And the Volcano Erupted

I realize this is over a month late, but I have not been very good at keeping up with my blogging since Spring Break. I dont really have an explanation except that I havent been in the mood to write about whats been going on. But to pick up where I left off:

I got stuck in Nice at the wonderful hostel from Thursday until Sunday. In that time two flights of mine were canceled and I had to pay for extra accommodation. Granted, the first flight that was canceled was just a minor inconvenience, i felt like I had plenty of time left even though i was slightly disappointed considering I was in a mind set to be home. Also, the first night I was able to book a decent room. Now, dont get me wrong, the Villa hostel was incredible and I was having a great time, but at the same time it reached a point where it was just too long in one place and especially in a place that is meant to be temporary. When I found out my 2nd flight had been canceled on Saturday though, I just about lost it. I just honestly didnt know what I was going to do. I was running out of money, I had papers to write that were due and I was just sick of being gone, especially with the same clothes. When i went to go request a room for the next night, turned out there was a waiting list. I asked if I could be put on that and they said the waiting list was too long so i was on a list for the list. I cried. At that point I was just stressed and hungry and didnt know what to do. So i went to get lunch and went to the beach. great solution i know. Luckily, as this was happening my Uncle Reed read my facebook status. He contacted some friends he had that lived in Biot. its about 35 minutes west of Nice. They came to my rescue. Sarah came and picked me up and let me stay with her and two kids, Katie and Sam and her husband in their beautiful home. I got to do laundry, have a home cooked meal, and sleep in a room that just had me in it! Literally if it werent for them I would have been in distress for another 4 days as my flight wasnt until Wednesday. It was wonderful and I couldnt be more thankful. As I kept telling myself "there were worse places I could have been stranded".

Either way, when i finally got back to Belfast I had a ton to do. Lots of papers that I got some extensions for since I didnt get back until mid week of classes already starting back up. Its crazy to realize but I ended up being gone just short of an entire month. I will be doing just that again with my sister in 2 weeks. I sure hope this time the volcano stays relatively tame so we get get to mainland Europe and then home. I sure dont feel like dealing with another stranded issue thats for sure.

14 days in the nice city of Nice

Once on the train from Marseille to Nice I was starting to get super excited because I was going to be meeting Makenna! The train ride itself was relatively boring, I worked on reading Barack Obama's book The Audacity of Hope and had both seats to myself. As a random annoying fact, the bathroom on the train did not provide toilet paper. I mean luckily I am always prepared but for such a long train ride you would think.....but no, i was in France, silly me. When I finally arrived I had printed off directions of how to get to the hostel but was still super confused so I called. My first happy thrill was that the lady who answered spoke ENGLISH! She told me how to get to the tram and where to get off and wait for a shuttle from the hostel that would come pick us up. While I was feeling super lost and thought Makenna was going to beat me by hours, it turned out we got there at the same time and were picked up by the same shuttle. I was so happy!!! Not to mention the driver of the shuttle was super cute. We got to the hostel, checked in, settled in, and then went to explore. The hostel we stayed at is the Saint Villa Exupery, the number 1 hostel in France and it was incredible.

The hostel has tons of different styles of rooms and by the time I left I had stayed in 4 separate rooms. The bar is incredibly cheap and yummy, the chef cooks really good food for an affordable price, the bartenders are beautiful, nice and flirty. The "chapel" aka the hang out area is very social, lots of drinking games, different people from all over, all ages. It was a blast. the first night we were there it was raining outside so we chose to stay inside and discovered how everything worked. We sat at the bar and oogled the cute bartender Ryan. Got addicted to the homemade Sangria they made almost every night with fresh apples and oranges and made some new friends :)

This is going to be a condensed version of my time here because I was in Nice for so long that it so much happened I am not sure I can fit it all in this blog. But I will try. After we settled in the hostel has a great book of activities they have compiled to help tourists and backpackers get to see as much of the French Riviera as possible. We decided to do the trip to Monaco/Eze Village, and scuba dive. The trip to Monaco cost a whopping 1 pound for the bus there and 1 pound back so it was a cheap fun thing to do. We got to see the casino, walked around, met two guys on the bus, Connor and Josh. We went to the beach and ate lunch there with cheap 2 euro sandwiches from the Spar (a cheap supermarket) and 2 euro wine. Other landmarks we saw were the Japanese Garden and the Palace. See my facebook for pictures of these places. On the way to Monaco, we stopped in Eze. Which is this beautiful Medieval town that is built into the mountain itself. All of the shops are encased in the stone and you can just picture ancient sword fights and craftsmen living there. It was amazing. The guy Josh we met on the bus ended up being one of my buddies for the next week since we both ended up being stuck at the hostel longer then our plans originally called for. After seeing Monaco we spent most of our days on the beach, laying out until it got too cold, eating these really yummy 3euro baguette sandwiches on the beach and then drinking and hanging out in the hostel bar. Then we chose to pick one of the really cool adventure deals the hostel offered and went Scuba Diving for only 42 euro! It was AWESOME! I had never been and to get to experience it for the first time in the Mediterranean was epic. We got lucky and picked a beautiful day to go and you get a gorgeous boat ride as well as the actual scuba experience. As you can guess, Makenna and I loved it. I have to say in general, being in Nice,it was a pretty ideal life. Makenna left me on the 10th of April to go back to class though and I extended my stay at the Villa until the 15th....
and then the volcano happened...

Marseille

Getting to Marseille was stressful. Like i said, we felt like we nearly missed our flight. After getting on the flight we ate the awful tiny mini pizza since we wouldnt have time for dinner. On the flight, we finally were able to understand some of what was being said. Especially because Clarissa speaks French. When we landed, there was no Customs. Oddest thing ever. SO if you ever want to illegally come into a country, go to Marseille, France. You literally just walk off the plane, get your bag and walk out. and we were definitely flying in from a different country. weird. Anways, we got in pretty late, so there was nothing open to try and help us find our way. We had a phone number and directions but we couldnt figure it out, so next best thing, or so we thought, we got a taxi. this was by far the worst mistake I have made while traveling so far. We get in, and at first the guy isnt even positive where were going, talks to the other fellow cab drivers then gets in. As we start driving, I start noticing his meter.... it is 100percent charging us 10 cents per second. By the time the fare passes 40 euro, were starting to freak out. The total time in the cab was probably 15minutes and the total fare was 60 euros. Now I dont speak French, but I noticed the Fare sheet on the side of the window and had Clarissa relay to the driver he was supposed to be charging 1.70 per km and that it had been being charged by the second. He claimed it was a 20% night fare charge (that was not listed on the fare sheet btw). I was straight up pissed and refused to pay that much money. I gave a 20 and said that was all I was paying because this was beyond ridiculous and that 20 was a reasonable amount for the distance we had just gone. We could have gotten away with it but Clarissa just gave in and paid the other 40. We left to check in and I was fuming. Later that night, I googled Marseille, just to see what to do the next day and see if we could find the beach, under a section called Taxis, I learned that there are the "occasional rogue taxi drivers out there that rips tourists off. If this happens to you, get the number of the cab and go to the tourist office, you will get your money back and get the cab driver in a lot of trouble". SO if only I had read this BEFORE taking the cab, I would have gotten the number, i was just too angry when i got out to process that as I knew he was ripping us off BAD.

Anyways, trying to move on after the frustrating entrance into this country, we tried to make the best of it. Our room was adorable. It had a mini kitchen in it, which was perfect, a big bed, tv, and a window that fully opened. After the taxi event the first thing we did in the morning was figure out the metro system. it was pretty easy. We began our wondering and just got off at the main port, walked around and had a lovely lunch at this small little restaurant. We came across a small market type thing where we bought some souvenirs and looked around. it was fun, although it was windy and we were both dressed like tourists, shorts/skirts and tshirts, while everyone else was still in scarfs and jeans. After spoiling ourselves to lunch we decided to save money and buy food at the grocery store and use our kitchen! We started by buying bread and cheese with balsamic vinegar and oil (So french). Cooking was a lot of fun, we had some experiences and made a couple weird things but it was a wonderful experience. The picture here was what happened when we tried to use the microwave to heat instant rice.... the heater part of the microwave was on the top, so it melted and burnt the plastic until I realized we were nearly causing a fire. we saved the rice and reverted to heating it up in a pan, but it was pretty funny.

Once we figured out where we were a little better we began to venture out further. we walked all the way down to the La Plage (the beach) which was a super far walk, but it was beautiful. We returned down there the following day after we figured out the bus system as well. it was lovely out. we ended up just walking along the waters edge until we got to one of the last bus stops of the line we needed, along this way we found an adorable French bakery where we bought a box of the french style Macaroons (or were they Meringue?) and baguettes. They were AMAZING!!!! After a long day of doing touristy things we just stayed in at night, also because we had been warned about the bad neighborhoods and that it wasnt particularly safe to wonder around at night being two girls. We also discovered this once in the day light when we were trying to be adventerous and got off the metro at a stop we hadnt tried before, Colbert. We got off and there was nothing around so we started walking up the hill. We found ourselves in the middle of a square that was FULL of clothes and garbage. All on the ground, people picking through it... Clearly it took us about 1 minutes to realize we were not in a tourist area anymore and that this was super sketchy. we flipped a Uturn and headed right back to the port where we knew we belonged.
On our last night there we decided to treat ourselves to dinner since we had cooked every other night. As we were walking around Vieux Port we found this cute alleyway that was lit by lots of dim outside lights. It looked appealing so we began to walk down it. True to french fashion it was beautiful and romantic. All the restaurants had terraces (mostly covered because it was still considered winter here), lights, and delicious sounding menus. Unfortunately for us broke college students most of these plates were 20-30 euro. But then we got lucky! we chose to walk to the left a little of these fancy restaurants and found this small place with a sign out front advertising a plate, a drink and dessert for 10 euro. We were stoked. We went in. The server was adorable, and the menu had tons of options. I chose the Mussels, fresh seafood from the Mediterranean! It was DELICIOUS! It was so good and beautiful on the plate i took a picture. The whole time i was eating it i kept thinking of my mother and how jealous she would be. We have always been the ones to enjoy seafood together like that. After having a small appetizer, and main course, we got our desert, then they brought us a free shot, and then some jelly candies. it was like a never ending meal AND it came out to being exactly 20 euro for the two of us. It was the best night so far and I wish I could go back and eat there again. We also had a funny family next to us that found us very entertaining and we found them just as entertaining. we would know they were talking about us because the one word in French that's hard to mistake is American. lol That, and Clarissa could understand them. We went back to our room that night and realized that we were actually leaving the next day, always a sad realization. I tried for the 100th time to try and watch TV but only the first night was i lucky enough to find one show in English, CSI. Every night following I would hope for an episode to be on so I could watch it, but no such luck. Instead I finished my book The Lovely Bones and we went to bed. The next day Clarissa and I figured out the train station together since I would be loosing my translator. We got there super early so we wouldnt have to stress out. Finally when it was time, we said our goodbyes, she got a bus to head to the airport, and I figured out how the heck to get on a train for the first time to head to Nice. I must also comment here and mention that while I was struggling to read my ticket and the signs around me to figure out which car to get in and all that, I kept having flash backs to sophomore year in high school staring at the chapter in our french book about being in a train station, even remembering the stupid images and captions that were supposed to help you figure out what was being said. Clearly, I remembered none of it, but the thought made me laugh and realize i should have paid more attention when I distinctly remember telling my teaching "I never take trains, ill never need to know this".