European Getaway - Day 5 - Lauterbrunnen to Nice

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Day 5 - Lauterbrunnen to Nice

We have an early breakfast in preparation for another long day on the coach. I have just finished the book I was reading on my Kindle (The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown) so download Mark Cavendish’s autobiography, which is an interesting read, although I am struggling as there’s a tunnel every few minutes (as the kindle doesn’t have a backlight, I need actual light to read it). We stop briefly at a service station which allows us to spend our remaining Swiss Francs. I buy a load of Swiss Chocolate for the family (and myself).
We get our first chance to watch a video on the coach today as we watch the DVD footage of Simon’s skydive yesterday. The video looks pretty cool and Simon looks like he’s loving it (or would that be fookin loving it).

Simon also provides today's Ipod, each day on the bus a different person donates their Ipod to be played on the coach. Having spoke with Simon previously, he has a very similar taste in music to myself, such as The Strokes, Kasabian, Arctic Monkeys (who I point out are from Sheffield). Therefore the music on todays journey is pretty good, it makes me think about when I shall give up my Ipod for the group to listen to.

We pass through Italy on our journey today, and we stop at a service station where I purchase a huge bottle of water. We also stop in Italy for lunch. Whilst on the road, most days included a picnic of pasta/salad stuff with fresh fruit and cheese etc, which was the same today, however the weather was scorching hot, which suited my coach mates but I ran to find some shelter.

The journey continued and in the late afternoon we arrived at a local perfumery. We had a brief tour and then the lady spent longer trying to sell the stuff to us. I wasn’t fussed.

We then arrived in Nice in the early evening. The hotel seems to be in a rough area of town but isn’t too bad. I am rooming with Vince, a guy of Korean origin who is from Sydney (funnily enough he works for an accountants too, but not as an accountant, he's a lawyer) and Chin, Chin is from Malaysia but has spent the last month or so studying in Sheffield (wehey). Both are really sound guys.

We head out for dinner at a local restaurant, where I use my amazing linguistic skills to order a bottle of Stella. We have beef and potato/chip things, followed by Profiteroles, all is good. We then head across the city to a bar called Wayne’s Bar. I could have somehow predicted this wasn’t a local bar given the name, it turned out to be an aussie bar. It was crazy, there was our group and a Contiki group (a sworn enemy). The rules of the bar is that we didn’t need to go to the bar, the bloke (dressed as a pirate) would climb the tables and take our orders. There was a live band who sang the old classic ‘Land Down Under’ which seemed to follow our trip around Europe. I even know the words and I’m English. I only stopped for a few and headed back to the hotel, vis McDonalds.

I must say this trip to Mackers was one of my novelty moments on the trip. I was going the buy a cheeseburger anyway but required the toilet, as we approach the toilets it appears they have a security code on the door, and you have to buy something to get the code. I buy my cheeseburger and ask for the password, but in semi sort of french. She replies in English, just push the door, as the door wasn't locked. I feel pretty stupid, but manage to both use the toilet and purchase a cheeseburger, which was the aim of my visit.

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