Adventure-A-Day April – Excerpt Six

*The Adventure Continues*

June 13th 2012
DAY SIX!!

Today we woke with the decision of going to Nice or Cannes. I believe our entire group had decided to go to Nice, so I just went with the flow 🙂

When you have 50+ people wanting to buy a train ticket to the same destination, waiting in line was inevitable. After what seemed hours, I finally got my ticket and ran to the platform to catch up with the girls. What I didn’t do however, was lift my feet high enough to step up on to the gutter at the base of the platform stairs and the front of my thong (flip flops as some people call them) got caught and I fell flat on my face. I had my camera in my hands and did everything to stop that from breaking so I didn’t put my hands out to break my fall. It must have looked hilarious. I had grazes on my knees but my camera was still perfect and intact. I probably should have paid more attention to what platform we were on and none of this would have happened.

It has been suggested to us by our tour manager to visit the markets in town and buy some fresh fruit, cheese and meat for a picnic up on the chateau ruins. The day was beautiful and a picnic in the sun seemed like a perfect idea. We walked through the market and everyone bought something to add to our picnic. We loaded up Katie’s backpack (poor girl, it must have been pretty heavy as we had a LOT of food!) and made our way to the Chateau. Half way up was a viewing platform, perfect for photos and a break from all the stairs! We took turns in posing for photos with the beach as our backdrop.
We decided on a spot that had luscious grass and was shaded by trees if someone wanted to sit in the shade. The picnic was perfect except for one thing. We didn’t have a knife. How were we going to cut the wedge of cheese we just bought? I don’t eat cheese so I didn’t mind but the girls did. They were going to just rip off slabs on it but decided that probably wasn’t the best idea. They then tried to look around for something sharp to slice it with when I remembered I had something knife-like in my bag. A NAIL FILE. A brand new metal nail file. I was reluctant to bring it up at the beginning but when they clutching at straws, I could always buy a new one.

After bagettes full of ham and cheese and copious amount of fruit were consumed, we took a walk around the top of the Chateau. The ruins were interesting to look at and surprisingly some were still in pretty good condition.

Did I mention the day was like, PERFECT beach weather? Yes? Oh well, the weather was absolutely stunning. After lunch, we decided to go down to the “beach”, where we could sun bake and take a dip in the ocean. Define: Beach. If you are thinking soft, white, velvety sand, you are so far from wrong, it isn’t even funning. Beaches in Europe are filled with pebbles and rocks and it is very uncomfortable and difficult to walk on, let alone sun bake on. However, we still did it. I won’t mention the time Meagan almost drowned and we all sat there and watched. 😉

Our Nice outing ending with us doing a spot of shopping, however I didn’t buy anything.  I still hadn’t found a pair of heels and I was 6 days in. 😛

We got back to camp and everyone started getting on the brewski’s but I was feeling a little homesick. I got out my notebook and postcards and started to write letters to people back home, while sipping on a cocktail called “sex on the beach”. I probably shouldn’t have been drowning my sorrows but that’s all I wanted to do at that point in time.
It was the first stop on tour that had washing faculties so everyone was jumping at the chance to do some cleaning. However, there weren’t enough for everyone AND the dryers were so dodgy that people had clothes in there for over 2 hours and they still weren’t even remotely dry. I hand washed mine to save the commotion and used my bed as a clothes line.

I went to bed early again due to being homesick and my own sickness was getting worse. I had a pretty bad head cold by now and with no access to chemist, it didn’t look like I was going to get better any time soon. It also didn’t help that other people on the tour were also getting sick and sharing a bus for hours on end every day wasn’t going to help the cause. CONTIKI COUGH, you will consume us all.

C. x

*To Be Continued*