ahhh nice! Let's see if my brain isn't completely fried from laying in the sun the past 2 days to write something legible here . . . I left Paris early Thursday morning, and actually figured out how to validate my ticket and get on the right train to Lyon on my first try! I really really liked lyon. It pretty much felt like a smaller, cuter, nicer Paris where people spoke no Enlish. Luckily, walking around exploring the city for a day doesn't require you to actually talk to anyone, so the language thing wasn't too big an issue. When I got off the train, the first thing I saw on my way to the tourism office was a big castle-y looking building on top of a really tall hill/mountain that overlooked the entire city. Of course, after I found my hotel and dropped off my backpack, I decided I wanted to go to the top of the mountain. Deciding to be cheap/tough (and not realizing that my all day metro pass included the funicular!), I decided to walk up instead. Word to the wise: if a place offers a funicular to get up the top of a mountain, take it! My legs were on fire and I pretty much wanted to die before I made it up. It really didn't look that steep when I started, but man on man was it! However, once I got to the top and bought myself this incredible mango popsicle thing, the view was incredible and totally worth the burning quads! Other than that, I pretty much just walked around the city exploring places that looked cool, a pretty good day overall. The next morning, I caught another early morning train to Nice. (Vuvs- I started that Jodi Piccoult book you sent me with a couple days ago, and finished it on the train and completely loved it! And I found out that English books here are crazy expensive, but I may splurge for one before my next train anyway.) The view from the train was absolutely magnificent. We went through mountains and along oceans, and it was really sunny outside which made everything look even prettier. Then I got to my hostel (and I'm actually really excited to be out of paris hotels and back into hostels with other backpackers!), and went straight to the beach. Judging from the 5 other people in my hostel room, it sounds like a common reaction to nice is to be thinking that its overrated and kind of cheesy and a little trashy on the whole walk to the beach, but then you get to a clearing where you can actually see the beach and boardwalk and a good chunk of the coast, and its absolutely beautiful! Bright blue water and white rocks coming out and just incredible-ness! At night, I went back to my hostel and met my roommates who had all been out earlier, and then a Scottish guy, an English girl, and I all went out to dinner in this strip of outdoor bars and restuarants. The French team was playing then, so all the restaurants brought out TVs and put the game on, and the entire row was just packed with people going crazy. Each place was using a different broadcast or something that was a couple seconds different, so each time France scored or something big happened, you could hear groups of people freaking out in different clumps all down the road. The English girl was also really into the world cup, so me and her got all caught up jumping and clapping and singing (at least grunting whatever syllables it sounded like they were all singing without actually understanding anything!) and that was all a ton of fun. Today I came back to the beach early in the morning, passing through an incredible market on my way. The strip that had been all bars and outdoor restaurants the night before was now turned into a market, with all sorts of super cheap fruits and flowers and meats and breads and pretty much anything you could imagine. It completely put our soulard to shame big time! So I bought a whole bunch of fruit for 1.5 euro, and have been laying on the beach for the past 4 hours with it. I figured 30 minutes at the internet cafe and a quick lunch is enough of a break from the sun (and the sunburn that I already feel on my face when I crinkle my nose, despite putting on a million layers of sunscreen I napped from a french woman who left the little last big of her bottle at the beach when she left yesterday!). Ok, thats it from here. Tomorrow morning on to Milan, then in the evening continuing on to Venice for a couple days! Back to the beach for me!