As NICE as it gets :)

Highlights:

Dramatic arrest scene outside the bus station (kinda)

Nutella/banana crepe. Enough said.

Yacht party… oh wait..

Nice Carnival parade that I’ll most likely have nightmares from until I’m 30

I’m always that girl wearing flip-flops across the drill field when there’s still snow residue on the ground so naturally I found myself in the French Riviera mid-February. :)

We got to Nice Friday and immediately went out in search of the beach. We explored and I got a nutella and banana crepe that I was holding out on until France (muchhhh more authentic). AMAZING. I don’t think I spoke during/20 minutes after consumption.

We went out to Wayne’s Bar at night. The tram there costs one euro and when you get on you’re supposed to slip your ticket through a stupid little machine to “validate” it. Since one euro is SUCH an investment…. we attempted to hold onto our tickets and not validate them so we could reuse them. Things didn't go quite according to plan and we were rushed off the bus by police and forced to pay 30 euros for having invalid tickets. I tried playing the dumb American card and even shed some REAL tears but got zero sympathy (not so “Nice”)… Sooooo 30 euros for a 5 minute bus ride and the right to say we were DRAMATICALLY arrested on the streets of Nice, France?

Fancy-shmancy ticket validater

Saturday we visited Monaco and Cap D’ail. Monaco - the second smallest country in the world and home to the most yachts, unreasonably nice cars and excessively rich people. Don’t worry I blended in in my VT hoody and running shoes. We partied on a few yachts (...took pics from every angle) played poker at the Monte Carlo Casino (...took jumping pic outside) and bought a few Valentino gowns (...walked past the designer stores).

Next stop was Cap D’ail a little, secluded, awesome beach  right outside of Nice. You could sit for hours doing absolutely nothing and be happy as a clam. J

Saturday night there was a huge “Carnival of Nice” parade through the city. Creepy is a complete understatement… Imagine your scariest reoccurring childhood nightmare + the Zoolander brainwash scene.

After the parade we found a gelato place called Fennochio with the most flavors EVER. Beer, tomato basil, lavender, rose, sesame, olive (list goes on). I played it safe-ish with salted caramel – same comatose state as the crepe feast. Yum.

Sunday was “Francely” as “nice” as it gets. J We ran along the beach and up to the Chateau Castle Hill some fortress-y thing with a perfect view of the city. We sat on the beach and soaked up the FEBRUARY*** sunrays. I tried to lay in a lounge chair that cost 20 euro… and we walked through an awesome open air market. Fresh fruit, soaps, flowers, veggies and DON’T WORRY I managed to find basil, olive and tomato spread samples. 

Do things from the market really taste better or is it the “I got it at the market!” appeal???

We ran back to catch our train and had a bizarre encounter with a strange, old woman. She stood glaring at us at the train station, followed us on the train, paced back and forth past our seat for 5 minutes and then whispered “it’s a shame your bags are here ladies I’d like to speak English to you.” Straight out of a horror film. I swear I heard the eerie, high-pitched violin playing in the background. I was 99% sure we had been voo-doo-ized but so far all is well!

Something learned: Public transit is no joke. Rules are rules y’all.

VeNICE, Italia

Just got back from Venezia, Italia! Definitely one of the most touristy places we’ve visited but rightfully so! It is so beautiful and unique. We felt very in our element among other “MUST not miss a photo-opp” travelers.

Crazed tourists exhibit A:

There are no cars on the main island of Venice, just channels of water with cute little gondolas and singing men wearing funny hats. There are also the less charming but still cool water taxis and ferrys. Our hotel was EONS away from the main island of venice which was both good and bad. We were able to see more of Venice and ride the gondola downgrades but also had to travel close to an hour to get to the mainland and walk down more than a comforting number of dark, graffiti-ed alley ways…

Carnival = the perfect mix of mardis gras and Halloween + gelato

Wish I could give a little synopsis on the history and origins of the venetian carnival tradition but we all still have no idea.. haha Everyone dresses up in crazy costumes and meanders the streets. We saw people dressed as Spiderman, car fresheners, zombies and Kelly was even attacked by “ghostbusters” running around with a net, leaf blower, huge light and music. We all bought masks which ofcourse for me was a decision making nightmare..

^Mile's mask 

I couldn’t help but think of the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas as we walked through the city. Further confirming my theory that you can travel to Disney and Vegas and experience Europe for 1/16^th the cost :P justttt kidding. But which is the real Venice below???

A.

B.

One things for sure you can’t get lost wandering aimlessly for hours on end at the venetian hotel butcha CAN in the real Venezia. Venice is tricky to navigate. You can’t help but feel like you’re in a mouse maze. We stuck to the wander-until-you-see-something-importantlooking/GELATO-approach. Never fails.

MOST IMPORTANTLY: Destiny’s child say my name has FINALLY rung through Europe. The last place I would ever expect, a random hole-in-the-wall bar in the middle of Venice. This was enough to make my weekend/semester complete and push Venice up to top three favorite cities.

Saturday we took a ferry to the island of Murano, famous for it’s glass blowing. I somehow managed to miss the live glass-blowing demonstration but it’s youtube-able so I’ll just pretend. The glass was beautiful. Everything from tiny glass hippos to jewelry and pretty bowls with no apparent function. Every store I envisioned myself accidently knocking into something and starting a domino effect of glass sculptures… so glass souvenir shopping was short lived for Marlee.

Something learned: Italians are NOT in support of multiple ice cream samples before you make your choice...

Dublin, London, Amsterdam - Oh My!

Just got back from our first 10 day break!

1.      - Publin, Ireland

2.      - “You sound like you’re from LONDON”, England

3.      -  Amsterdemonium, Netherlands

Publin highlights!  

-Eating fish and chips where U2, Bruce Springstein and drumroll PLEASE… “Justin Timberlakes parents”… once visited

-Watching the big fuss rivalry rugby game - Whales vs. Ireland. Perfecting the “clap and WOO when everyone else does” technique.

Such a relief to finally be able to speak English! A little time out from butchering the Italian language. “GRATZEEE Y’ALL”.

My favorite thing about Dublin, hands down, was the music. Fantastic live music at every bar, restaurant and busy street. We stayed at Ashfield House hostel which was “cozy” to say the least.. we could not have fit another sock if we tried..

We took a tour of the city on Sunday and found out that Vikings never actually wore huge helmets with horns… deeply upsetting considering my elementary school mascot was the Viking (Am I living a lie??). After our tour we watched the Whales and Ireland rugby game at a local bar in Temple Bar. HUGE rivalry game described to me as “the Superbowl minus a million commercials” (what good is the superbowl without commercials??)

Almost as entertaining as our weekend in Dublin was the trip from Dublin to London… Angela, Nicole and I had a later flight out then everyone else so we gave ourselves a solid three hours at the Dublin airport to be sure nothing went wrong. Dublin airport has to rank top three most entertaining places on earth. We tried on perfumes and makeup, took pictures as rugby players, got starbucks, shopped and then realized we had SEVEN minutes to get to our gate. Ended up sprinting full speed and nearly missed it. Made the executive decision that the three of us should no longer travel together.. We land at Gatwick airport thinking we're a hop, skip from our hostel and ask an airport attendant for directions to which he responds, “Well ya have to get into London first…”

1. We take a train

2. We take another train

3. My jacket string gets stuck on a chair getting of the train, make a huge scene, get help.  

4. Angela sets of an alarm trying to squeeze through ticket check way with her over sized bag.

5. My 300 pound bag doesn’t fit through ANY train aisle we encounter…

6. Take the “tube” underground transit. 

7. FINALLY make it to our hostel – spirits still high!

London highlights:

-        - Becoming uncomfortably full from finger sandwiches at high tea.

-        - Watching wicked at the London theater and not falling asleep this time J

-        - Listening to live band singing, and I QUOTE “Dance like a vegetable, dance like an animal.”

London was one of my favorite cities so far. Felt like a slightly less hectic version of NYC.. plus cool accents. We saw the changing of the guards, Big Ben and the British Museum which might literally hold every artifact in ancient history. Brought me back to my fifth grade ancient civilizations curriculum. Ancient Egypt was my fav but unfortunately after the 25^th ancient gold coin with unidentifiable object on it, things started to seem less significant.

Going to “high tea” was a blast. We all got dressed up and went to no.35 restaurant, a ritzy modern looking hotel. We ordered peppermint, rosebud and jasmine tea and they brought an assortment of finger sandwiches and desserts. Most likely intended to be eaten slowly and daintily but when you put a TOWER of desserts in front of 10 American girls you can’t expect leftovers...

Our last night in London we somehow stumbled into a bar on Camden Street with locals performing. Lucky for us we caught the most coked out musician of all time that reminded me of Russell Brand in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Nothing like an 8 hour train ride to Amsterdam with “dance like a vegetable” lyrics stuck in your head.

Amsterdam highlights:

-      -   Best hot chocolate Of. All. Time.

-      -  Watching “the races” on top of a potentially dangerous heat generator

-   - Avoiding any biker-pedestrian collisions.

-       -  Nearly losing 3 toes to frostbite on a free walking tour of the city…. O wait not a highlight…

Amsterdam was the first place we could comfortably pull off the unshowered-traveler look. Amsterdam is also the the best place on earth for people watching. Absolutely anything goes- if you want to sell yourself in a window – go for it, if you wanna smoke weed from the time you wake up until you go to sleep – go for it. Kind of a cool “personal freedom” concept also a BIT absurd.

Took a walking tour of the city on Friday but after 2 hours had NO feeling in our feet and chose to warm up with giant chocolate/banana pancakes. J 

We stayed at the “Flying Pig” Hostel and had our first rando roommate experience… Kelly had 3 full-fledged panic attacks prior...but they ended up being really nice and all was well.

We were lucky enough to catch the ice races down the frozen canals in Amsterdam. The last time the ice was thick enough to skate was 15 years ago!! (who does the ice-thickness safety check, I wonder…?). It was SO crowded around the race I nearly mauled a young child to climb up on a heat generator and see what was going on. (every 15 years! I had to.)

We successfully found a bagel place on Saturday which was GODSENT when you haven’t had an abp breakfast sandwich in 3+ months.

Minus the naked prostitutes in windows Amsterdam was beautiful and by some grace of god we all made it back biker-collision free.  J