Fall Break: Nice

We began our wild European journey on a cool calm Thursday evening in Termini station in Rome. We made sure to get to the train station early because we still had to validate our eurorail passes, and we didn't want to be stranded before our trip began. For those who don't know, my friends and I decided to spend our fall break traveling all around Europe on the eurail pass. We went all over, from Nice to Barcelona, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Prague, and finally Vienna on our way back to Rome. When I wrote this, we were currently on our way to Nice; we've had a six hour train ride in a sleeper cabin, and one transfer. It's also sort of odd writing in the present but acting as if it's in the past, so this one is going to continue in present tense.

It's now friday evening and I am still in Nice. Actually, I'm in Monte Carlo. Let me explain. So, despite our research for this trip, we still thought it was a good idea to try to travel through France to get to some other destinations. Well, it was essentially unavoidable, as we wanted to go to Barcelona, and France is sort of a huge international hub. However, a transit strike cancelled all trains from Nice to Barcelona on Friday, so going there proved to be very difficult. We also already had a hostel booked in Barcelona, so we really, really wanted to get there.

We really didn't know what to do, so we decided to regroup, get lunch, and check for other trains later. Throughout lunch we were discussing our options. Should we go to Paris first? Should we go to Switzerland, or even back to Rome? Our trip was in serious jeopardy, but once we returned to the train station, we were relived to discover that we could book a train from nice to Barcelona the next morning at 9:55 am. Yea, that meant that we would be on a train all day Saturday, and we would need a hostel in Nice for the night, but at least we would get to Barcelona.

We booked a hostel quickly at a nearby Internet cafe, and that's when our near trip ending experience began to turn into a blessin/g in disguise. Remember how I said I was in Monte Carlo unexpectedly on Friday evening? Well, alll of us remembered that we had transferred in Monte Carlo on our way to Nice, but we were never planning on visiting. However, we have the eurail, so once we knew we'd be stuck in nice for the night, we decided to head back to Monte Carlo and hit up the Casino. We thought about buying three piece suits for the occasion, but I went with a sweater instead. The casino is extraordinarily ritzy, with all manner of cars from Ferrari, to Porsche, to Massarati parked out front, and I began to think I should have bought that suit. I actually saw one Nissan, not sure how that guy got a parking space. Anyway Once inside the main building, we, being American students, were kindly directed to the less ritzy, more Americanized area, and it was a blast. We played blackjack, roulette, and explored the whole place for awhile. I even won 40 euros. All in all, it was a good day.

However, our adventures in France don't stop there. After leaving the Casino, we needed to catch a train back to Nice; unfortunately, the next train was at 5 am. Ooops. We asked around And discovered that there would be a bus back to Nice at 12:15 am. We were told that the bus would pick us up in the basement of a parking garage, so we went there, and it seemed like the last place a bus would stop. Still, after several hours of waiting and discussing how no bus was coming, a bus arrived. Sure we were packed into the bus like sardines and we had to stand, but we made it back to Nice.

My experiences in Nice didn't turn out as planned; we spent lots of extra money and almost weren't able to leave, but I still realized that the more we were willing to just roll with the punches, the more fun we would have on this trip. Now, onto Barcelona!