Matisse, wine, and good conversations beachside

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Martha from NYC moved in last night as well as Celeste from New Zealand. Celeste was an au pair in NYC and had spent every winter for the past 6 years working in different ski resorts as a snowboard instructor. pretty cool!

I read in my travel book that the 1st and 3rd Sundays of each month have free entry into the Matisse and Chagall museums. I heard that the Chagall was very small and had about 12 of his works and none of his super famous pieces, so I decided to just visit the Matisse museum. Martha came with since she's really into painting, so she was great company - for me at least I like going to museums with someone (unless they have to study each brush stroke of each painting on each floor of the museum...hehe).

The Matisse museum was great - quite small but I liked it that way because I remember almost all of the paintings and it was not draining like the Louvre or the Vatican Museums.

Back at the hostel, Martha and I changed into swim suits and headed for the beach. Celeste came too so we could so her the way to the cool Castle hill and Vieux Nice. It was nice to have somebody at the beach to watch my things when I went for a swim. That day there were no medusa jellyfish (thank goodness) so I was more daring and went beyong being able to touch the bottom. It's a completely different feeling, swimming in the ocean, because for me at least, I feel a lot more vulnerable since I can't see the bottom. Though the water was so clear in Nice that I could see the bottom in most places except for the wavy areas.

I had dinner with Martha and Celeste in the hostel kitchenette and then Celeste and I got 2 bottles of rose wine for the evening. Another one of the hostelers, a guy from LA, joined in with us and we sat on the beach watching darkness approach. It was a great night, in good company, sharing travel stories as usual. Today was more of a relaxing day so it felt good to see a museum and then just spend time on the beach. A lot of time backpacking is not relaxing but more fun, interesting, and of course challenging at times. But when you're in a place for 7 nights there's definitely time to do more than just sit back and drink a coffee.

ah, those summer nights...

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