Nice

At every place we stop, there seems to be 2 or 3 people who are memorable, and who really make the place. In Nice however, it was 9 Israeli guys who offered us their ‘couch’ to sleep on. Actually, it was two beds in their crazy 3 floored, 11 bedroomed house, with million dollar views….literally. Rather a long story, but a good one, just you wait. So after a ridiculous train trip from Barcelona, we arrived in Nice, at the wrong train station of course. A little bit of bad luck later and just when we were about to give up and find a hostel, we asked for directions at a very posh restaurant on the esplanade, and ended up with the manager and the owner with maps and phones out, helping two backpackers at 10pm! How nice! So the owner rang our couchsurfing host and after slight confusion, Ran (our host) rocks up in his tiny car and drives us up to the house. In true Kim style, she starts firing questions at him the second we get in the car. Here is where it gets interesting. The 9 guys were all Special Forces in the Israeli Army, where it is compulsory to go to the Army after school for 3 years (2 years for girls). They are now working in private security (Israeli soldiers are the most sort after security guards in the world) in the summer house of a Brazilian lady whose late husband founded a New York based bank. This mansion is worth 600million Euro’s, is the second highest valued house in the world, and the main staircase is made of Ivory...ridiculous! Built for the King of Belgium in the early 1900’s, it stands between Nice and Monaco and has arguably one of the best views in the South of France.  

The boys house was just across the road (their view is above), but the estate was very big, so the boys had to drive to work every day! Actually one night we were there, a Badger had got into the estate and there was a moral dilemma as whether or not to shoot it (not so long ago there was a 400 euro prize for anyone who killed a Badger)…however after much internal arguing, the Badger lived. Although being Special Forces (we were defiantly staying in the safest house in the whole of Europe!), these guys all had hearts of gold. They played guitar, whist Gilard sang most nights, and every Friday night as Israeli tradition goes they would all cook a big meal together, say a prayer and ate together. Was absolutely beautiful and we were very lucky to be a part of it. Actually we ended up having dinner quite late on this Friday night, because (in Ron’s words) ‘we found out that one of the chicken’s is a turkey, so it will take a bit longer to cook’!

 

That night also happened to be the birthday of one of the guys, Ori, so we hit up their local hang, an Australian/English bar/club in Nice. Completely packed and over filled, we literally had to push our way through the crowd. I did tell Dotan (the guy in the photo who said the prayer) to go all Israeli Special Forces on their arses, but he was too kind and we finally got shoved to the dance floor. 

It just so happened that the Formula 1 was in Monaco on the weekend that we were staying with the boys, so 5 of us took a day trip to see the action…and by action I mean listening to the cars from outside the track. This was a super crazy experience, the cars were so loud, earplugs were being sold even outside the track. So we were sitting outside one of the best parts of the track, when a guy came up to us and handed us a ticket (worth 220 euros no less!) and said that his friend wasn’t going to make it so we could have his ticket. WICKED!!! Amazing once in a lifetime opportunity, right??? WRONG!!! Only problem was that the qualifying round only went for 1 hour. So after all agreeing that each person would just stay inside for 10 minutes so we could all get a look, an American chick did what a typical and completely generalised (but in this case true) American would do, and proceeded be totally selfish and stay inside for 50 minutes of the 1 hour. Thanks mate! When she finally came out, we insisted that one of the guys went in for the rest of the race. He absolutely loved it, which was great.  I poked my head in for a few minutes after the race was finished, and saw what we really missed out on. The track was between and stands and the harbour, where all the yatch’s were lined up, and people were sitting on them drinking champagne and eating caviar (I am sure of this….we were in France after all!). We still got a few beautiful shots, but the atmosphere would have been incredible. 

When we were walking back to the train, all the crowd and cars were stopped at one point on the road, and the Prince of Monaco went past, police escorts and all!

After 3 nights with the boys, we moved to the best hostel in France (apparently) and spent 4 nights there. It was good, but for all the company we met, we may as well have stayed in Australia. The population of the hostel was made up completely of Canadian’s, American’s and Australian’s. One day we did a bit of a look around town, and came across probably the biggest supermarket I have ever seen, a shop by the name of Carrefour. This place was enchanting, selling everything from T.V.’s to groceries, camping gear and everything in between. I invested in a fake Swiss Army knife (maybe I was inspired by the Special Forces??), and spent too much time in the book department where everything was in French. We also hit up the old town, where there was a flower market, and too many specialty shops selling yummy sweets. 

On one of our last days in Nice, we decided to go by train to the village Eze which was on the scenic road between Nice and Monaco, one of the most scenic roads in the world. We hiked up a bit of a mountain, and finally reached the other village of Eze, a little medieval settlement situated on top of the hill. The views were really incredible, and the hike seemed worth it for sure! 

 

As fate would have it we bumped into Gilard (one of the guys we stayed with) at a café in Eze, and he was with 3 other friends (also from Israel, actually some of them were Gilard’s soldiers in the Army), he was showing them around. After a quick coffee we had a change of plans, and jumped in the car with them and went to Monaco for the afternoon. These guys were also, very very lovely people. Basically, I want to go to Israel now purely because of the people, so genuine and truly great! When we got to Monaco we went down to the esplanade and had lunch, then headed up to the casino to check it out. There was a 10 euro entrance (and the smallest bet was 25 euros) so we checked out the tourist bit and left. It was actually really crazy outside, the cars lined up in front of the Casino were Ferrari’s minimum, and as one of the guys said, the Porches’ are the shitty cars! 

The guys had only been in France for a few days and wanted to try out a crepe, so we headed to a café to grab a quick one on the way home. We went into this place, and the person behind the counter didn’t know if the shop was open or not! She had to make a phone call to the manager to see if she should serve us or kick us out. A mother and a daughter from Madagascar translated for us, and in the end we left slightly confused as to what just happened, but worst of all, without a crepe!

All in all, Nice was really incredible, but I have a feeling it may have been very different had our luck been down. That’s couchsurfing for you!