Nice is nice, and so is Barcelona

When we arrived in Nice it was pretty late and I was pretty hungry so we made the short walk from the station to our hostel which was a block from the beach!  After a late dinner we went to go check out the beach at 12am and even at that dark hour it is so beautiful. I was however surprised to learn that the beaches are covered in pebbles, not sand. 

Wednesday morning we woke up to the sun shining and balmy 50 degree weather but it was still such a nice change from snowy Paris. We had a quick breakfast at the hostel and then headed outside. We went straight to the beach  and marveled at the bright blue water. It looked so inviting despite its ice cold temperature, but that still didn't stop some people. Nice is a pretty small, self guided city so we pretty much covered the coast line in a day. They have a great path at the top of the sea wall which we followed fro. One point to the other. We headed over to the harbor and saw a MASSIVE yacht which we later learned was over 400 ft long and belonged to the Emperor of Qatar, the richer country in the world. Seeing the helicopter on the back of his boat made me want to learn how to pilot one so add that the the bucket list! 

 We also walked out to the light house at the end of the jetty for a better view of the coast line. The best view though came from the top of a fortress/park that was built into the mountainside. At all the different levels there were breath taking views of Nice and the Alps. The gardens were so lovely and it was incredibly hard to focus on just one angle of the view at a time. We also went one block behind the Main Street and found an open air market (which turns into restaurant seating at 1) filled with flowers, fruits, paintings and lavender! It all smelled delightful and Alexa, Julia and I split a basket of strawberries which were delicious. For lunch we just got some sandwiches and took them to the beach where we could sit in the sun with people bold enough to be in a bathing suit. We went back to the hostel and ran into 2 guys from CIMBA and their friend from home who happened to not only be staying in the same hostel, but also in the room beside us! I thought Alexa, Julia and I were the only three in Nice. Nope. We. Are. Everywhere! But, the more the merrier and merry it was! After drinks on the beach at sunset the six of us headed to dinner where the market used to be. We had a great seafood dinner and I tried escargot. I personally don't recommend it, but go for it. Any who, good food, good friends, good wine, good time! Next on the agenda was MONACO for the night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, that didn't work. We missed the last bus into the country for the night. So we went to a piano lounge aka the only place open in Nice other than a casino. We still had a good time because the boys turned the lounge into a karaoke bar. It was quite an entreating was to end the night. 

Breakfast on the Beach!

Thursday morning was so beautiful despite the cloud cover. The sun was peeping through over the sea and it turned the water 6 different shades of blue! After we checked out the boys joined us for breakfast on the beach. During the day restaurants are set up all along the beach and we found one that had an incredibly breakfast special. Two eggs, baguettes with butter an jelly, orange juice and a cappuccino that put Italy to shame! After that we headed back through the market and toward the harbor to get one more glimpse of the mega yacht, then it was off to the airport for us! I don't care where you spent your spring break, the French Riviera is BEAUTIFUL!  I hated to leave Nice but Barcelona was calling our name. 

The flight in was a little bumpy but the view out the window took my mind off the distracting thoughts of the turbulence taking our plane down over the coast line. No worries, we landed safe and sound on the wings of a prayer! Our first day in Barcelona we kind of just chilled all afternoon. We walked the streets looking for our hostel and saw a lot of really cool buildings and for dinner we had sangria and papayas which was very good! There were a lot of people from school hanging out in our hostel so we chilled with them for the night, but I turned in pretty early. 

Friday we got a late start but we needed the sleep. The first thing we did was go to La Boqueria off of La Rambla. It is this huge market that has fish, meat, cheese, bread, veggies, fruit, chocolate, spices and much more. They have all of these really great fruit juices for only 1€ so we got some of those to sip on while we walked around.

Gothic quarter

It was such a cool place and everything was so fresh to the point where some of the shellfish was still moving on the ice...yummy. We pretty much walked lazily around the Gothic quarter and through Barcelona until we hit the beach. It was so beautiful and there was a good number of people hanging out including CIMBA people. No one was in a bathing suit because it was 50 degrees but there were people in wet suits who were paddling boarding and a lot of sailboats on the horizon. It was so nice to be able to sit on a beach in the sun and look at the water despite the cold temperature. Around 6 we went back to the hostel to meet up with one of Alexa's friends who is studying in Barcelona. She took us to get churros and then to a really great restaurant for dinner. We just has a whole bunch of tapas which were delicious.  In Spain they have lunch at like 2, churro time from 5-7, dinner from 8-10, bar time from 11-1:30 and then club time from 2-6:30 am. While we didn't stay out until 6 we did go to a bar then a club. We left once we started getting too much attention from some guys from London....

Saturday was our last full day of Travel Week 2 and by that point I was still exhausted and in the French Riviera mind set. After breakfast we went to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia and ignorant me did not realize that the church is still under construction and isn't scheduled to be finished until around 2050! After a really pathetic lunch at a tourists trap known as a restaurant we decided to settle down for a siesta. Our hostel doesn't have outlet in the rooms so I went down to the lobby to charge my camera when I ran into a couple of the guys from the program. They were all headed down the the beach so I went with them. It was a windy and overcast day but we still had a good time just hanging out. I met back up with Julia and Alexa back at the hostel later and we all went out to dinner by Port Vell with Shane and some of their friends from Clemson. We had some really good burgers. As crazy as it sounds I was tired of Spanish food so a burger with sangria was a great change of pace. After dinner I strolled along the port back toward the hostel (trying to get my mind off of NCSUs loss in the ACC tournament).  It was actually really great because I didn't realize how much I missed being around the water and boats, especially because I have been living in the mountains for so long. Nice and Barcelona definitely made me want to hang around port cities more often. Everything moves with the tide, whether it be fast or slow, but either way they are full of life and adventure! 

Christopher Columbus!

As usual, Sunday morning half of CIMBA congregated from all the corners and crevices of Europe and Africa in the El Prat airport for our flight back to Venice. Then it was back to good old PDG for hell week before our upcoming 3 day weekend! 

Here's a parting thought from Travel Week 2 courtesy of Mark Twain: 

"20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw of the bowlines. Cast away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover."