This was our easiest arrival yet. The beautiful scenery of the Cote d'Azure heralded our arrival in Nice. There was a tourist office inside the station, run by a woman who 'didn't want no crap'. To put it mildly, she was blunt and to the point.
"Where would you like to stay?"
"Well, we..."
"TELL ME!"
"Uh! Centre-ville!"
"Ok. Why are you here?"
"We're inter-railing around Europe."
"DON'T GIVE ME THAT! TELL ME!" Eventually we persuaded her that we weren't Communists or Welsh, and she let us go about our business, and even booked us a room at the hotel Pastoral, about a minute's walk from the station. The door to the hotel was opened by a small, clearly insane, man. He did however speak equally good English as I did French (fragmented, abusive, and absolutely crazy).
"Allo! Pleeze, pleeze, PLEEEZE come in!" He immediately shuffled us to our room, where we put our heavy bags on our beds. The small man then screamed in agony.
"YAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Holding his head, "Not on ze bed! Not on ze bed! AIEEEE!" he threw our bags onto the nearby chair. "Oh! Phew. Ze bed is for you. Not ze bags. I'm sorry, I should ave explain. I'm not a well man. My name ees Noel. But NOT like Christmas though!" He shuffled down the corridor, leaving us to our own devices. Tempting fate, I moved my bag back onto the bed, "AIEEEEEEEEE!" was heard from the other end of the building, so I quickly removed my bag, just in time to remove it from the sight of Noel, who had thundered down the corridor screaming "Putain Anglais!"
We left to explore the town and its beautiful coastline. Various venders made their way down the beach, selling beer and T-shirts. We just wanted to explore though. So, feeling adventurous, we climbed the many stairs to the top of a cliff with a stunning view of the bay of Angels. The evening was spent checking our emails, and finding an Irish pub for tomorrow's football. We adjourned to a very empty creperie that was run by a crazy old marrow. Marrow (who looked like popular 80s Bull's-Eye host - Jim Bowen) gave us a nice 2-course pancake feast for just 5 Euros plus coke. A couple of drinks down at the Irish pub saw us meet a man who was quite obviously French, but didn't want to admit it (I don't blame him). He claimed that he was born in Nice, but was American, and although he was drunk, his accent wasn't dissimilar to Gerrard Houllier's. He left amid much staring from everyone, claiming that he had to take his dog for a poo.
"What have we to do today, dear brother?" asked Ted,
"I do believe we should spendeth the day at the beach"
"Workin' on our tannage, bud-dy!"
"And starin' at topless la-dies!" At this point, the Pauly Shore impressions ceased, and we skipped to the beach. On the way down to the plage however, I purchased a crap football for 2 Euros, which led to many Hans Moleman (of Simpson's fame) impressions, i.e. saying
"Foot-ball in the groin" followed by the throwing of the football into the groin, and then falling over, followed by at least half an hour of juvenile giggling in front of a bemused crowd of Frenchmen.
Deciding that a public beach is no place for anal virgins like ourselves, we found a nice private one, away from all those nasty thieves, beggars and especially - backpackers. However, the temperature of the sea remained cold enough to freeze the cock off a polar bear, so my first attempt at a swim had to be prematurely ended, as I had to locate my testicles (who had decided to go off to Corfu and wait for me there).
After a couple of hours of 'workin' on our tannage', we decided to wave down a beach salesman to get some bevvies in.
"Ice cold beers! Get your Police Academy T-shirts! Signed Tacklebury and Mahoney videos! Cocoon Special Edition!"
"Hang on, are you...Steve Guttenberg?"
"Um...Je noor..swee...pas...Steve Guttenberg. Je...maple..um...Stephie Goutenburg. Va te fais foutre." And with that, he strolled down the beach, continuing his spiel. "Get your 3 men and a baby DVD..."
"Mahoney!" shouted Ted. Guttenberg then snapped into a Police Academy salute, and then realised his fatal error.
"Shit!" he shouted, dropping his merchandise. He put his hands over his ears and ran towards town. "Aaaaaaaaaagggghhhhh! Lalalalalalalalalala!"... Since he had left his stuff behind, we picked up 2 beers from the sand, and drank away the rest of the morning.
Later, feeling like a piece of pork crackling, we found a nice Irish pub showing the Utd v Ipswich game. The pub itself contained the singularly most annoying person in existence, naturally an American. Whilst watching the football, he kept claiming that 'Soccer isn't as good as football', and that 'I could have been playing professionally like these guys; I played soccer once or twice at school'. Resisting the urge to glass him for being American, we watched the remainder of the game with clenched teeth. We went for another walk around town to take some photos, and ate our dinner at SuperMac's house of hash browns - the king of cheap cuisine.
However, that afternoon Nice club de football had been promoted as Champions of division 2, and the town was awash with not only its usual shower of annoying, smelly Frenchman and anti-Le Pen demonstrators, but also Nice fans in their cars, honking their horns until some ungodly hour of the morning. Although my sleep was uninterrupted, Ted's night was not so good, achieving only the backpackers requisite amount of 3 hours unconsciousness.
I woke up not only to discover that my tannage wasn't too bad at all (with only the skin on my shoulder taking on liquid form), but that my nipples had turned black. Great. Today we were leaving France for the second and last time. Having said our goodbyes to Noel (but not like Christmas, mind you), and dropping my bag on the bed for good-measure (resulting in more anguished cries from the reception - 'Aieeeee!'), we hopped on the train to Pavia, where we would be staying with friends for a few days.
The journey was spent face to face with the world's most petrified man. A permanent look which screamed 'please don't touch my bottom, I'll give you cash' was worn for the duration of the trip, which saw us pass through Monaco and over the border to Genoa (or hellhole as it is lovingly known by the Hall boys).
