Saturday, June 26, 2010

Day 9: Nice to Venice ... Or was it?


We woke up early because we knew we had a little bit of a hike to the train station with our 2 big suitcases. Everything was going perfect. We'd loved being in Nice, we'd had a nice hotel, had eaten well, and had a pleasant walk to the station (or as pleasant as can be with all of the luggage). When we got there, we noticed that none of the booths were open where you could get reservations for your train. People were standing in line waiting to talk to 2 train station employees, so we did the same, which is how we came to find out that we would, in fact, not be leaving Nice that day. No one would because there was a train strike that had started at 8 pm the night before and would end at 8 am on Friday. Obviously we were crushed and frustrated! We were excited to go to Venice, and we getting there a day late would cause us to only really have 1 short evening there before leaving for Rome the next day. We couldn't miss Rome because we had hotel accomodations that we couldn't cancel. We made the decision to stay in Nice another day, which we were already familiar with and was a relatively small place so we could easily get around. We'd hope and pray that the strike would be over on Friday so that we could head to Rome a day early. We hiked back to the hotel Mercure and begged for a room for another night. Luckily, they had an opening, but it wouldn't be ready for a little while. Defeated, we ate breakfast and waited for our room to free up so that we could access the wireless and "figure things out." We read in the hotel lobby for a couple of hours, and finally were free to go into our new room.


Kyle immediately got onto the computer and started looking for a hotel in Rome for us to stay on Friday night before we could check into our scheduled hotel on Saturday. Exhausted from our busy and stressful morning, we napped and watched soccer until we finally dragged ourselves out of the room for a late lunch around 2:30 p.m. We went back to our favorite area in Nice and found a nice restaurant called Milo's, where we ate pizza (Kyle) and lasagna (me)...can you tell we were ready to be in Italy!? We also stopped by our favorite gelato place, Amorino, and treated ourselves to a coffee treat (me) and a coffee/cinnamon treat (Kyle). Really feeling kind of bummed still, we decided to head back to the hotel for the afternoon and continue being lazy and plan our extra day in Rome. This did help cheer us up a little, but we were sad to miss Venice and our gondala ride. I ended up reading Perks of a Wallflower entirely that day, while Kyle caught up on the World Cup matches and challenged me in the People magazine online puzzlers.


Around 8, we finally recovered from the shock of being stuck...for some reason it really threw us for a loop...and headed back out into the Nice night life that had re-energized us after Lyon just nights before. We found a cute little restaurant called Le Quebec where we could eat outside and watch all of the excitement on the streets. In the mood for some American comfort food, we both had burgers and fries, although said burgers did not come with buns, so I improvised and used the baguette that came with the meal to create a real hamburger! Kyle had gotten the French version of a hamburger, which comes with a friend egg, bacon, and cheese, so he didn't feel the need for a bun! We also split the tame blanche dessert, which is basically an ice-cream sundae. Delicious!


By then it was bed time as we were going to attempt to leave Nice again the following morning at the same time. We didn't know what the next day would bring...would the strike really end at 8 and would the strike in Italy scheduled for the next day affect us, but we did have many blessings to count:


1) We were together

2) We were stuck in Nice, which we love and knew well and was small and cozy

3) We had a hotel that we had literally just checked out of to go back to, which luckily had room for us

4) We weren't losing any money from the train since we had the Eurorail passes

5) We were able to get a hotel in Rome near the train station and near our other hotel

6) MOST importantly, we don't have anywhere we HAVE to be until next Thursday...so hopefully they'll get this striking out of their systems by then!


-Laura

No comments:

Post a Comment