My favourite float. I didn't get to record it the first time, when it actually breathed its hot, steamy fire breath at us, into our faces. It was almost like a real dragon- I even just got to touch it! AWESOME
This is how I felt about being there
So yesterday we went to the Nice Carnaval with CEA. Or at least, a rather small subset of us did. It's been raining all week, and it was raining most of yesterday, too. Bit of a bummer for our main objective in being there in the first place- to attend the Nice Flower Parade on the Promenade des Anglais along the shoreline. Luckily, it stopped raining RIGHT as we got to our seats in the bleachers, and recommenced only after all of us had descended the bleachers. Fortune much? But I digress.
Gorgeous floats and costumes in this parade, don't you think?
But wait, there's more!
We'd passed through Nice briefly before by bus about a month ago during our excursion to Grasse, Eze, and Monaco, but we didn't really see much besides the market. Now we actually got down and explored a bit. We took the train to the Nice Ville train station, and walked along the main shopping avenue in front of it and to the Nice town centre, where we were to meet in about two hours to get our tickets for admission to our seats for the parade from Silvija (in case you've been wondering, that's actually pronounced Sylvie). Our group hung out with Silvija and grabbed some food from a cafe due to the rain, then we went to a couple shops along the shopping street, though we only darted into two small shops and then worldwide chain stores like Zara, Sephora, and H&M.
The parade was wonderful. As I mentioned already, it had been raining the entire day, but it stopped exactly for the duration of the parade. There were so many beautiful floats, and everything was so festive! ...even if the music STILL wasn't French. Latin American, but nope. No French music. Unless you count a French-Spanish cover of Frankie J's "Obsesión." I guess it's something at this point. The rest of the music, if lyrical, was either in Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese. The people on the floats kept throwing mimosa flowers and shooting streamers into the bleachers. I nearly caught some a few times, but each time the old man in front of me jumped up and grabbed them, in two cases quite literally from my grasp. Sometime during the middle of the parade another old gentleman saw me nearly catch a shoot and miss (as in, my fingers touched it and as I grabbed the stem I knocked it down to rows below us), so he broke his catch and handed it to me and to the two girls sitting beside me. It was adorable and touching, and the language barrier was completely transcended.
Left: Offering the others the blossoms. Right: The three of us smiling. I am in the centre.
The entire experience was great, plus it's a good thing we went to Nice then and there, since after spring break I have to go to Nice every day for a week for my genetics lab. That's right folks, the labs at SKEMA Business School don't actually happen on campus because....actually good question. I'm guessing they're poorly equipped or lacking or something. But anyway, I have to go every day for a week right after spring break ends, for my genetics lab. Nine to five each day is the schedule. It shall be oh so fun to go right from the airport to Nice University, where I've never been before. With my carry-ons, no less. Yay.
More floats, and the dreaded dragon
Au revoir!
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