The Great Adventure- Day 1: London

This morning I woke up and I was the only person left in my room. All my roommates had left to go their separate ways and have their own adventures. So I got up and packed my last few things, had one last quick breakfast in the refectory and boarded the shuttle for the last time heading away from Harlaxton. This place is so magical and transforming. I know I have changed dramatically since I first got here. Harlaxton wasn't just a place I lived and went to class; Harlaxton was my home. It was my little piece of paradise in this crazy world. I will never forget the nights I stayed up far too late running around the manor with Dani and Chelsea, or all the times I ran down the cedar staircase on my way to British Studies. I will always remember the way the sun shines through the windows in the Long Gallery and how the floor reflects the sunlight and casts it up to the ceiling, painted like the sky. I won't ever be able to forget the very uneven stones in the stone corridor and how many times I almost tripped and ate it while I was rushing down to drop of my sheets to be laundered. And I will remember the days we spent lying on the grass in the garden and gazing up at the manor and the evenings we spend sitting on the ledge of the manor wall and looking out at the English countryside fade into the dusk. All of that has gone, but the memories will remain forever.

We arrived at the train station and about six or seven of the kids who had been on the shuttle got on the 8:30 train. Mine wasn't until 9:30 so I just waited. I got to London without any problems and hauled my suitcases onto the Tube so I could go drop them off with Jenny, Aunt Theresa's friend. I arrived at the EArls Court Tube station and called Jenny to let her know I was there. A few minutes later she arrived and we headed off to her flat which is only a few blocks away from the tube station. It dropped my luggage off and we chatted for a little while. I left and just about the time I got to the Glouster station I realized I had left the print out of my itinerary. I witched trains and went back to her flat to get it. I double checked everything and then set off for my hostel. I found my hostel with no trouble and after I had settled in I headed over to St. Pancras to see what the deal would be for Friday morning. I got things figured out and then just started wandering along Euston Street. I didn't have a map, which was actually kind of nice. I walked and eventually found myself in front of the British Library. I went inside. It was astounding. It was huge and there were people everywhere reading and doing research with your lap tops, etc. There were 3 or 4 floors of rooms dedicated to certain types of books: Humanities, Social Sciences, Maps, etc. I couldn't go in any of the rooms because I didn't have a reading pass, so I wandered around instead. The bookshop there was fantastic. Finally I left and continued to wander aimlessly until I eventually came to Tottenham Court Road. I turned down this street and walked again for a very long ways until I found myself in SoHo. I was getting tired and hungry (about 4pm now) so I hopped on the tube back to Kings Cross. I grabbed some food at Mark and Spencers and went back to my hostel to eat. I ate and afterwards went out again. I had intended on going down to the Thames, but for some reason I had the impulse to get off at Covent Garden, so I did. I found a pillar to lean against and I sat there and people watched for a long time. Eventually I got cold so I started wandering again until I found my way to the Holborn tube station. I got on and a short while later I alighted at Kings Cross and headed for the hostel. I tried to get to bed early because I knew I had to get up before the crack of dawn. 

Lake District- Day 2

On top of the unknown mountain
view from near the summit
waterfall trail
My duck friend.
Ferry ride.

So we woke up early this morning-- 8:30 or something along those lines.

Dani and I had planned to take the ferry down to Bowness to go see the Beatrix Potter museum. As our luck would have it, it was raining that day. Of course! It was like Ireland all over again. But we didn't let a little rain get us down and we set out on the ferry headed for Bowness around 10am. The rain decided to take a break and fortunately it did not rain on us on the way down to Bowness. Once we got there we just sort of wandered around looking for little rabbits to lead us to the museum. We didn't see rabbits but we saw a heard of swans hanging out on the dock of Bowness. They looked pretty fierce and I tried to restrain Dani from petting them. She has a soft spot for animals-- it's pretty serious actually. Eventually I managed to pry her away from the swans and we set off for the museum with Mary Katherine and my roommate Erin. We found it and shelled out the money to take the self tour. 

Let me begin this paragraph by saying that this museum was made for children, but I enjoyed it as much as I might have if I was 4 years old again. The Beatrix Potter books have a special place in my heart; and my heart truly did skip a beat when I saw Jemima Puddleduck. In the museum they had various scenes from different books. It was a trip down memory lane and as cheesy as it sounds it really was magical. It seems as if nowdays you can only let your imagine wander such extremes when you are a child. Anything else is deemed as immature and improper. Children have it off so easy and they don't even realize it. They can believe anything they want to believe and their lives have not yet been tainted by corruption and vileness. The still believe that good will always triumph and that everything is worth hoping for. Oh how I wish I could be a kid again. 

Eventually we tore ourselves away from the museum and wandered around Bowness in the rain for a little while. When we were sufficiently wet and cold we got back on the ferry and headed back to Ambleside. Upon arrival we ate our lunch and then headed out again. Some friends of ours had discovered a waterfall hike earlier that day and they pointed us in the direction of it. We wandered through ambleside until we found a sign labeled "Waterfall"-- so we followed it. The waterfall hike was pleasant and ran parallel to a pretty substantial stream with several waterfalls. At some point on the hike we found another trail that would lead us to the top of a mountain. I of course jumped with excitement at the chance to summit a mountain, however, my counterparts were not as enthusiastic was I was. Nevertheless the humored me and we started trekking. 

Now during this "little" trek of ours I discovered that it doesn't pay to stay away from the Rocky mountains for as long as I have. So I can safely say that this mountain definitely kicked my derriere. It was a beautiful hike though. We could see all the villages nestled at the base of the mountains surrounding the lake. As we climbed higher and higher I could feel the mountain breeze and feel my lungs contract as the air got thinner. Some people would freak out about that and pull out their inhalers, but not me. It was wonderful. I find it very safe to say that at some point in my life I MUST live near the mountains. I have been spoiled my whole life by spending almost every summer hiking around the mountains in some part of the United States. Now that I've gotten older and gone to school and gotten a serious summer job I can no longer do that. There is nothing I miss more during the summer than being forced to get up early and go summit  a couple fourteeners. These mountains were nowhere near 14,000 feet, but it was good enough for me.

When we finally summited this mountain, that I still don't know the name of, we were out of breath and slightly chilly because we had stripped off so many layers of our clothes. From the peak we could see all of Lake Windermere below us and the villages along the lake shore. It was wonderful. Around the rest of us we could see mountains upon mountains upon mountains. I had an Ireland moment all over again and I told myself that I would return. Perhaps not in the fashion that Beatrix Potter had, but that I would take time in my life to wander through these hills and learn about their story. This really is the wild English countryside and I love it. I feel like this is part of England that few people see and this is what makes England so beautiful.

We descended from the peak and picked up some of our fellows that had bailed earlier and together we found a restaurant in Ambleside to quench our insatiable appetite. Dinner was served and we went home with full bellies and an unshakable sense of accomplishment. 

Little did we know what tomorrow would bring. 

Lake District- Day 1

So this is the trip I have been waiting all semester for. This is the trip that every single student has said "you have to go on". The Lake District is an area in the North of England that is known for its... well it's lakes... and it's mountains. For those of you that have read Peter Rabbit you will be intrigued to find that Beatrix Potter visited the Lake District as a child and eventually moved there to write many of her world-famous children's books. 

This was the one trip I was taking that was organized by the school so I had high expectations for it. We left on Thursday around 6pm with a 5 hour coach ride ahead of us. Fun, I know. For some strange reason the drivers here cannot drive for more than 4 hours without a 45 minute break... so about 2 hours into the trip we had to stop for them. I have no idea where we stopped, but it was at some swank lorry stop. We finally arrived at some god forsaken hour. Everything was dark and the shunted us off the coaches and into the hostel. It felt similar to all those times when we arrived at campsites late and night and had to try and pitch the tents in the dark. I am thinking of that particular time where mum was supposed to make Pasta with tomato and basil but... she forgot the whole pasta part of the dish and so we ate it on bread. Oh the good old days. Well here in the Lake District we dropped off our bags and then went on onto the tiny pier and when say tiny I mean the thing was about 4 feet wide and maybe 30 feet long. It's basically there for the hostel guests to walk out on. So you've probably gathered that our hostel was on the shore of the Lake. Lake Windermere in fact. 

We got bored on the pier after a while so we decided to walk to the little town of Ambleside. Ambleside is the closest town to our hostel and it was about a 15 minute walk into the town. It was so late that everything was pretty much closed except for a few pubs, so the group of us just walked around exploring. There really wasn't anything to see in Ambleside so we walked back to our hostel and called it a night. 

g'night moon.

Cambridge

So on March 7th I went to Cambridge for a day trip sponsored by the school.

Originally I hadn't planned on going because I was supposed to go to Venice but that trip fell through for some reason that I can no longer recall. Anyway, so I decided on Tuesday to go on this trip because I missed the trip to Oxford and I had been told by my most hard core Uncle that visiting the Unis (Universities) is a right good time. So I woke up at an abnormally early hour and got on the coach to go the famed Cambridge University.

Before we went to Cambridge we stopped at the American Cemetery. The American Cemetery is a cemetery dedicated to the men and women who fought for America and died while abroad. We stopped there for about 30 minutes or so. It was wonderful in a weird, somber sort of way. The sky was cloudless and the grass was the perfect shade of green. Then... there was row after row after row of white marble crosses and stars of David. When you first walked through the gates into the cemetery there was a long looking pool to your right and running along the right side of the entire pool was a wall with every single name etched in it's surface. Along the top in much larger letters was a tribute to the men and women who had died to preserve freedom. Other people walked along the wall in silence stopping every so often to look at a name or too. I think cemeteries are strange places. They cast this spell over us. They are scary at night. They command our attention like few other things do. In some respects they are beautiful, in some respects they are morbid. And sometimes you just wonder how much of a party it must be with all these people hanging out. I don't wish to be irreverent, but boys will be boys and soldiers definitely will be soldiers. Cemeteries cast this spell of remorse and melancholy upon those that walk through and while I think that the sacrifice that many of these people made is not one they should have made; I don't think they died in vain and I don't believe they would want us to go tip-toeing around. Granted this is not the place to throw your fourth of July bash, but it's also not a place to loose your soul at for 30 minutes. 

There is nothing glorious or romantic about death. As Tom Stoppard once said one moment you are alive the next you are not. It's just an absence of being "Now you see me, now you...". We don't see them. I was walking past a thousand faceless people. People I didn't even know. People I couldn't share anything with or learn from. 

These men and women are brave. Far braver than I shall ever be, but their memorial inspires us to be more than what we are today. They inspire us to make a change, hopefully for the better. There is very little good left in this world, but the good that there is left is something that is worth fighting and sacrificing for. 

So after we left the cemetery we continued on to Cambridge.  They dropped us off on the edge of Cambridge's campus... which is enormous. People wandered off to do their own thing and my friend Elise and I headed for the Kings College Chapel. The grounds of the campus were beautiful. There were little snow drops and crocuses blooming beside all the footpaths and people were lazily drifting down the canal that runs through the campus. Even though it was a Saturday students were wandering around. The intellectualism that was permeating from the school was almost too much for me.

We walked into the the Kings College Cathedral and were stunned. It is one of the most beautiful churches I have ever been in. The fan ceiling is probably one of the high lights. It has stunning gothic architecture. The stained glass was also quite incredible. We walked around and sat and reflected for awhile before heading outside to explore the rest of the campus. 

I had come to Cambridge with only two goals: to see the Kings College Chapel and to see the Great Courtyard where the race in Chariots of Fire took place. Now obviously Kings College Chapel is part of Kings College and it was open to the public, but today Trinity College which houses the Great Courtyard was closed to the public. Since when have rules ever stopped a Sullivan. After walking around the campus some more and looking at the outsides of the colleges we decided to simply just break the rules and walk onto the St. John's College campus. We're students anyway so we blended in... sort of. We walked around St. John's for awhile before we headed towards Trinity. The gate door was obviously closed but I just walked up and pulled it open. Other people were doing it anyway so I wasn't the only one breaking the rules.

The courtyard was not what I had imagined at all. It was much bigger than I had anticipated and very open. The sun was shinning and the courtyard glowed in the early afternoon sunlight. We walked around the quad a bit and then left. After that we perched ourselves outside the Kings College entrance and ate our scrumptious  packed lunch. After eating our lunch we headed to the Fitz-William art museum in Cambridge. It had a good selection of world art and ceramics and such. After walking through there we headed back to Cambridge's main market area. On the edge of the market there was a church. The church was of no particular significance but pinned to the fence surrounding the entire church, were flyers for events at Cambridge. These events varied from public lectures, to parties, to theatre performances, to concerts and recitals. It was incredible to see that there was so much going on there. By the looks of it there were atleast 7 or 8 different plays being performed by various groups in the Cambridge community. 

By the time we left Cambridge at 4pm I was thoroughly sold on coming back. If theatre doesn't work out I plan to do whatever it takes to get accepted and study at Cambridge. I don't really care what college I'm in or what I'm studying as long as I get to be part of what goes on here. Cambridge didn't feel like a nerd school to me. Nor did it seem like a haven for a bunch of toffee-nosed rich kids and snobby-elitist-Ivy League Americans. Cambridge is a place of learning, and that learning transcends what is taught in the classrooms. That's one thing I have discovered while I have been abroad-- learning is not something that is limited to notes and ideas. Trust me I've taken plenty of notes this semester, but the knowledge that I have really retained has had little to do with what date the Easter Rising occurred on, or why Charles I was beheaded. What I have come away with from this experience is a greater appreciation for what I have. A much greater appreciation for what my mother spend all those years doing, and an increasing desire to learn more and try to connect with more people. 

Florence Day 2

After spending the night in that horrible hostel we got up the next morning and went in search of our actual hostels. We had all forgotten the time change and so we thought it was 9am when it was really 10am. First we stopped at the hostel where Mary Katherine and Tina were staying. We had booked at different times and the hostel I was staying it filled up so they had to find a different hostel. While they checked in I waited in the stairwell and looked out over the street below. Shortly thereafter they joined me and we traipsed off to find my hostel. The whole multiple numbers on one building thing was tripping us out, but fortunately we did find my hostel.

I went up and checked in while they went across the street to get some money. My hostel was really cute and quaint and the woman running it was really sweet. The view from the balcony of my hostel looked out towards the Duomo, which was stunning. After checking-in, etc, I joined them on the street below and we crossed a bought some groceries for the next day. Some things never change and I am still ever the frugal traveler. After buying our sustenance for the remainder of our trip, we walked through the San Lorenzo market to get to the Duomo. The market was amazing! It reminded me of the Portobello market except better. There were leather bags and notebooks everywhere. There was class from Venice and scarves from the south part of Italy. There was touristy stuff and beautiful carpets. There was very little "junk" which sort of contrasted it with the Portobello market. It was a very class street market. The venders tried to persuade us to look at their wares, but we replied with a genteel, but firm "no, gratzie". They were kind enough to not persist further. After making it through the market we walked the short rest of the way to the Duomo.

The Duomo we had seen the night before was deserted and loomed above us like the imposing authoritative figure it was constructed to be. Now, by daylight, the Duomo had transformed into a holy place of reflection, instead of one of divine justice. The exterior of the Duomo is one of the most beautiful and remarkable feats of architectural artistry I have seen to date. Even in the overcast light the green and pink marble shone beautifully. It was a towering edifice with gothic and moorish influence. The inside of the Duomo, however is rather a disappointment after you've seen the outside. It's beautiful and lofty and the frescos on the dome are stunning, but otherwise the walls are a bland earth tone and other than the spectacular floor inlay the interior leaves something to be desired for the supposed awe-inspiring-ness. We walked around in it for a little bit and then decided to move on.

After the Duomo we wandered down towards another one of the Piazza's near the Ufizzi galleries and the galleria academia. We saw a whole bunch of statues... go figure... and then we headed off towards the Ponte Veccio. The Ponte Veccio is the bridge over the main canal in Florence and on the actual bridge there are dozens of tiny little jewelry shops... don't ask me why. However the very center of the bridge is open and you can look out on either side towards the canal. It was still overcast, but the view was pretty nice.

Leaving the Ponte Veccio we wandered around the other bank for a while just seeing the local culture and eventually we wandered all the way up to the top of a hill overlooking Florence. Great things befall you when you least expect it. The sky was clearing now and we could see all of Florence beneath us. It was pretty spectacular. The Ponte Veccio looked very small off in the distance and the powerful dome of the Duomo stood out above all other buildings in the city. We sat up at the top of this hill for awhile just breathing, drinking and eating chocolate. It was lovely. Eventually we figured we better go back down and do something with the rest of our day. So we wandered down and towards the Ufizzi galleries. We were planning on going in, but we took one look at the line and changed out minds. Mary Katherine said she would come back early the next morning because she really wanted to see the galleries. Tina and I just opted out. I will definitely go when I go back to Florence in May. 

Instead we walked around some more and went in search of a gelateria that a friend had recommended to me. Let me say here that I would have absolutely no qualms with quitting college right now, finding a flat in Florence or somewhere else in Italy, devoting some time to learning the language and then spending the rest of my life eating gelato on the banks of a canal and writing short stories long into the night. After getting our gelato we wandered back to towards the Duomo and sat on a bench contemplating what to do with our evening. We eventually decided to head back to the Ponte Veccio and watch the sunset. It was probably the most beautiful smoldering sky I have seen in my entire life. The colors were unbelievable and even though it only lasted for a few short minutes I will undoubtedly carry that image with me the rest of my life. 

After the sunset we decided to call it an early night and we all headed back to our respective lodgings. It was only 8:00 so I sad on my bed and wrote postcards for a good long while and then sat on the balcony and looked at the Duomo all lit up. 

This has been a pretty incredible trip and caused the most struggle, but no-one ever said growing up and learning was easy.

Till next time...

The Adventure

So I went to Florence, but before I could get there I had to practically part the Red Sea as it were. This is the epic tale of my travels so far. If you have been reading about my father's journey to China than this tale will pail in comparison to his and my wit is certainly not on par with his, but hopefully with age I can live up to his expectations. 

Let me say first off that I was not involved in too much planning for this trip. So on the day we were supposed to leave I got on the 1:10 shuttle to the train station. My cohorts Jane and Emily were supposed to come on the 2:10 shuttle and our train was supposed to leave at 2:45. Jane had bought all our train tickets so I couldn't pic  mine up but I soon discovered that I had forgotten my rail card which would in effect keep me from getting on the train. I panicked for a minute and then just decided to ask the clerk at the ticket office what to do once Jane picked up our tickets. Well Emily arrived shortly after 2pm without Jane. Emily had freaked out that she wasn't going to make it and had called a cab to take her. Silly. Cabs are expensive when you are traveling solo. Jane arrived a little while later and got our tickets and I took mine to the clerk and explained to her that I had foolishly left my rail card at school. She said it was fine and that I would just have to pay a little more to make my ticket a standard ticket. So I changed it and dragged Emily and Jane away from the woman they were talking to so we could get to our platform. We got on our train and all seemed to be going right. We arrived at the East Midlands Parkway where we would get on a shuttle to the airport; but when Emily pushed the button to open the door to get off the train it opened half way and then slid shut. She pushed it again but still nothing. The train started moving and Emily, Jane and the two other girls going to the airport with us began to freak out. The train pulled out of the station and we were still on it. Two of the girls went off to find the conductor and another girl and I tried to remember what stop was next. By this point we were less than an hour and a half from our takeoff and we weren't headed to the airport. They finally found a conductor and told him what happened. He said at the next stop we could get on a shuttle or get a taxi to the airport. We waited impatiently and when the train stopped in Loughborough we flew off the train and towards the exit. We asked the guard if there was a shuttle to the airport. He said yes, but it wouldn't be leaving till half past, putting us at the airport after our check-in time had closed. We said "no thanks" and ran out of the station and piled into the first taxi we saw. The next twenty minutes were the longest of m life. I thought we would never get there. The taxi driver made awkward conversation and I seemed to be the only one who could understand him. Also, apparently the speed limit there is something like 10 miles an hour because he was crawling along at snails pace.

Finally we got to the airport and Emily and I hastily paid him and took off for the departure area, leaving Jane in the car. We assumed she was right behind us so we went in and looked for our check-in desk. There was no-one there so we were able to get through in a flash. I headed for the departure tv area to find out what gate we were at and I ran into Jane. She was furious we had left her and I just said, "Hey, we gotta go.We are in a hurry". She went off to check-in and I waited there for her and Emily to join me. Once they finished we all went through security and I , lucky I, got searched. It was hardly an inconvenience, but I'm just tired of getting searched. By this time it was 30 minutes to departure and so we sat down for a few moments before going to our gate. Everything ran smoothly until we got the Pisa airport. When we were booking this trip Emily said she didn't want to pay for two nights in a hostel and that we should sleep in the Pisa airport when we arrived at 8:30 pm on Thursday. I was fine with that because I've slept in almost every airport I've been to over here. We were going to sleep there and take an early coach into Florence the next morning. That was all well and good until we found out that the airport closed at 1:30am and then they would kick us out. What kind of international airport closes at 1:30am? My heart stopped and my head started racing, trying to find options of what we could do. 

We found out that there were only two hostels in Pisa. No good. I suggested we just take the last coach to Florence that night at 11:30 and hope for the best. We had no idea where we would go or what we would do. It was 9:30 now so we had roughly two hours until the coach left. We were going to try and get some sleep on the off chance that we might have to be up all night walking around Florence. Jane and I were going to find the bathroom when we happened upon a computer station with internet access. We pulled out some Euros and went straight to Hostelworld.com. We looked for the cheapest place that would have 24 hour reception. We found a place and even thought it had a 76% rating we jotted down its name and address. I also frantically checked facebook to see if Julie Ann or Jaleesa (my two friends studying there) was online. They weren't so our only hope was this hostel. The lady at the coach counter said there were some pubs that stayed open until dawn and that we should be able to go there. Awesome! Not. We tried to get an hour or so of sleep, but it didn't work because we were in very uncomfortable chairs. I never want to sleep in an airport again! Eventually it was time and we got on our coach. The lights were turned off and I tried to sleep but I couldn't. The Italians were being so loud and two girls in particular were being incredibly obnoxious. I turned my iPod up so high it was hurting my ears and I could still hear them. 

The coach arrived and we staggered out and set off looking for the hostel. First we had to head towards the Duomo and from there we might find our way. The streets were pretty well lit but pretty empty. We ran into small groups of people or couples. It was not after 1am. We found the Duomo, which was stunning even at night and turned south. Than God, he have me a great sense of direction or we would have been totally hopeless. We walked down vacant streets and closed restaurants. I asked Jane for the name and address and she produced it after going through her entire bag of luggage. She got it and we found the road the hostel was supposed to be on. At the corner there was a Piazza where a bunch of young people were hanging out getting drunk. We walked to to the right and started looking for address numbers. But there was a problem. There was more than one address number on each building. There would be a number 16 than the numbers 151, 152, and 153 at different points on the bilding. We were looking for number 6 so it should have been near the beginning of the street, but we couldn't find it. the numbers kept getting high so we walked the other way until we found ourselves in another piazza. We headed for an Irish pub that still looked opn and Jane asked where the hostel was. Fortunately they spoke English, but they didn't know the hostel only the street. We walked back towards the Piazza with lots of people and aksed in another pub. They also didn't know the hostel. We were beginning to wonder what we would do because all the pubs were closing at 2am. We wandered and wandered and wandered until we thought there was no hope in finding a place to sleep. Then God showed us mercy and suddenly we found ourselves in front of number 6 Via Porta Rossa. There were a whole bunch of apartments to call and we searched in vain for the only that said Hotel Veronique. Emily spotted one that had Veronique in the title so we pushed the button to ring the "apartment". We waited and Jane and I tried to figure out how to ask for a room in Italian. Suddenly a voice came from the speaker and Emily smacked us instead of replying to them herself. Jane ran to the speaker and said "hello?" frantically. He rsponded and she told him there were three travelers looking for a place to stay and asked if he had any rooms He said "yes" and buzzed us up to the second floor. 

Long story short we got a bed to sleep in that night. It was a seedy joint, but atleast we were not out on the street. We could hear the drunk people outside for along time, but eventually we all feel asleep. The next morning we woke up and got out of there to see what we had really come to see: Florence.

I hope I never had to go through something like that again, but now I know what people are talking about when they say that people get transformed while they are abroad. They really get to see how people work under stress and in unfamiliar territory. I'm not sure what I would have done had I been alone, but there's always the possibility of finding out on my later adventures...

A Sunday on the French Riviera

My future home.
Nice is nice.

So this morning we woke up after a riotous night before of participating in the Carnival activities. We had almost the whole day Sunday to spend in Nice before we had to take a flight home. So we started it off with a breakfast of cherios and milk... what could be better.

After breakfast we checkout of our hotel, but left our luggage there in their "luggage room"-- basically the corner of their little reception room. Meh, None of us had anything of value anyway. We decided it would be nice to walk along the beach so that's where we headed. I guess Sunday is the "get out" day for the Cote A'zur folk because the streets and cafes were packed with families. It was quite the sight to see. We walked along the beach up on the boulevard and watched the sun shining over the Mediterranean. We walked around to this lookout point where we could look back and see all of Nice and the French Alps. Again, I can't even hope to describe it to you so please visit my shutterfly website. We climbed an endless staircase up to a point above Nice, which again was unbelievably beautiful. We sat up there for awhile just soaking up the sun and sitting in completely beautiful unadulterated silence. It was glorious. 

As a side note-- one of the things that I have discovered about myself while I've been over here is my liking to silence. I know for some of you that is hard to believe because as a child you could not get me to shut up, but as I've grown up I've become a much more introverted person and now take particular joy in silence. So we sat up there in silence for awhile. While we were up there we could see down into Nice and we saw what looked like a market street so we decided to descend from our own little heaven and check it out. It was indeed a true French market flanked by cafes and brasseries on either side. There was fresh produce and pizza and wine and plants; jewelry and postcards, and olives and scarves. Anything and everything that a habitant of sunny southern France might need. We looked around for awhile and decided that we should find a little cafe to eat lunch in. We ended up walking out of this market area to find the cafe we ended up in, but it was still lovely. We got a table outside the cafe in the Sunday sun. We all had sandwiches of various types and spent a good long while there. We soon discovered that the cafe we were in was on the parade route for that day. Before we knew it there were people scuttling around shooting each other with silly string. The people sitting at the table next to us were in a fierce battle of this one little girl probably 6 or 7 versus 3 adults. She was dressed as a princess and was there with her parents and I assume some other relative of hers. It was adorable and hysterical. People around us were getting shot and continued on with their meals as if nothing had happened. My table, on the other hand, were constantly ducking and covering in hopes of not getting hit with silly string. Shortly there after the parade started going by, literally 10 feet from where we were sitting. It contained the same floats we had seen at the night parade except they weren't lit up because it was day time.

 Eventually we left the cafe some time in the afternoon and walked back to our hotel to pick up our bags. We were supposed to catch a bus right at the end of our street to take us back to the airport, but that didn't work out so well. Part of that street was closed down for the parade and so when we finally left the bus stop and went the tourist office they told us that we would have to go to a different bus stop further in the heart of the city. I wasn't in charge of the map on this trip and so Dani and Brelyn led the way to this supposed other bus stop. We got there and there tons and tons of people there waiting for various other buses. Time was ticking along now and even though we still had plenty of time to get to the airport we were unsure of exactly how it was all going to work. We waited and watched as most of the people disappeared onto various buses that came round. Finally we saw a bus coming that had our number on it. We walked to the edge of the curb to get on it and it looked like it was going to slow down and stop but the doors never opened and it went on past the stop. We looked around in bewilderment and then took off running down the street after the bus. Undoubtedly we looked ridiculous. We ran and ran, but we couldn't keep up with the bus and it disappeared out of sight. Now we had no idea where we really were and how we were going to find a way to get to the airport. We could have probably walked there, but again we didn't know the way. We started looking for another bus that might take us close to the airport. We found one that would take us to the wrong terminal but we figured if we atleast got there we could figure it out from that point. So now all we had to do was find a bus stop where that bus stopped. Ha Ha We found one, but we were on the wrong side of the road and so we would have gotten on a bus taking us in the opposite direction that we wanted to go. We crossed the road and waited for the bus. Fortunately it showed up about 15 minutes later and we hopped on. We had no idea how much a bus fare was and the driver spoke no English so I'm pretty sure we way over-payed him. Oh well. It was a pretty uneventful ride to the airport and once there we just hopped on their free shuttle that would take us to the international terminal. We went through check in and security just fine and an hour or two later were flying back home to England.

So far it has been my favorite place I have visited and I think it will be hard for any other trip to trump this one. We didn't go see any museums or anything particularly historical, but we spent time enjoying ourselves and indulging with the locals over a common value of happiness and good life. Far too often with all these trips I take, and life in general, we rush through it all trying to get everything done. We forget to experience and live in the 'now' of life. We want all the things on the list to be checked off; but really at the end of your life are you going to look back and say "Wow! I'm glad I went to 24 places in Paris in 28 hours." No, you aren't. You might, however, say "Wow! I'm glad I went to Nice and walked along the boulevard with people from all walks of life; and I'm glad I just took the time and sat on a bench and watched the sun set over the Mediterranean with my best friends. I'm glad I shared that with them and nothing that happens in the future can ever replace that experience." That for me is nice.

Cheers!