Nice is nice.

Yes, I said it- I enjoyed my day in Nice. Several weeks ago I decided whole heartedly that I hated Nice and everything about it. I avoided going to Nice for any reason aside from work-related appointments. It seemed that every time I was summoned to Nice I wound up on the world's slowest/smelliest bus, getting lost in a remote and sketchy part of town (because it's the most logical place to have a government/immigration office), being hungry, tired and cranky. I also managed to always have to do these things on my days off, which really sucks and ruined the rest of my week.

However, my last two visits have been pretty fun and both were spent shopping. During the first week of Les Soldes, January 8th, Leigh and I took the bus to Nice so I could buy pants. I literally had no pants that didn't either have massive holes in them or weren't way too big. We hit up H&M and I left with two pairs of pants (neither of them jeans), a cute 9 euro dress and a few tops and accessories for only about 50 euros. You can't beat that with a stick! We also bought a few little things for Leigh, but at this point in her trip it was kind of pointless because she was going home soon. We also window shopped, walked up and down Jean Medecin, and wandered through an oddly long-standing Christmas market with a ferries wheel. That was a fun day.

Today was equally fun. I went to Nice by myself. Since I hate the ligne 200 bus so much I had pre-planned a way to enjoy this ride along the sea rather than sitting there gritting my teeth and counting the stops for an hour. The bus ride was tolerable and I enjoyed some recently purchased music on my Ipod. I got off at the right stop and walked down Rue Messina, a street I had not yet explored, to find on of my favorite stores in the world: LUSH (it's Canadian, which makes it even cooler). At LUSH I bought a new scent of solid shampoo and my favorite scent of soap (total 15 euros), all handmade and all natural of course!

I then went to Minelli to scope out a pair of boots I had seen at the Antibes Minelli store. I started having second thoughts about my obsession at this point because 1) they're sooooo expensive (98 euros after discount), 2) I doubt I can frequently wear leather boots in Alaska without ruining them, and 3) I should probably wait until I go to Ventimiglia, Italy for a day during the February break to see about the options there. Ventimiglia is a very small border city with an amazing amount of shoe stores, so that might be my best bet.

After coming back to reality at Minelli I popped into a series of store to check out their soldes prices. By the end of the day I had purchased a pair of black leggings from Pimkie (8 euros; a must have item in France- they serve as pants, loungewear, under dress/skirt hosiery, and active wear all in one clothing item!), a cute top for me (6 euros) and a really awesome t-shirt for Leigh (5 euros) at Zara, and a new 2 piece bathing suit, black with a sunflower (10 euros!) from a little store in vieille Nice. I came home feeling a bit guilty but also having had a lot of fun. Then I reminded myself that this month is shaping up to be financially less stressful than I had originally thought AND I have completely talked myself out of buying those crazy expensive boots, so it's all good. Plus, if my lust for shoes gets the best of me I can always make up for it by consuming only baguettes and water for two weeks, right?

The only thing I didn't get to do today was eat icecream. I just didn't see anyplace selling ice cream or gelato today. So now in my "Reasons to visit Ventimiglia Soon" list I have 1) cheaper shoes and 2) eat gelato.