Birthday Craziness in Nice!

Well, this update is a week late, but oh well. I figured everyone would still want to hear about my birthday celebrations in Nice, France! I have a friend, Christine, who is studying in Nice for the semester, and we just so happen to have the same birthday! Soooo, it was planned long long ago that we would get together for our birthdays and have a beach party! Well, it happened! Annie and I took the train to Nice Friday afternoon, and got all settled into Christine’s apartment. And we also were incredibly jealous of her sweet apartment and location in the city and conspicuous lack of a host family. So Friday night, we all just caught up and drank delicious red wine and rang in our birthdays tranquillement. At midnight, I opened 2 cards from each of my grandmas, and diamond earrings from my parents! And an adorable necklace from Christine! Yay!

The next day (ie. Official birthday craziness day), we walked around Nice and enjoyed the beautiful weather. We went to a market in the old part of Nice, and Annie bought marzipan while Christine and I enjoyed cookies from another stand! We went in a bunch of little shops, and Annie and I were in heaven with the sunshine, because it hadn’t been that nice in Toulouse lately. Then, Christine went to the train station to pick up her friend from school, Sherry, and Sherry’s friend from her study abroad program in London, Jordan. While that was happening, Annie and I took a bus to the Matisse museum, which is in this neighborhood kind of overlooking the city of Nice with beautiful villas and mansions. I would definitely live there. The Matisse museum was in a cute park and a cute building, but the museum itself was kind of odd and not very well laid-out. Then we met back up with Christine, Sherry, and Jordan and went to an “early bird special” dinner, at 5pm-ish, which definitely doesn’t happen ever in France. But they gave us food, so we couldn’t complain. And also, Christine and I got “presents” from the bartenders. We saw these straws with butterfly cut-outs on them, and we really wanted some with which to enjoy the festivities later on. So Annie asked the bartender if we could have 2 straws for our birthdays, and he said yes, of course. Soooo we were overly excited about that for a while. Then we went back to the apartment, I took a little siesta, talked with my parents, and then the party started! We got endless amusement from “the bucket”, which was one of those drink mixes that comes in a bucket with a name like “Blue Hawaii”. Christine’s mom had sent it for a birthday present. In the directions on the back, there was the normal way to make it, where you freeze it for 8 hours or something, and then there was the “PARTY EMERGENCY” version of the recipe. We used the party emergency version and were endlessly amused by that. So we mixed up our bucket, along with some other drinks, and headed down to the beach for a beach party bash! ^ (enjoying the birthday bucket with the straws!)

We met a lot of cool people from Christine’s program, waded into the sea (it was cold), and had a great time! What a cool way to say you spent your birthday—on the French Riviera!

The next day, Sunday, we recovered until 3 pm, and then we took a walk up to the “Parc du Chateau” that overlooks the city. There was a huge waterfall with seagulls sitting on top, and lots of kids playing and running around, and a beautiful view of the harbor and of the beaches. There were huge boats in the harbor, and we saw a huge cruise ship leaving! And also, I saw Elton John’s house up on a hill. It didn’t look very nice from super far away. What’s up with that, Elton? For dinner, Annie and I (read: Annie, while I watched) cooked dinner for Christine and her roomies as a thank you for hosting us! We made a delicious sauce for the pasta. I would like to replicate it sometime. Then the next day, we got up to catch our train and said goodbye to Christine and Nice! Overall, a SUPER fun birthday celebration, plus a gorgeous city to celebrate it in!