Nice is nice. Most of the time.

-       Step one: looooooong train rides. 9 hours, it was rough, but we made it thanks to some beautiful maneuvering on the part of Babeth! Thanks Babeth!

-       Step two: discovered our hostel is in the heart of Old Town Nice

-       Old Town Nice: AWESOME during the day, full of local vendors and produce and incredibly kind people and mean people and ethnic food and scents and flowers and clothing and every kind of everything. However, AWFUL during the night if you are not nocturnal or a person who enjoys nightclubs until 5am then drunkenly screaming about it in the streets. I wish we were those people sometimes. But sometimes, you’re exhausted from the night before, ya dig? Note: cobblestones and courtyards echo. We haven’t been sleeping much. There have been steam punk dinosaurs that gnaw on trash at the buttcrack of dawn. Nice is strange.

-       The Hostel: we booked a 6-person all girls dorm. We found that the day we arrived they were converting it to an 8-person dorm by adding an extra bunk bed. Now, we’re on the third floor, and to keep from suffocating, we keep the windows open, which also allows in the afore-mentioned cacophony that is what happens when your window is located above an Irish pub and across from a discotheque. The discotheque is the glorious establishment that stays open until 5am. That’s not a problem. The attendees however, like to shout about their rights at 5am until 5:40. It’s the best! So far, we’ve shared the space with 2 Australian girls, 2 Swedish girls, 1 Russian girl, 2 Polish girls, and 3 Australian guys.

-       Why 3 (beautiful) Australian guys in an all-girls dorm? The hostel put them there at 1:00 in the morning. Just for the night. Despite sleep deprivation, waking up was lovely. They were very charming.

-       THE BEACH. We are four minutes’ walk from the MEDITERRANEAN. JOY! We are tan. Weather is lovely. Things are good.

-       Jazz festival: outdoor concert celebrating jazz. Kicked off with a tribute to Miles Davis’s album Kind Of Blue. Beautiful. The second band also rocked really hard, complete with a violinist. The third group was way too self-involved so we headed out to the Mediterranean for some nighttime chilling.

-       Also, the Matisse Museum! It’s not in Old Town so we got to see other parts of Nice as well by bus. Matisse is a badass and we appreciate his work very much. Forever one of our favorites.

That’s all for now folks. Between sleep madness, limited internet and the vast array of activities in this gorgeous town, please give us a break if we aren’t blogging every day. We are living some life and it’s great. Photos and a myriad of epic tales from the adventures of Marg-Autumn to come!!!!!!!!!