Excuse my French

How often do you get to relax on a pebble beach in the French Riviera, looking over the most amazingly blue Mediterranean Sea, listening to a live recording of DMB and planning where in Switzerland you want to go snowboarding. Bonsoir from France - the home of Tin Tin, Asterix, the Smurfs, and - whoah, time warp - Babar the Elephant!! And umm, french fries. And french poodles.

I need to backtrack a little, it's been over a week. Firstly thanks to everyone that sent birthday messages last Monday, which made an otherwise ordinary day very special. You all rock! I owe so many e-mails, and will get to it eventually. It was my last day in Barcelona so I did the touristy thing which I'd mostly avoided: a visit to the world's most famous construction site, La Sagrada Familia - one of Antonio Gaudí's unfinished architectural masterpieces, and Park Güell for a spectacular panoramic of the city. I also wanted to visit a church, but discovered that in this day and age, their idea of charging an entrance fee is a compulsory €4 donation. Screw that!

I had a gigantic night on the Friday (side-note: as with last night...more about that later). In short, it resulted in me needing a day's rest to recover from alcohol food poisoning (dodgy prawns)! Coupled with me accidentally shaving off one of my fingertips. Don't ask.

So I just changed hostels on the Saturday. Note to self: write disgustingly bad review on hostelworld.com about the rude & unhelpful Filipino women at the Ideal Youth Hostel. Offering free internet is not an excuse for providing poor service. And if you can't provide medical assistance (I asked for a plaster) at least tell me that there's a pharmacy literally across the road!

Anyway, moving on. I followed Moman's advice on Sunday and took a daytrip to the mountain of Montserrat - an hour north-west of Barcelona. Here I experienced basic Els Castellets (construction of human towers) outside a monastery founded in 1025, and spectacular views of the surrounding countryside, among other things.

After dozing off on the train on Tuesday morning, I woke to a textbook Frenchman (handlebar moustache and all) asking for my passeport. A few hours later (thanks to train delays in Montpellier) having met a new travel partner and after saying goodbye to a Pretorian on her way to Venice, we arrived in Marseille. Excuse my French (hah) - but what a boring shithole. For France's second-largest city it has nothing to offer. To be fair I shouldn't be judging places so hastily and harshly, so Marseille might have something good going, and I just missed it. Or not?

I spent two nights in the most bizarre hostel (it seemed to be doubling as a temporary foster home for hundreds of screaming kids), and have been in Nice since. Which (sorry, I can't resist) is Niiice and gets better by the day. The weather's been good, they have the best chinese food I've ever tasted, the people are friendly. And after last night's escapade with fellow backpacker and Canadian, Kaleb, and a group of exchange students, I have to recommend the nightlife too. I'll say only this: I'm typing this blog from some post-it notes and a paper note on which I wrote around the preexisting words "Send beach pictures!". ;)

The only problem with Nice is that there's an over-population of pooches. And not enough parks, or not enough people picking up their dog's doodie. It's really gross in places. I don't know if that makes Nice the shithole...

Tomorrow I'm doing a daytrip to wealthy Monaco, the world's second-smallest country, and (wait for it, Mom!...) to visit the famous Monte-Carlo Casino. Then I'll head up into the Chamonix valley on Monday, followed by Switzerland for a couple of days. Their skiing season is about to begin and I might stretch my budget and attempt skiing or snowboarding, fingers crossed. I plan to mostly visit Geneva and Interlaken after cross-checking some personal notes.

UPDATE [25/10]: Take a look at the daily photo archive of the Mont-Blanc range in Chamonix. Brrr! :|

Tons of new and optimized yet uncaptioned & untagged photos are up, some dating back to Lagos, along with a new photoset for my newest interest: Street Art.

UPDATE [25/10]: Change of plans. I'm leaving Nice for Milan today, then plan to head into Switzerland for only 1 night, and then back out into Italy - damn visa complications!