SBXII Nice

Spring Break 2012, Part One- Nice

Goooood morning!  Sitting at breakfast at my hostel in Nice, I realize that if I'm going to remember all the amazing stuff we do over the next twenty days, I'm gonna need to write it down as it happens, cause obviously I suck at posting in a timely manner.  So hopefully, it's all going to get written down in my handy dandy notebook to be typed up later- that way I'll remember each day as it happens, and not as some long blur at the end of the trip.  Forewarning, I'm going to be way more detailed than anyone but me needs, but I want to remember it all.

So, Day 1.  Or really, Night Before Day 1, because my travel adventures always start with the inevitable packing/planning frenzy that happens due to strong procrastination skills and from being used to following Sandy's Packing Itinerary.  Whatever, I work best (only) under pressure.  I packed for our 20 day jaunt in a backpack and small rolling suitcase.  How?  Not because of my expertise- I forget things, which makes for a lighter packing load.  By the time I finish packing and organizing last minute plans, it's 1:30am, so I nap til 4 when the taxi comes to take me to the train station.  I meet my friend Austin, and we are the first people in the station when it opens at 4:30, ready to take the first train to CDG.

Now, usually, the French late policy works well for me.  "Fashionably late" is a way of life, and since I am perpetually ten minutes late, I'm usually on time.  It does not work for me, however, when the website says the first train is at 4:56, only to show up and have it be actually 5:30. We weren't the only ones stuck for a 7am flight- we met a nice Hungarian guy named Martin who blazed the trail for us as we ran from the train to security through CDG.  We were supposed to be at the gate by 6:30; we ran from the security line at 6:27.  I don't think we caught our breath until our seatbelts were fastened, but then we were golden.  We were on our way to Nice.

We arrived, met up with three of the guys from our program, and shared a cab to our hostel, marveling at the mountains, the water, the palm trees, everything.  After weeks of planning, waiting, and school work, the knowledge that we were finally on spring break, backpacking across Europe, was intoxicating.

Our hostel, Villa St. Exupery Beach, is consistently rated one of the top hostels in Europe, and it didn't disappoint.  I don't have a lot to compare it to, this being my first hostel experience, but it's cute, clean, has a ton of organized activities, friendly staff, amazingly comfortable beds,n and a killer happy hour.  We stowed our bags and hopped on a free walking tour of Nice, given by the hostel's manager.

Oh my gosh guys, Nice.  It's so nice (har har.  Insert bad Boyfriend joke, shudder, move on).  We walked through old cobblestone streets with high buildings, colorful walls, and terraces with plants spilling over the sides.  Nice has a varied history of rulers, first by the Greeks, then the Romans, and then finally the French, so city switches back and forth from contemporary French beach scene and old Italian villa.  The streets twist and turn depending on wind patterns, designed to help cool the city during the hot summer months.  There's old town, contained in old walls left over from some King's fortress, which contains the flower and spice market, much of the city's oldest architecture, and delicious gelato, and it's where we spent most of our time.  After our tour, we walked up through the city to climb a cliff up to an observation platform, which gave a fantastic view of the whole city, wrapping around the bay and spreading back across the mountains.  It was worth the trip to Nice all by itself.  We then walked down to sit along the rock beaches.  We were just so giddy and glad to be there.  Being outside of Paris, and outside of the structure of school and homestays, was a breath of fresh air that I didn't know I wanted til I got here.  We are absolutely free, with no one running the itinerary but ourselves.  For 20 days, we get to do whatever we want in some of the most amazing cities in the world.  So what did we do? After the beach, we headed back to the hostel to take a much needed nap, as we'd been up and running for just over 12 hours.  Afterwards, we headed back down to dinner at 6, which also happened to be the start of happy hour.

Now, I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but drinks (and everything) in Paris are expensive.  Shots are between 4-6€, beers between 5-7, and cocktails anywhere from 7-12.  This happy hour had 1€ pints 3.50 cocktails and shots, and dinner for 8, so we had a pretty good night for under fifteen euros, unheard of by Paris prices.  That included our trip to Fenocchio's, the best ice cream in Nice, boasting a mind-boggling 96 flavors.  It was like the Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans of ice cream.  You had the entire range, starting from the normal chocolate varieties, nutella, coffee, caramel, hazelnut, Irish coffee, and amaretto, to the fruity selection, pineapple, lemon, lime, orange, watermelon, blackberry, strawberry, coconut, etc., and then the section of really weird ones, like lavender, rose, cactus, guava, lychee, rhubarb, tomato-basil, and beer.  I'm going to include the link  here , because it's worth taking a look at, and a definite MUST if you're ever in Nice.  We returned several times throughout the trip, trying different combos.  My favorite was cacao with and salted caramel.

We woke up the next morning to complimentary breakfast and an uncharacteristically rainy day, so we walked through the downpour to get lunch.  We got large orders of moules-frites (mussels with fries), and then our group split to tackle the main museums, so I headed off to the modern art museum with Aubrey and Austin.  Guys, I don't think I get modern art.  The first floor was literally crates, barrels, and nets in the middle of the floor, like someone had forgotten to clean them up.  There was one wall entirely of butterfly nets that would have made Spongebob proud.  One floor had canvases painted blue and yellow, and then labelled "Blue" and "Yellow".  Thanks, got that part.  But even those were better than the random splashes of paint or design that were "Sans Titre" so I had absolutely no clues as to figuring out what it was supposed to be.  I think that kind of art is best viewed with someone who can explain it.  So we giggled through it, got some more ice cream and headed back to dry off to reunite with our group at the bar.  It's very cool to meet the other people in the hostel, who're from all over the world. Even the staff was a mix of backpackers and students who just didn't want to go home after their vacation was done, and stayed to work.  It's a very intriguing thought....

Oof, I write too much.  I'll stop this here, and finish off and Nice next time along with Corsica, where I am right now! Sorry if the switching tenses is throwing you off, but I'm writing them down as I'm living them, and then typing them up when time and WiFi allow.   I hope you all are enjoying April with lots of sunshine, and I'll be back soon!

A Week to Settle and Think About Life Things

So shocker, I didn't get this posted before I left, I'm currently sitting in a hostel in Nice!  Just pretend it's last week for me.  Silly time difference :)


I'm in the very middle of this crazy month now.  I've returned from Morocco, house hunted in Loire Valley, and resaw my city through my family's eyes.  There's nothing more grounding than after feeling so lofty, European, and just utterly sophisticated then to be put back among your family- where the most comfortable place to lean is wherever Daddy's standing, and to once again follow the direction of Mom and to share a room, clothes, and lipstick with three sisters (Kat  fit right in).

Though at first it was a struggle, I learned to let go and give in to the fact that my family was a group of tourists. And that's okay, but it's a very different lifestyle than the one I'm used to living.  Here, we strive every day to blend in, to become Parisian.  It's always a small victory when we can order something smoothly and be answered in French, or when navigating the Metro becomes second nature.  It tooks about 30 seconds to realize that mode was going to have to be tossed out the window for the week.

There's a certain liberty in being a tourist that my mother figured out long before I did.  You're excused your mistakes, your constant photography, and your American accent.  Once you're okay with relaxing into that category, your embarrassement in set aside to make way for the priority of knowing where you are and how to get where you're going.  And you know what I discovered this past week?  Touriusts are the happiest people in the city.  The Parisians are often criticized, by themselves as well as others as being, well, cirtical, and always complaining.  Viusitors are just delighted to be in the most beautiful city in the world.  For its inhabitants, the Paris skyline just becomes part of the background, but when we passed the Eiffel Tower sparkling at night, my family's heads, along with hundredsd of others, tipped back, open mouthed,m to see the show.  You can see them celebrating the city everywhere, marveling at the food, the buildings, taking pictures of themselves pinching the Eiffel Tower or being Hunchbacks in Notre Dame (wait, that's only my sisters? Shame).  I got to experience another first week in Paris with them, and got to do many of the typical tourist things that I had been saving to do with them.  And the French, for the most part, like their tourists.  They're proud of their city and like that you've chosen to come.

After my family departed, it was my first Easter without my family, but I spent it in the best way possible.  Having our large apartment for another night, my friends and I took advantage of the large space (it's rare to have people over to your apartment in Paris, they're just too small and seen as a private space.  Friends are for public spaces.) It's such an ordeal to coordinate restaurants and activities, and as a bunch of American girls raised on slumber parties, we were ready to chill.  Therefore, we had planned a party, but our American mindset betrayed us, and so we forgot that on Easter Sunday in France, everything but Chinese take out places and McDonalds would be closed.  So we hobbled together enough supplies from our various ahouses to spend the holiday in comfort if not in style, playing card games and other games and listening to music late in the night, and then spent the next morning cuddling in the bed before going out to forage for a truley excellent brunch.  I am very blessed to have these girls to share Paris with.

So one of my favorite weeks in Paris passed, and now I'm dropped into the harsh cold reality of not really having every detail of my 20 day spring break nailed down, which is kind of unacceptable since I leave Friday morning.  My head is torn in three places- back in the US, trying to settle internships, summer plans, and next semester's course schedule (don't EVEN get me started on how ridiculous it is that as an incoming Junior with a second day time slot I can't get into basic general education classes before they're full) elsewhere in Europe trying to figure out exactly how many days should be spent in Corsica or Nice, and then here in Paris freaking out that technically I only have three weekends left in Paris!!!  Afterwhich, I think I have two free weeks, which looks like will be spent gallivanting around Europe by myself, but anyways.

What else?  In case anyone was wondering, school is severely cramping my style.  I've always considered myself fairly committed to school, but as my old teachers will tell you, I can get distracted, and Paris must be one of the distracting places on the planet.  Never before have I appreciated going to school in a rural town, where school takes top priority.    In case you couldn't tell though, I definitly recommend the whole study abroad thing.  I've been jotting down other things as I think them, so I'll try to get them up here eventually.  Happy Easter!

Back to real life, where my time in Nice is almost up- I've been writing it all down, but I'm done making posting promises, since I break them all anyway.  I know the comments here are messed up/too complicated, but you can always facebook me or email me at lambre@dukes.jmu.edu!  Hopefully I'll be back soon :)

Morocco Part 2, in which there are camels

Finally, I get to our second part of Morocco.  I needed to write it down a long time ago, but life and my legendary skills of procrastination got in the way.  But it’s not something I want to forget, so I need to get it down, at least for me. 

Our desert leg started with picking up a truly noteworthy cold, with vocal cough that I’m sure delighted my roommates.  We woke up early in Fez and boarded the bus, blankets out and iPods charged, preparing ourselves for a long six hours in the bus getting ourselves from the northernish city of Fes to desert town of Erfoud.  Though my family is somewhat known for our long car trips (the month long cross country journey, the non-stop 16 hours to Florida, etc.)  I don’t think I’ve ever spent that long on a bus among people that weren’t related to me, and therefore obligated to tolerate my compulsive need for leg room and a window seat.  But my seat mate was an absolute dream, as were our amiable neighbors, and we passed the time with movies, music, an enthusiastic and bloody war against the numerous flies, and animated discussions of Meryl Streep’s acting career.  Every few minutes, our conversation would be punctuated by a “whoa” from somewhere on board, and we would all pause to stare out the window at some of the most impressive scenery I have ever seen.  Sheep and donkeys seeming to roam free across the wilderness, and the true-blue plateaus rising up sporadically across the rolling hills.  For the first few hours we headed to a mountain range that made one of my friends homesick for Colorado Rockies.  They peaked past the clouds, but we could see the snow.  Then we climbed, scaling peaks that make the Grand Canyon look like a creek bed.  It was during that time I became conscious of my own zen-like trust in our driver as he careened us at lightning speed along skinny roads that hugged the cliff face.  When I started paying attention, I literally thought we were going to die at any moment, that at some point we’d hurtle around a corner to find the road disappeared, and that since we were driving in the middle of the road, every oncoming vehicle was destined for a head-on collision.  So I stopped paying attention and went back to sleep or to staring out the window. 

We stopped for lunch at a fancy hotel literally in the middle of nowhere, where they served us chicken, lamb, rabbit…and camel.  So my list of weird foods I have eaten grows longer, the vegetarian voice inside my head dies a little more, and we moved on.

When we arrived in Erfoud, we were unloaded from the bus, stretching and sleepy, and promptly loaded back into several jeeps, our bags secured on top.  We drove through the city, which wasn’t so much a city as a bunch of buildings covered in sand, and we had to dodge as many mule carts and bicycles as cars.  Our American-ness was even more apparent here- it wasn’t as much as a tourist destination as Casablanca or Fes, so we got many waves and calls.  By some stroke of luck I got the passenger seat, where I rolled down the window and basically hung as much of myself outside as possible.  We were finally in the desert.

As we left the city limits, dusk was really upon us, and the light got fainter as we sped across the scrubland.  I had no idea how our drivers knew where they were going, for when night fell there was nothing to guide them- you couldn’t see past the headlights.  I learned later that they followed the stars. 

Our drivers were well practiced, and mine played music and pulled stunts, acting as if the car had run out of gas, and at one point even running alongside.  Once he had discovered my propensity  to …ahem…squeal… when going over hills and through bushes, he tried his hardest to get me to call out as much as possible, actions I strongly encouraged. 

We arrived after an hour or so at our campsite.  Which, quite literally, was eight or so tents arranged in a circle between two dunes.  And when I say tents, I mean heavy blankets strung over sticks.  There was no bottom, just heavy rugs over sand, and no zippers, which was really made apparent when one of the cats who begged for food at dinner came into nap on one of our beds in the middle of the night.  (Don’t ask me how they got out there, Moroccon cats are a different breed.) 

We slept on mattresses covered in blankets and ate in a large tent at tables and chairs, served by our guides.  After dinner came mint tea and music, and we stumbled into our tents to change and settle before the single light bulb in each tent was shut off for bed.

We woke early, ate breakfast of thick crepes with honey, eggs, orange juice and coffee, before spilling out to excitedly greet our rows of camels!  We were to ride to a large dune, and then to our spot for lunch.  The camel riding was wild.  Tied in a line of six, we wandered up and down the dunes, debating names for our mounts and finding it hilarious to end every sentence with “…I said, while riding a camel in the desert.”  We couldn’t believe our luck.  After much deliberation, (and not being sure of its gender) I settled on Fez for my camel, thinking it a proper Moroccan name and also because I like the hat, and had just announced it to the world when I was promptly told that no, my camel was named Michael Jackson.  And a more appropriate name could not be had, as MJ turned out to be quite the vocalist and a bit of a diva. 

The actual riding was fairly easy, as we just had to hang on, and when we arrived at the dune, we were able to stretch out our sore muscles in preparation for dune climbing. 

There were times, in my youth, when I was rather fit.  I could run bleachers, climb hills, do laps, whatever.  This dune laughed at that.  It sneered at my years of experience on North Carolina dunes.  It was all, you want to climb me you’re going to have to hack up a lung doing it.  My cold didn’t help matters, but I wasn’t the only one struggling.  It was a battle of wills, out in the hostile desert, and I’m proud to say that we prevailed. 

And then the seven year old with us ran up and down, fetching things and generally acting like his feet didn’t sink a foot into the ground with each step like the rest of us.  Oh well.

We huffed and puffed our way to the top, and then rested while taking in the view of endless dunes one way, and a line of trees framing the mountains down the other.  We ran down, and hopped back onto our trusty steeds to ride to lunch. 

When we disembarked, we followed our guides through what looked like a deserted village to a hotel with a pool, where we were able to chill and eat and generally relax.  A local woman and her daughter came to apply henna to our hands, after which we chatted and walked back to our camp for naps, dinner, and dancing. 

And then that night it rained.  Actually rained, such a rarity in the desert that nothing was waterproofed, so as it poured outside, a mine mist drifted down throughout tent.  So raincoats were arranged over bags, and with a blanket over my head, I stayed toasty and warm. 

The next morning we were packed back into the jeeps for the ride back across the desert.  In the daylight, it was even more isolated- for parts we followed a road, but then our driver would randomly turn off.  We arrived back in Erfoud and got back on the bus for an even longer bus ride than before to Meknes.  We arrived at our hotel int the city early enough to eat and take long, much-needed showers after three days of camping.  The more adventurous and resilient among us explored the hookah bar downstairs- I drank the rest of our wine with a friend and went to bed.

We had only an hour to explore the medina of Meknes before we were ushered back onto the bus for the drive to the Casablanca airport.  We said our goodbyes to Morocco and boarded the Air France flight.  The beautiful thing about Air France is that by the time they finish feeding you dinner, wine, and coffee, the four hour was drawing to a close, and I was back in my Parisian apartment by 11 pm, smelling of curry and tracking sand everywhere (those shoes STILL have sand in them). 

Phew! I think that’s the lot of it.  It was an exciting six days, and looking back now its like a little secret, which sounds weird.  No one would know by looking at me that I’ve been to Africa, and I feel much cooler for the experience.  There’s a quote I like, “I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.”  It’s like another small piece of me has slid into place.  I can only hope my destinations are as amazing!

I have one more blog post, already written, that should go up tomorrow, because then I leave for break and it’s likely you won’t hear from me til May!  

The Loire Valley, and Lambs Take Paris

“-hopefully the next three days will be up here soon.  It depends on how much studying I get done. I’d like to get it up before Saturday so there’s nothing in the way of me posting the Loire Valley trip this weekend, which will be hard with the welcome distraction of my family!”

OK, so much for those grand plans.  At the moment, I am sitting in one of the dark bedrooms of our apartment, waiting for everyone wake-up.  The Lamb family reunited last night, and we’ve planned out the week as only Sandy Lamb can do- we have a full itinerary, with not a moment to spare.  Expecting that I’ll not have a whole lot of time this week, I thought I would take a few minutes to jot down some stuff, and hopefully have the second part of Morocco up sometime this week, but we’ll see. 

I’ve just returned from the Loire Valley excursion this weekend, to see some of the Chateaux of southern France.  The trip started in a flurry, as the night before I had accidentally set my alarm for 6:30 PM instead of AM, and woke in a tizzy at 7:46, exactly 11 minutes past the rendezvous time.  Brianna and I moved like lightening, or something, calling our guides and scrambling to throw ourselves together, run downstairs, grab a cab, and rush off. Thankfully, they waited for us, and we were soon on our way south,

Now, over the past year or so, my family via my mother has gotten very into a show called House Hunters International.  For those of you not familiar, the show follows a person or family who are planning to move to a new country.  A real estate agent shows them three properties that meet their wish list, and then they choose. It’s kind of a cool way to explore different cities, and the game is to guess which house they’ll choose.  So it was with that in mind that we started our tour in the Chateau in Blois. 

House Number One was smaller as chateaux go; it sits rather inconspicuously in the city center, with the town bustling around it.  Several of its subsequent owners added to it, so the buildings don’t quite match, but there’s a room inside with detailed carvings, some of which hide secret cubbies for the King’s treasures.  All in all, a charming little castle, but I was somewhat put off by the abundance of porcupine’s carved into every surface, as it was the symbol of the first resident King. 

Then off to Chateau Chenonceau, a beautiful castle sitting over the Loire river.  You walk down a long driveway lined with huge trees to wide open grass garden and the river, and then carefully manicured gardens and the castle across the bridge.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day.

After the second castle, we went to a small local winery, where we learned about the distillation and making of wine.  The Loire Valley is known for their wine, goat cheese, and terrine, a meat spread.  We got to taste all three at the winery, trying roses, whites, reds and a champagne (it wasn’t called champagne, because it can only be called champagne if it’s made in the Champagne region of France, but it was basically the same thing).   I also learned how to tell which region of France a wine comes from by looking solely at the shape of a bottle- the very long, slender bottles are from Alsace, the northern region up by Germany, Bordeaux have defined shoulders, and wines from Val d’Loire have a more feminine shape. 

The next day started with breakfast at the hotel (really, French continental breakfasts are so much better than any other kind of breakfast), and then our third castle, one of the most famous in the country, Chateau Chambord.  Chambord is huge- we couldn’t decide if it was the Beast’s castle from Beauty and the Beast, or Beauxbatons, the French girls’ wizarding school from Harry Potter.  The highlighted feature of the Chateau was the double staircases, engineered so that the King could send his Mistress down one stair while the Queen came up the other.  The top of the castle gave amazing views, but the wind drove us inside, the explore more than 200 rooms inside.  Our guide told us about this French King  that would travel the country, never staying more than a week in any village or town.  At first, that didn’t seem very long, but when you think that it took approximately a month to travel from Paris to Lyon and that the King travelled with upwards of 2000 men, its not as shocking.  Afterwards, we went to the biscuiterie at Chambord for a cookie tasting, as well as my first kir- an aperitif made from Chambord liquor and white wine, which was surprisingly delicious. 

Unsurprisingly, in the time it’s taken me to write this, the week has passed.  My family left me this morning, after a packed week of sightseeing and tourism.  It was incredibly fun to show my family around my city, though exhausting being the translator for six people.  After two months of playing native, it was a totally different lifestyle being a tourist.  There were no lazy mornings- we were up at eight or earlier every day, trying to fit in as much as possible around my classes.  Orchestrating six people’s wishlist’s was exhausting, but I think we did a pretty good job- our weekly adventures included the Eiffel Tower (all the way to the top!), the Arc d’Triomphe, Notre Dame, the Hop-On Hop-Off bus tour of Paris,  the Luxembourg Gardens and the Senate, Rues Mouffetard and Cler, the Catacombs, the Louvre, Musee d’Orsay, and of course, crepes, gelato, and fondue.  One night, my family hosted some of my fabulous new friends at our apartment, crowded around pizza, wine, and chips and salsa, a little taste of home.  IT was wonderful showing them off to everyone- they really are the greatest people, and I’m so lucky to be here with them.  We also had lunch with my host mother at a local creperie, and I think it eased my mother’s worries a little to meet her and commiserate over my lack of domestic skills. 

My mother also bonded with the vendor from the local fromagerie (cheese shop), taking home two or three different types of cheese each night to eat with our bread and wine, everyone took turns running down to the boulangerie each morning for fresh baguettes, and I still have the remanats of our jar of Nutella and strawberry jam for my lonely little croissant this morning. 

It’s very sad to see them all leave this morning- this whole time, I’ve staved off any feelings of homesickness with the thought that they would be here soon, and I could show them everything I was doing and seeing.  Now all my new discoveries will be my own until the next time we’re in Paris.  Jenna turns 18 today, by the way- we celebrated with champagne last night, but if you’re going to see her soon, give her a hug and a kiss from me (and admire her new Longchamp purse- they’re all the rage in Paris).  It seems weird to me that my little baby can be all grown up, and leads to remember that I’m halfway to 21 (shudder. Old old old.)  I’m so glad she could be in France this week with me, and it makes me wonder where I will be on my future birthdays. Someday, I hope it’s as fabulous as Paris. 

            But, time waits for no girl, and apparently I can sleep when I’m dead, because I leave this next Friday for spring break, which is twenty days long. Twenty DAYS.  I’ve been planning an epic backpacking-across-Europe tour since before I can remember, and now it’s finally happening; I start in Nice for a week, then to Corsica, then to Prague, Amsterdam, and Bruges!!  All with only a carry on suitcase?!?  My mother is horrified.  Oh well! You’re only young once! Carpe Diem, YOLO, and everything else!