and walked along the promenade. We watched some guys who were break dancing, they had a big crowd out watching them and they were putting on a really good show, but the police came and stopped them for some reason.

Tomorrow we head to Barcelona! Sorry Peggy! :)

Best things about today: the beautiful beach we spent the day at
Worst things about today: peeing at 5am