The French Riviera

So apparently, even though it was a bank holiday and the reception guy at the hostel called the museums for me to double-check that they were actually closed, the museums weren't actually closed. I know this because someone else in my rooms went to the two museums I wanted to go to that day, that day. And of course since the museums *were* actually closed on Tuesday, because they always are on Tuesdays, and those were my only two days for Nice, I didn't go.

But the weather did get sunny and I did take a day trip to Juan les Pins, which has beaches with actual sand instead of rocks that leave salty white marks all over you. That's not to say the beaches in Nice weren't pretty -- they were -- they're just not much to lay out in.

So I was at the beach in Juan les Pins with Deona (How do you spell your name? I'm guessing this ain't right), who is from Canada and was backpacking through France for three weeks and actually knows some French. We were in the water, not very deep at all, with the water just past our waists, maybe (it was damn cold) and all these little silver-colored fish were darting around by our feet.

Then Deona looked out into the distance and saw what looked like a ray of some sort swimming around pretty close to us. Of course, we weren't sure that it was a ray even though it was moving like one, because it seemed to be this aqua-blue color... but maybe that was just the water. So we were maneuvering around, trying to get close enough to see what it was but not so close so that it could attack us. Deona even threw a rock next to it to see how it would move, and it just floated about. Then she asked a woman in French what she thought it was, and the woman said she thought it would bite.

So after about 10 minutes, an Australian guy came into the water, and we asked him if he thought the creature was a ray. Without hesitation or warning, the Australian guy dove into the water and made a beeline for the creature, and we were immediately terrified that we'd be responsible for Australian Man Loses Hand to Amputation After Stingray Attack, American and Canadian Women Watch. But as abruptly as he'd dived in, the guy emerged from the water like a sea lion would (heavily creating waves all around him) and held something up in the air.

It was a light blue plastic shopping bag filled with sand.

And we had our "ray."

Juan les Pins and Nice were both pretty, but Deona said they could just as easily be beach towns in Florida, and I'm inclined to agree. There was nothing spectacular about either place, although Juan les Pins seemed somehow more authentic and less touristy, and I think it's a little weird that Nice somehow became the heart of the French Riviera when there are a million other towns with, well, sand.

I did end up lying on the rocks in Nice the first day, but the weather never got much better and I had to wear jeans and a windbreaker, both of which were covered in the aforementioned white salty spots by the day's end. Of course, there was a particularly helpful French guy who was very eager to brush me off while I was walking back to the hostel. I had to convey to him that I liked the white spots to make him stop, and I imagine he was thinking that I'd missed the point.

Now I'm at an Internet cafe across the street from the train station in Montpellier, where I have a two and a half hour layover (is that what they call it with trains? Maybe stopover?) en route to Barcelona. I'm pretty excited about going to a country where I know more of the language than hello, goodbye, please and thank you, although how much more remains to be seen. I did understand a surprisingly large amount of Italian while I was in Italy, just because of its similarity to Spanish, so maybe I'll surprise myself again.

On that note, I think I'll use the rest of this time to answer e-mails and read the New York Times.