Too Nice 5/7/08

That morning I woke up early with the rest of the crew who were leaving this morning. The night before, Randy and I had found me a train in the morning going to Nice. Janelle, Amanda, and Daniel had to catch a train to Paris at 10:01, and my train was at 10:45, so the plan was for me to catch a ride in the morning down to the train station with Randy and all the rest of them so that Jan and Randy would only have to take one trip to get all of us to the train station. We all got ready, and said goodbye to Jan as she left. She had somewhere she had to be in the morning as well, so all hugged her goodbye before we all loaded up into the car to head off.

When we got to the train station, the other kids all bought their train tickets, and we all got situated out on the platform waiting for the first train to arrive, which was theirs to Paris. When we were all situated, we said goodbye to Randy, and thanked him for his amazing hospitality. He asked me to write down my parent's emails and phone number for him, because he said he'd love to get back in contact with my parents after all these years. He hugged me goodbye, and said we were all welcome back anytime.

Shortly after, the train to Paris arrived, and so I said goodbye to Janelle, Amanda and Daniel, and then walked across to the next platform to wait for my train. As their train pulled away, I just caught a glimpse of Daniel's hair in the window, and laughed a bit to myself.

For the rest of the day, I rode the trains. My trip was 10 and a half hours from Colmar to Nice. On the way, I changed trains twice. I didn't really have any issue changing trains. I do it a lot now, so I've gotten the hang of it; it doesn't matter what language it's in. On one of the trains, I sat next to a really nice French kid my age. His name was Aubey, and he asked me why I'd decided to travel to such a random place as Aixen. I told him I was changing trains to get to Nice. In his very best English, he explained to me which he thought the best areas in Nice were, and we talked about Nice, and school for pretty much the next 2 hours until we finally arrived at the station. He quickly jotted down the spots to see on the back of his bookmark with the naked cartoon woman on it, and handed it to me. I thanked him, and shook his hand goodbye.

Throughout the day, I kept telling myself that now would be the best time, since I had nothing to do for 10 hours, to catch up on the blogs I missed. However, I just didn't want to do them right now. Every time I tried, I just couldn't seem to put the words down, and I couldn't keep myself focused. I eventually just put my phone away, and figured that if I really wasn't into writing these blogs right now, forcing myself would only make them crappy blogs, and that doesn't help anyone. I finally just succumbed to sit and stare out the window. I didn't really think about anything at all, to my surprise. My mind was blank. I was bored like I've ever been, but I didn't want to do anything but sit there, and stare.

When I got to Nice, I had little trouble finding a hostel right near the train station at 20 euros a night. After I'd checked into my room. I decided to go out and explore the city. It was just about 10:00 at night, but still the whole city was alive and partying like it was noon. All the shops, and restaurants were still open. All the street performers were still out performing, and tourists were still out walking. This city seriously doesn't sleep at all.

I walked down the main street, which was covered in festive blue lights to a huge square painted like a checkerboard. In the square, the lamps were shaped like some kind of meditating buddhist monk in various poses, and lighted up different colors. I made my way through all this to a giant fountain just past a beautiful park. This whole area is the real nice touristy part with street performers and nice restaurants everywhere, and it's like this all the way up to the beach. The hillside next to the sea, is all lit up at night as well, and gives it very much of a luau in Hawaii sort of feel. The weather's too warm for jackets even at night, and the air smells sweet and almost tropical.

When I got down to the beach, the whole coastline was filled with people gathered around in large groups, drinking, laughing and burning bonfires on the beach. The air smelled like home in the summer, and surfaced cherished memories in my mind. I walked along the beach through group after group, watching them as I went by, and thinking about how I'm catching a glimpse of what will one day be a highly cherished memory to them too. I walked until I got to a group of people my age speaking words only Americans say. I stopped, and walked over to them. I told them I was so glad to hear some people down here speaking American, all I'd heard so far was French. I introduced myself, and asked where they were all from. They said they were from all over, but mainly east coast. They were on some kind of French field trip for students trying to learn French. They asked where I was from and what I was doing here, and so I told them a little about my adventures. I got talking to really 2 of them specifically, Lisa and Spencer. Lisa was from Ohio, and I can't remember where Spencer was from, but sort of befriended them a little bit, and they invited me to sit with them. I told them I wanted to go explore around a bit more, but I'd probably be back. In these sort of situations, you don't want to just show up and overstay your welcome. I've found that you can only just show up uninvited to a group if you have something to offer that's worth their while, like an interesting story or something to keep the group entertained. Once you run out of stories, and interesting things to talk about, you need to move on and not just linger around like dead weight. If you leave at the right time, you'll most likely be invited back. Then when you're invited, you don't have to try so hard to entertain them.

So I walked down the beach a ways further, and found several other Americans who must have been in high school, or just entering college. They were all blind drunk, and acting as teenagers do when drunk. I walked right past them, not stopping to say hello, they wouldn't remember me if I did anyway. On my way back, I found the original group of Americans again, and by that time they were just leaving. They wished me good luck in my travels, and I said it was nice to meet them, and I continued walking down the beach. I felt good about that group, they seemed to like me, and I did good about not seeming clingy or creepy walking up to them and randomly starting conversation. I'm sure that if I end up seeing them again while I'm here, they'll be happy to see me.

I'm learning more and more about being social. It's a very hard skill to get the hang of, especially when you have to go find people and start up conversations for no real good reason. It's a lot easier being introduced, or being put in a scenario where you're forced to communicate. However it's important, especially when traveling, to be able to just be sociable and seek out the groups and conversations worth talking about. That's how you meet the really interesting people. That's also really the best way to ward off loneliness too, when you're in an unfamiliar place where no one knows you. Usually around here, people aren't going to just introduce themselves and invite me in to their inner circles (however that has happened). I usually have to approach them, and see to it myself that a connection's made. That's where I'm trying to learn how to develop my social skills, and get over this innate fear of people that most Americans have. In the long run, I'm sure I'll be much happier knowing that I can make friends anywhere, and talk to people I really want to talk to.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T