Nice

I went to Nice the other weekend, and it was…nice.  Ha!  I know.  I’m sorry.  I went with two friends, Emily and Aaron, and it was great to escape the rainy Parisian weather to stroll along the beach and sit under the sun.  

We had a packed weekend and spent one day exploring Nice and the other hiking in Eze and walking around Monaco.  When we mentioned that we were taking a trip to Monaco, someone suggested stopping in Eze, a medieval village on top of a hill.  There was a path leading down to the ocean (called the Chemin de Nietzsche) that had really pretty views.  It was only an hour walk down a very rocky path, but the next day(s), we were so sore.  Hiking down can be pretty strenuous too.

We also walked around for half a day in Monaco, making sure to hit up the casino.  There were lots of tourists there, and we tried to get a drink on the terrace, but it was only available for the high rollers.   It wasn’t quite as opulent as I was expecting, and I didn’t see James Bond.  Oh well.  Monaco also had a pretty garden, a church where Grace Kelly is buried, and delicious Italian food.   And it had an ice skating rink near the port with lots of fancy boats.

In Nice, the highlight was the carnival parade.  I have always wanted to go to a carnival (Brazil has been on my list ever since my grandmother told me her wild stories), so I thought Nice would be a great idea since it has one of the largest carnivals in the world and the biggest in France.  We booked a Saturday night parade, and the lights and colors and floats were impressive.  There were also tons of people shooting silly string and throwing confetti, which made for an amusing atmosphere (except when a woman got string in her face and she freaked out at a kid and shit went down).

The floats were…interesting.  Perhaps a bit racist?  Not politically correct?  The theme was “around the world,” so lots of different countries and regions had floats.  The American float had an obese woman in a skimpy bikini as the Statue of Liberty, and she was standing on a giant hamburger, holding a scale in one arm and a diet coke in the other, and a crown of ice cream cones melting on her face.  Yay America!  There were also other ones like one with Middle Eastern people with gold teeth and turbans dangling oil over desperate people in cars and one with New Zealand tribal people riding turtles.  I didn’t understand why there was a Hawaiian hula woman on a float with aliens and a black kid on a volcano.  I also didn’t get the float with a giant red bird in a black and red striped jersey and a crown.  Points if you can explain them to me!

It was weird to see floats like that because it’s not something that would be okay in the US.  Obviously stereotypes exist, and Americans do poke fun at them, but it’s important to do so in a non-offensive manner.

Overall, I really liked Nice!  We also took the elevator up a giant hill and saw a park that had some awesome views of the city.  And we ate a lot of delicious food and wandered around the old city.  The Marc Chagall museum was also very cool (Chagall is the artist who created the stained glass windows in the cathedral in Reims and part of the ceiling of the Paris Opera).  

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