Naked people. Everywhere.

Oh, zee French. Lots of topless people at the beach, there's no false sense of modesty here. We've been saying "speedos for all!" Because, seriously, the bottoms seem to be all that count, if they even do. I had a bank crisis yesterday, they froze my account after I took out some money in Florence. Even though I told them, they said they didn't know and froze my account "for my protection." It was mostly annoying to find out at random that I couldn't access my money, and I had to sit in the hot sun at a pay phone, with the grody receiver to my ear for like an hour, by far most of that time on hold. But now that is fixed, and I can breathe easy. I was concerned my pay check wouldn't get through, but its ok, and came in a surprising amount anyway. I don't know what this means.

Today we went to Monaco/Monte-Carlo, and it was way cool b/c we never even planned on going there. But its only like 20 mintues from Nice (where I am until tomorrow when we head to Venice). We met some Canadian guys the first day we got here and they came with us to Monaco. We saw the palace and the hundreds of really nice yachts, the super expensive cars, the pebble beach and the really fancy casino, which we couldn't get into b/c we weren't dressed nicely enough. I guess they don't want people losing their money there if they don't have very much to lose.

I haven't had a shower yet, and it was soooo hot today. We were dying a little bit for most of the time. I just stuck my feet in the water, but my friends went swimming. I just hate being salty when I dry off. Our hostel here is really nice, and the AC in our room works really well, so its super cold. Works for me. I felt like I had more fun things to tell you.

Oh yes, one more. We walked through this park yesterday on the way to the shore in Nice, and there was a book fair going on. I walked past this booth and there was a cardboard cutout of this author with his book "Mes Amis, Mes Amours." Then, by chance, I look slightly to the left of the cutout, and I'm like, that's totally the same guy. Apparently he was there doing a book signing. And also, I saw another poster today that said this book was now a movie. So this random author guy could actually be kind of famous, particularly on the French scale, and I saw him in the park.

Ok, I have to pack and get ready for a crazy day on the trains tomorrow. Wish us luck, we need it. Booking in advance didn't work for us... little bit stressful.