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...
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