Oh My Word!: First Day

Over the weekend, John and I were talking about our first day in Nice and I realized that it hadn't been blogged. I'm not sure that it could have been any worse. After 18 hours in transit, we had gotten off the plane and were greeted with torrential rain showers. Hurray! We went through customs and baggage claim and hurried on to find a cab. And find one we did. A crazy young man drove us to our hotel, going at least 20 kilometers over the speed limit the entire time and THEN when we arrived at the hotel charged us 25 euros for a 5 minute cab ride. We were ripped off in our first hour in France. Lucky us!! We were too tired to argue or find anyone to argue for us so we paid, got our bags, and checked in to our room. Ahhhhhhh. Our 25 square meter home for the next 2 months. (That's 270 square feet. Tiny. Smaller than our bedroom and bathroom in Lexington. It had a ittybitty kitchen, foldout couch, kitchen table, and a bathroom.)

After a shower, we felt refreshed enough to find the internet connection and email our parents to let them know we made it. Ah, Crap. Our computer adapter is a 3-pronged plug and all of our power converters are 2! Oh! And, it was lunch time. This means that all of France is closed for at least an hour including the front desk at our hotel. We had no one to ask were to buy one. John said, "The airport will have them, they always have that kind of stuff." But how did we get back to the airport? We didn't know what bus to take, and there was no one to ask. We couldn't afford another taxi. So, we walked. 4-5 kilometers back to the airport. In the rain. And we didn't pack an umbrella. (We did have hiking raincoats. We wore those.) Luck for us, they did have the adapter that we needed so we bought it and.... instead of asking what bus would get us back home.. we walked. HA! (Crazy Americans. What were we thinking??)

On our way back to the hotel, John and I realized we were hungry and probably needed to buy some stuff to eat. At the bottom of the hill going up to the hotel is a small market and a boulangerie that became one of our favorite places to stop for bread, pastries, and sandwiches. John bought a loaf of bread and we picked up some tomatoes, apples, sliced sandwich meat, cheese, and mustard. How can you go wrong with sandwiches and fruit? Ohh... so very wrong. We got back to our room and started opening everything to make sandwiches. Open up the cheese and.... spthuk... STINKYYYYY! We couldn't even eat it. John walked it down the trash bin because we couldn't stand to leave it in the room. Ah, well, we still had our bread, mustard and meat! Slice the bread, liberally apply mustard, slice of meat and eat! WWWOOOOWWWW. For those of you who have never been lucky enough to try French mustard, it is a treat. Your sinuses will be clear and you will breath easier for days. Especially with the amount that we put on our sandwiches.

After all that, we decided it was time to go to bed. We collapsed, woke up early the next morning (jetlag!), and the beautiful sun was shining. We walked to the sea, took some pictures, and began the rest of our adventures in Nice.