JULY 14th

up at 6am to catch train to montpellier. 4 hours thru nice country side. wanted to catch train directly to Nice, but fully booked so took hour train to Avignon and then very hot train to Nice. no air con.
another ozzy went looking thru the different train cabins and found the 1st class section which was more comfortable and had better air con, so we moved there. ah, the bonus of having a 1st class eurail pass!
we didn't have accommodation booked in Nice. arrived at 845pm and it was gonna be interesting trying to find accommo at that time on a friday night!

had no coins for pay phone, so bought drink. went to use pay phone, only takes phone cards or credit cards! was gonna look in station for pay phone when a french lady came up and started trying to pimp us a "luxury apartment". she seemed a bit dodgy. kept feeding us lines like "if you don't like it when you first see it, i'll pay for your first night." thing is if we didn't like it, we wouldn't wanna stay there if it was free or not!
aparto was owned by an american woman who came along in her car. seemed nice enough, so went for it. jee was still dubious, but when we got there, we weren't disappointed. the 14th of july is our wedding anniversary so we were wanting somewhere nice in Nice and we got it!
there was some kinda celebration happening and we could see fireworks from our balcony so that touched the night off nicely!
the apartment was on the 4th floor of one of the busiest promenades near the beach and there were always lots of restaurants open till late - like about midnight or some even later! we had pizza and salad for dinner with some nice cheap french wine.

JULY 15th

lazy day in Nice.
woke up late. walked to station with intent to catch train to Monaco. asked at info office for nearby supermarket so we could buy water.
cheap water is our driving force me thinks! of course it's easy enough to buy bottled water anywhere, but there's a huge difference in price! a chilled 1.5Lt bottle from a stand might be 2 or 3 euro. but the cheapest we've found 1.5Lt bottles at the supermarket is 25cents! and every little bit counts!
i gotta admit, when i thought about going to europe, i thought we'd be having breakfast, lunch and dinner at cafes and restaurants. but no. whilst the majority of our meals are "out", we do sometimes buy stuff from the supermarket and stretch it out. we're in a limbo between backpackers who really need to watch their pennies and buy most of their food from supers and holiday makers going out on the town!
anywho, the super was about halfway back to our place so we did shopping for lunch, a couple of dinners and breaky for the next few days. spent less on those groceries than what we did for the previous night's dinner!! that really opened our eyes about how we could save some dough.
had lunch at home. felt sleepy so thought would have a siesta for half an hour. think we were accustomed to the spanish way of life for sure! didn't hear alarm and slept for 3 hours!
went down to beach for a swim. Nice's beaches are all pebble beaches. rocks are mostly flat and bout 5 - 10cm across. don't have to worry bout sand getting in your budgie smugglers, but a bit of a bitch to walk or lie on. if you can find a relatively comfortable spot, it almost feels like an accupressure bed! quite nice actually! but they can be a real cow to walk on in the middle of the day when they're really hot!
beaches are sectioned off in about 50m stretches for "private" and "public" beaches. on private beaches, you've gotta pay for a sunbed or chair and whether you want a parasol or not. it's not cheap and when you come from a country of beautiful and FREE beaches, it can be a pretty difficult concept to handle!
went public. fair amount of ppl, but enough space to feel comfortable.
jee had read in her info book (like the korean version of Lonely Planet) about chicks on the beaches of Nice going topless. she was right. but unfortunately there were only old women getting their tops off! for anyone who's seen There's Something About Mary, you might have in idea about what i witnessed! :-)