Nice really is nice!!

Initially I was planning on having a very lazy, very relaxing weekend by hanging out at the college, the beach and walking into Cannes but at the last minute I decided to go to Nice with a bunch of people today...I'm glad I went but I'm exhausted!!!! This is a picture in the Cannes train station. Initially we wanted to take the 11:39 train to Nice but we got to the train station at 11:35 and so there wasn't enough time for all of us to get our tickets and figure out where our train was leaving from. So we bought tickets for the next train...12:45ish. We went to Monoprix in our spare hour since it is right across the street from the train station. I was glad because I wanted to wander around Monoprix and I had 45 minutes to do exactly that!!! Being a student, I got 2.80 euros off the ticket price which was nice!! It was fun to order my ticket cause I got to use my French! We caught out train and headed towards Nice! Everyone wanted to go to H&M (a clothing store) so that was our first stop in Nice...I guess H&M is a really popular store in Europe...we have one in MOA but I guess they are everywhere here! My roomate's whole outfit today came from H&M! I bought a purse/bag but no clothing. There were 10 of us who came together...after H&M we split into two groups of 5, one group spent most of the day shoping, but the group I was in walked around to find different sights.

This is a really cool looking church that we ran into. We didn't go inside so I don't know if there is any history behind it or not.

We went into the shopping center called Nicetoile (the words Nice and Etoile(star) combined). It was really nice inside and there was a free bathroom :) Some of our group got sandwiches so we sat down for a few minutes so they could eat. I was surprised to see several dogs in the shopping mall!! There was a sign on the door that said not to bring dogs in but there were a bunch inside the mall! We didn't stay too long cause there are much more interesting things to see in Nice!

Ann and I are in the back and Alyssa and Kate are in the front.

We followed the tracks of their light rail type train for a while until we ended up in an area of Nice that reminded me a lot of Spain and the plaza mayors we went to there. It was a neat. But unlike Spain, there weren't a bunch of cute restaurants around the edge of the plaza area. We did find two cool fountains near the plaza area and when we were walking back to the train station, there was someone break dancing.

This is a palm tree with flowers growing all around it!! It was too cool not to take a picture!!! After the fountains we went in search of the Colline du Chatueau. The maps are always deceiving and it was much closer than we expected!

After walking up the colline (hill) we found many spectacule views! The port, the city and the ocean all before us! It was AMAZING!! Definelty worth the hike up to the top (and it was a hike! it was no small hill)!! I couldn't decide what pictures to put up so I put several below. It was so beautiful! There was a kids playground at the top of this hill (it can be accessed by car too)....how amazing would that be to have your playground overlooking the Mediterranean sea!!!

The view was so nice that we didn't want to leave! We made it back to the train station just in time to take the train we wanted-so we could get back to the college for dinner :)! We thought the train left at 5:51 for Cannes but it actually left at 5:39....we got there at 5:35...kind of like what happened this morning but we already had our ticket so we just ran to the platform and hopped on the train! Whoo! We made it! On this ride, the train workers came and checked to make sure we all had tickets. The three other people in my row all got tickets/fines! I didn't understand all of what the train worker was saying but I believe the two teenage girls next to me needed a certain id card to buy the tickets at the reduced price that they got them for (they got them at the automatic machines not the ticket counter) and they didn't have that id so they got charged 6 euros each! The lady on the other side of my didn't have her pass with her...I think she takes the train to work...she didn't have to pay anything but she got a ticket.

This is the Nice train station. We went to Monoprix when we got back too...some people wanted to get boogie boards. After dinner, Michelle, Neva, Chris, Trevor and I went to the beach. The waves were HUGE!!!!!!!! Michelle and I didn't get boogie boards but Chris, Trevor and Neva did. The waves were so strong but it was fun! Lots of salt and sand but still a great time.