Nice is nice...

our last day in Strasbourg we had a little time to kill and thought "hey,we are still having stomach problems. Let's check out the hospital." And that is exactly what we did. Brad and I spent the better part of Sunday afternoon waiting on a hospital bed waiting to hear whether we had anything serious. It was a university hospital so we had our temperature taken frequently, and they even hooked Brad up to an IV, which we figured was to keep him from escaping. They also checked Brad's reflexes by asking him to close his eyes and raise his hands, which seemed a bit penicostal for a country full of catholics. It turns out there was a bit of an infection, but they gave us enough pills to open our own pharmacy and we should be o.k.

After that experience, we were so excited about sitting around and not doing much that we hopped onour overnight train to Nice. Sleeping on a train was not like being gently rocked Ina cradle. It was more like Andre the Giant shaking us. Char wanted to get out of that Pit of Despair. 13 hours later we arrived at Nice. Tired and sweaty we walked to our hotel to find that we couldn't check in until 2pm. Luckily we could drop off our packs and we walked around and put our feet in the Mediterranean Ocean! That was the first off many times that we've gone swimming in two days. The ocean has been amazing. Really salty though. It's like it's salt water or something. For supper we were sick of sandwiches and microwave dinners so we hunted down a good cheap restaurant. What we found was that the local cuisine is excellent! In particular, the spring rolls and sweet and sour pork were phenomenal! Nice really does have the best Chinese this side of the Mediterranean!
Today we walked up Castle Hill, which used to be the fortified city of Nice and were greeted with amazing panoramic views of the ocean, the beach, the city and the hills beyond. We had one of those moments that we couldn't believe we are actually here!
Plans for tomorrow: more beach.
Plans for 2 days from now: more beach and then catch a train to Cinque Terre, Italy. It's a whole new ballgame then. New language, new ethnic foods like "pasta" and "pizza" to try.

Ciao,
Brad and Char