Nice!

Today we took our first long distance train ride on the high speed TGV train (Train à Grande Vitesse) to get to Nice. We were a bit late leaving our flat, and cut the time fairly closely to get to Gare d'Lyon. But thanks to no security lines when you ride the train, we made it OK in the end. We'll have to leave more than 45 minutes before the train departs next time though, since it took 25 minutes to get there.

The first part of the train from Paris to Nice is incredibly fast, with the train going almost 200MPH. The French countryside is gorgeous and I passed the time reading about Nice on my Kindle (I usually buy the Rick Steve's books for the Kindle when we travel in Europe, so I can read it on my phone whenever we get lost). However the last half of the trip is very slow as you make your way through various villages, so the total time was about 6 hours to get from Paris to Nice. You take about half the time to go 4/5 of the distance. We'll be in Nice over the weekend, and take the train back Monday morning. There are some really great views of the sea from the train too, so that part is nice.

We started the day by going to the Russian Cathedral, which was worth the 15 minute walk. We then walked down to the sea and I got to see the Mediterranean for the first time (if you don't count Venice anyways). The seaside is beautiful, and there's a promenade that stretches along the see across Nice. The beach however actually isn't that great since it's all small pebbles. The only sand is imported and only in small areas. But the city itself was quite pretty. We got some sandwiches and pizza from a boulangerie (bread store) and ate them on a bench by the seaside, and then finished the afternoon by going to the top of Castle Hill to catch the absolutely breathtaking sunset over the mountains, sea, and city.

For dinner we were going to check out this a French place I found on TripAdviser near our hotel, but it was right next to a crowded Mexican joint. And well, I do miss Tex-Mex so we decided to give it a shot. I will say it was significantly better than the Mexican place we tried in Paris, though still not quite right. The worst thing is that for some reason all the ethnic food we've tried in France has been too sweet, and this is was no exception. The salsa was sweet, and even the enchiladas were sweet. It was a bit bizarre. Oh, and I almost set the restaurant on fire after my napkin got too close to the open candle flame they had on the table. Luckily some quick blowing out and a douse of water kept it from growing too much.

Our hotel is right in the heart of the city and it was absolutely amazing how much friendly everyone is here. The owner of the small hotel we're staying at was incredibly kind, and when we wandered into a soap store, the sales lady was incredibly helpful! It's like night and day when compared to Paris!