after 3 days in bastia, we headed back to the continent via bateau, and trained it from toulon to nice. sophie left us in favor of italy *tear* nice is nice (hehe)...15th largest city, je crois, right on the sea, wonderful sunshine, so warm we didnt need jackets during the afternoon, pink and yellow-painted buildings...our hostel was undergoing renovations, but the staff was incredibly friendly and made sure that the free wifi was working for us, pointed out good neighborhoods, loved us bc we actually spoke french with them, as opposed to the other awful americans who were SO HEINOUS and loud and gross.i just stayed in nice for 2 nights, so we had to bouge quickly to profiter from the short stay...friday we wandered the vieille ville, climbed the colline du chateau (great views of the city), visited the marche de fleurs, ate some chouette gelatto at the baie des anges (beach), took some sun, found Rue de Jesus ET Place de Jesus (inside joke, but really, this city must love jesus or something), ambled along the promenade des anglais at sunset and then up to the russian cathedral (sadly closed bc we reached it after 18h). the highlight of the day was the random street performer we stumbled upon. this was no ordinary artsy-fartsy dude. this was not a tecktonik street battle. this was not a mime. oh nooo my friends. this was a flashdance wannabe crazy man, kicking his legs over his head and rocking out in all black, with red bandanna flourishes around his knees and a feathered headdress... he had the most delicate hands...he floated and shimmied like you wouldnt believe...in fact, he shimmied right on up the light pole and did a little pole dance up there...it was hypnotic. and hilarious. we were captivated for far longer than was appropriate, but it was just SO GOOD to people-watch the passers-by. oh lord. it was wonderful. go ahead, click on that photo right there...you'll see what was up...you know you wish you were there...
the view from the park up by the colline du chateau
art installation at the place masenna
to round out the visit, saturday we went to grasse, one of the perfume capitals of the world, and cannes. we toured the fragonard perfume factory in grasse, where they explained the intricacies of creating fragrances - it takes tons of flowers to make one litre of essence! crazy! fragonard uses a lot of locally-grown flowers, like roses, mimosa, jasmine, and tulips...and then we bought awesome fragrances at super bon marche prices! then i had a headache from all the smells, so i opted to go to cannes with hannah and andrea, rather than tour gallimard, another perfume house in grasse. Cannes was tacky and unimpressive - very commercial, very shishi, huuuuge yachts that blew my mind, rather nice beaches...we hung out for about 2 hours, then headed back to nice to cook dinner at the hostel. hmmm what else? it was caraval, so there was a huge parade sat night, that was semi-entertaining...and there were actually crowds of people out in the streets at night! it was amazing! soo not valence! voila. c'est tout.
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