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August 31 Bonnie Ireland!Hey there! We're in Dublin! Yesterday we went shopping and exploring. We went to Dublin Castle, an 800 year old church/castle that you are allowed to go into - but just the main floor. While there, Adam and I secretly strayed from the beaten path and found a crazy old locked stairway (with a key in the door) and went up the creepy stairs until we found the ATTIC! We were DEFINITELY not supposed to be there, and there was a rickety old 800 year old ladder that was leaning up into the attic hole... just ASKING to be climbed. So we climbed it and found ourselves in the attic of this super old castle where nobody has probably been in a long long long time. While up there, Adam accidentally kicked the ladder and it almost fell down. That would have sucked if we got stuck in the attic of Dublin Castle with nobody to hear our screams. Then we went back to the secret stairwell and went all the way down to the creeeeepy basement of the chapple where it was all dark and gloomy. It was awesome. By the time we found our way back to the tourist part, the castle had closed down and been locked up and we had to secretly let ourselves out and then run like hell! It was all very exciting. We have tons of pictures, but this internet cafe won't let me upload them. I'll add them later! Last night we went out to a Dublin bar for drinks and dancing. Although it was such a cliche, a real Irishman tried to start a barfight with Adam - who handled it like a true gentleman. The guy asked to take my chair from the table when I was in the bathroom, and Adam told him it was taken. The guy swore at Adam and then walked away. Then a few minutes later he walked by again and kicked Adam's leg. Instead of stooping to his level, Adam bought the guy a shot of Ireland's finest whiskey and said, "no hard feelings". The guy was so impressed that we ended up making a friend out of a potential enemy. What a cool guy Adam is! Tomorrow we're driving to a bed and breakfast in Kilkenny and then on to Cork to kiss the Blarney Stone. After that we're flying to Eindhoven where we'll take a bus to Amsterdaam. After that we'll hang out in Amsterdaam and Belgium for a week before making our way down to Paris for our dinner reservations at the Eiffel Tower. Then it's back to Nice for me to start school. We'll keep you all posted! August 29 Ireland bound!Tomorrow Adam and I head to Ireland! We fly into Dublin where we will spend a couple days, then we will rent a car and drive around the coast to Kilkenny, Cork, Killarney, then Galway, then back to Dublin. While in Dublin, we are going on a tour of the Guiness Brewery. We will try to update the blog while away! In other news, I am getting sick of pizza, so I am trying new Nice cuisine. Among it, I decided to finally try the Nicois salad - which is on every menu at every restaurant and apparently, they take it very seriously. I didn't realize how seriously till yesterday when I ordered it... it was huge and when I tried to tell the Garcon that I couldn't finish it, he basically said, "too bad, you're not leaving till you're done" (not joking). The pictures below show the salad and then my face when I found out that I had to eat the whole thing. Today, discouraged, I stepped away from the salad and tried a "kabab" which is basically a sub with hamburger patties AND pieces of steak, AND french fries (see below). Couldn't finish that either. We're having fun :)
August 28 Home Sweet Home - FINALLY!Aaahhh. We finally found an apartment and can relax. Searching for one has really made the first week here quite stressful for us, mainly becacuse nobody wants to rent a place to us for only four months. But we found one and moved in today! It's only a block from the beach and a 3 minute bus ride from school. On the inside, it's nothing to write home about (despite this message!), but it sure beats living with three people in one room like we've been doing so far. Check out some pictures of it here. We're paying quite a bit (the equivalent of $600 each per month), but these were the only people that would even rent to us at all, so beggers can't be choosers. The brutal part is that, unlike the Canadian custom of paying half a month’s rent for a damage deposit, the rule in France is TWO months – meaning that we have to come up with 2000 Euros ($3000 Canadian) which we’ll get back at the end. Oh well, that’s what lines of credit are for, right? On top of all the apartment stress, the other day when I was backing out of our hostel parking lot, I “clipped” a Beamer with our rental car and broke their tail light. Hertz (my rental company) was surprisingly helpful and will take care of everything free of charge with very little hassle. The guy I hit, however, is from Saudi Arabia and doesn’t speak English. Believe it or not, Saudi-English translators are few and far between in France. I sorted it out, however, though through a series of wild hand gestures. Whew. We’re definitely not short of crazy stories to tell, that’s for sure. Being that last night was our last night at our hostel, we partied most of the night and played a 20 person drinking game with people from all over the world for about 4 hours. It’s was hilarious, as drunken Italian, English, Irish, German, and Australian accents are even more fun to listen to than regular ones. I’m sure they thought we were quite something as well. I have pictures of that up too! For the first time since we got here, we spent the afternoon taking it easy and the three of us fell asleep on the beach. And then walked the one block home. Life is good...  August 26 apartments & le footballBonjour
 Today was possibly the longest day of my life. We went to our university to see if they could help us find apartments, and they had a big bulletin board. We immediately saw an AWESOME place in Antibes (one town over, and actually nicer than Nice, because it's smaller and less crowded - sort of like comparing Victoria and Vancouver - plus the beaches are sand rather than pebbles). It would still only be a 15 minute drive to our school, because it's on the edge of Nice. So anyway, we get there - FALL IN LOVE WITH IT - (at only 680 euros/month) and just when we're signing the papers, the lady realizes that we're there for 4 months not the whole school year and the deal falls through. BOOOOOOoooooo. Then, on the way across two towns to where we're staying now, we get stuck in the craziest French traffic jam ever caused by a huge football game that's being played (French Elite League - 2nd best in the world. Lyon vs. Nice). After we finally got home from an exhausting and fruitless journey frustrated and cranky, we realized that we have an absolutely PERFECT view of the whole game from our bedroom window. So now Adam is drinking beer and watching the game from the comfort of our own home while Jen and I update our blogs like good girls.
August 25 Driving in crazy townWell, today's plan was to rent a car, get cell phones, and find an apartment. Adam was going to drive because he just got his international driver's lisense, and the traffic here is CRAZY, everyone cuts eachother off, and there doesn't seem to be any rules. We took the bus out to the airport because it seemed to be the most tourist-friendly place to do these things. On the way, we stumbled across our university! Bonus! So that's something we can scratch off our to do list... at the airport, we learned that Adam also had to show them his regular lisense, which he didn't have on him. Jen's not over 21... so that leaves me. ERIN, driving stick in the craziest traffic I've ever SEEN, let alone attempted to become a part of. We got lost about 600 times, but Adam was an awesome wing man, and Jen provided top notch comedy relief from the back seat. We quickly discovered that Nice doesn't belive in parking lots - just parallel parking, leaving no more than one millimeter between vehicles. Unfortunately for us, I decided about five years ago that "parallel parking isn't for me" - a luxury that we can afford in Canada... the land of parking lots. Needless to say, we didn't end up getting cell phones OR an apartment today, but we did get a feel for things and we are going to attempt the whole thing again tomorrow. Tonight, we will drive to Antibes - one town over, which apparently has AWESOME night life. We're going to spend the night there and come home tomorrow. Hopefully Antibes believes in parking lots. Pizza!History lesson time! Did you know that Nice was part of Italy until 1860? What does this mean for the modern visitor? "Pizzarias" every second door! What does this mean for Erin? I've eaten 4 pizzas to my dome in the last three days. Luckily we're walking an average of six hours a day so far, so that should be enough to keep those crazy carbs in check. Bon appetite!
August 24 Gettin' the hang of thingsWell, day 2 and we're getting the hang of things. Jen got here late last night and we stayed at the hostel and drank four bottles of wine. Needless to say, we all slept in until 2pm today. We then spent the day showing Jen around (after blazing the trail yesterday) and we went shopping at a mall we found. The styles here are ahead of us - it's funny because in Canada, the 80's are all the rage, while over here it's the 90's that are back and bigger than ever. Stripes and combat boots. That pretty much sums it up. I bought a pair of stripy leggings that you would all hate. Here's a picture of me looking at stripes and combat boots. That's all we have to say for now :) Tomorrow we will spend the day renting a car and searching for an apartment. Check out the photo albums for the latest pics!
August 23 Oh, it's a hot one!Well it's pretty hot here. I'm not going to lie to ya. We spent the day exploring the city. It's quite a bit bigger than we thought (aren't all cities?) but what's nice about it is that the whole city is set on a hill overlooking the bay, so people like me who have terrible senses of direction can always see the ocean as a reference point. There is TONS of shopping, and everything is ridiculously expensive those cocky French trying to get us to pay $30 for a crappy beach towel - I love it. We had oysters and wine at a seaside cafe for lunch and then splashed around in the water for a bit. Adam was pleasantly surprised to learn that French women don't often wear bikini tops. Unfortunately for him, it's ALL French women - not just the hot ones. Oh well, can't win them all. After lunch we got lost for a long while - but it was good for us because now we have an intimate understanding of the bus routes after getting on the wrong bus three times.
After all that, we have returned home for a nap. Our friend Jen flies in today and should be joining us shortly after dinner - at which point we will have the first of many nights of "painting the town red".
Safe arrival!We're in Nice! It was a looooong trip over. We got caught in security in London and wound up missing our connecting flight to Nice... so another five hours in Heathrow later and we caught another plane. Long story short, it's 2:45am local time in Nice and we haven't slept in two days. We did, however, find time/energy to make it down to our hostel's bar for a drink and met two nice people from Canada & the US. The hostel used to be a monk monestary so it's got really pretty stained glass windows and tiles everywhere, as seen in the attached photos!
Well aurevior, as we have to wake up early tomorrow and explore our new home :)
Erin and Adam. |
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