Le Jour Douze (Day 12)

MMM, it felt so nice to sleep in this morning (well, if you consider 7:30 hours sleeping in, which I do now). I got up before Kelly and got ready for the day; I wanted to shop in the cute market places and get an early start to the day because we only had until noon here! Allison, Brady, and I had breakfast together; they even had my chocolate cereal!!! We ate peacefully outside in the courtyard area and enjoyed the cool, sunshiny morning with birds chirping in the background. I think I’m in a dream.

Afterward, Allison and I walked around and looked at every shop we could! They had regular stores like H&M, little market boutiques, perfumeries (they are known for their lavender, so soaps and such were really fresh and cheap here), gardens to stroll through, and petit cafes to eat at. It was perfect. I got a really fun bracelet and a couple of other fun little items to remember this place by!

Before we knew it, it was 11:30. We grabbed the best smoothie we’ve ever tasted in our entire lives (apples, kiwi, and mango), and were on the road again; this time, straight to Nice, France! It was a 3.5 hour trip, so not that bad, and the drive there was BEAUTIFUL! Well, for the hour of it I was awake. It’s like my body is trained to where literally as soon as I pop that neck pillow on and shut my eyes, I just crash, no matter how much sleep I got the night before….and then came more pictures of me. Whatever.

For the time I was awake, my group and I worked on our presentation we were about to do as soon as we got to our hotel in Nice, for we are the Nice group that gets to inform the rest of the students about the city, culture, and what to do here. Some of you may know me as one that likes to perform infront of people (mostly those being my family), and the other three girls in my group love entertaining others as well, soooooo we all decided not to do the “typical,” boring presentation style that every other group was presenting in their business casual. I was pumped. We made up an AWESOME rap (which I vide and will post on here after my trip once I make a movie of the entire trip), wore hats, sunglasses, big Tshirts, and chacos. Everyone died laughing out our lyrics, and quite frankly, were shocked at our boldness. I think it went over really well, and Dr. Mac ate it up. It was so much fun and a memory made FOR SURE!

We were all exhausted and gross feeling from traveling so much in the last two days, but we wanted to enjoy Nice and go out to dinner, so we went to a place down the street that our professor recommended. It was great! 

Then, we all walked around town for a bit exploring. Found an awesome designer vintage place, a crepe place,  and then ended up at the beach, which is right across from our hotel. The beach here is all smooth pebbles, not sand, and the water is so blue! I got in to about my knees; it was sort of cold, so I resorted to skipping rocks with the boys instead. I’m terrible at skipping rocks. We were pooped and went back to the hotel shortly afterward. Our hotel room is like a big, gold princess room: cold walls, curtains, big beds, spacious, huge marble bathroom (with no shower door by the way…?) and high ceilings. Instead of going to the laundry mat and paying 10 Euros, Kelly and I decided to rough it like real European travelers and wash all of our clothes in the sinks and bathtub! What a sight that was with our large T, no makeup, hair on top of our head, scrubbin’ clothes, and jamming to Kelly Clarkson. We definitely bonded over that for a good hour and a half (yeah, we took our time and made videos and talked).

 

Okay, I debated writing this, but I’m going to anyway because it’s such typical Ashley luck for those that know me well. So, here we are doing our thing and washing clothes, jamming to music. The Wop had just begun to play as we were finishing our bonding chat about our victories in Jesus. Then, literally out of NO WHERE, a huge pop went off in the living room, and every single light turned off in our entire hotel room, bathroom and all. Both of us screamed as both of our knees went weak in fear right as Kelly embraced me from behind. So here we are, two scardy-cats looking like scrubs, huddled in the middle of the bathroom floor whimpering, praying, and panting…as the Wop is blaring. Perfect. Like the babies we both are, we crawled out the door on our knees, still panting and half crying half laughing. Two people from our trip were standing outside talking and simply stared at us like we were freaks. We didn’t care; that’s creepy! Anyways, we went downstairs (I barely had the energy or time to grab the soaking wet shorts I had just washed and threw them on), looking like scrubs and no shoes (which is a rule not to do), and had the receptionist come and flip the breaker. DRAMA!!! But it was fixed, and we slept quite soundly! 

 

I like this quaint, sunny, Mediterranean city of Nice.