Burnt

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Monday cont... Had a nap after the blog and then wandered down the street and crashed into some beautiful Gaudi work. One of which was a house that had an incredible free audio tour; learned everything I wanted to know about Gaudi and more! Returned to the hostel after a few hours to shower and feel like a real person again. Decided that I should stop being an anti-social fly and make some friends. There was a "Flamenco and Tapas Tour" that I decided would be a good idea. It was mostly a glorified pub crawl - a silly stop for unknown tapas and then a little Flamenco show, which is actually a tradition from southern Spain and only done up in Barcelona for the tourists. It was off to a few bars, bouncing around the city's incredible night life with other people from the hostel. Met a truckload of Aussies and a few token Americans; spent most of my night keeping an eye on Adele - another solo woman traveler from Australia. She'd been on the road a week and wasn't ready for the rather bold advances made by the boys from Boston, I wound up telling them off for her when they wouldn't take her subtle hints. She was very grateful. I just hope she makes it through the rest of the tour in one piece. Most of the Aussies were doing this Busabout tour - which sounds like a pretty neat idea. Buying a "hop on hop off" pass for a chunk of Europe and just going at your own pace, meeting up with others somewhere else along the way. Always great suggestions for the next European adventure. I was the last one into my bunk that night, but the first one up in the morning - so HA! Take THAT!

Tuesday - Spent the morning battling with the train folk - all I want is a ticket to Nice, why is that so hard? GAH! A battle to rival all battles I tell you, which resulted in getting a ticket to Montpellier. What? That's 1/3 of the way there? I tried to shrug it off and spent the rest of the day on the beach with the Aussies from the night before. When the sky opened up we headed off to a restaurant on the shore and then it was a night in front of the TV - important Euro 2008 games you know. After that an early night, I had to be on a train at 7:30am - le gross.

Wednesday - Train to Montpellier was okay, shared it with a school group - university students this time (well college - they were from Chicago) but somehow all the boys from the group. I plugged my headphones into my ears and pretended not to speak English, I was grateful when they all fell asleep an hour into the ride. Made it to Montpellier, ran around trying to get train information - which is apparently impossible in this country. Now I understand why everyone in France drives - it's not worth battling with the train system. Wound up with some other Canadians (Edmontonians in fact) on a shuttle to Avignon. Spent another three hours in Avignon and then got on a train to Nice. To this day I am still not sure if I was supposed to be on that train, but I stowed my bag, found and seat and promptly fell asleep. Three hours later we were half an hour out of Nice and no one had checked any tickets - I'll take what I can get!! Nice is a magical land, I can understand why the film festival in Cannes is such a draw for the rich and famous - it's a world playground around here. With the help of two very kind women I managed to make the last bus to the hostel - which is near the top of Mont Blonc on the western edge of the city. It's an incredible view from up here - I'll share the beautiful pictures when I get them. It's the second hostel of the adventure without a key, but the first with a curfew - everyone in by midnight!! I was so zonked from the train adventure that it didn't really matter - sure could have used something to eat though, it was cookies and cigarettes for dinner. Thanks hostel life.

Thursday - I typical hostel style I met a mess of people from the world over at breakfast. This is a small hostel, there are only 24 guests - but we've got most of the globe covered. I was saved a 45 minute bus ride into the centre of town today by a Serbian living in Montreal who had rented a car, he offered to drive myself and a guy from South Africa into town. The four of us wandered around Vieux Nice for a few hours before bidding them farewell - they were off to somewhere in Italy today, wherever they ran out of gas was where they were going to stop. I like that mentality, if the price of gas weren't ridiculous it might be the way to travel - you get to see all the small towns that way. South Africa and I wandered around on our own for a few more hours before committing to the beach - we sat in the sun/shade on the rocky shore for most of the afternoon. Ate an incredible dinner/lunch and then headed off on our separate ways, I wandered for a few more hours before making my way up to the hostel to double-check my reservations in the next few cities. While sitting here eating amazing cherries, they're the size of rocks, I swear, I began to feel the sun.
Now, I'm right handed... That means that when I sprayed my back this morning I may or may not have neglected to do the right side. *sigh* My face is a little pink and my forearms itch. I haven't actually made it to the mirror to confirm the damage, but I'm assuming it's not going to be pretty. Ah well, what better place to be burned than in Nice? I'll buy some aloe before getting on the train and bathe myself in it for the remainder of the journey; it's all good.
Someone politely reminded me today that I only have 11 (well 10 now) days of holiday left. Boourns... Three more destinations before heading back to Munich and then flying back. It's been a beautiful blast, I'm not looking forward to the "real world"...

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