Day 7: Villefranche (Nice)

I spit in your general direction
Villefranche was a nightmare from the start. First, we figured we could handle our own excursion this time since we had experienced it in Malta and Italy. Wrong. France is just a little bit different.

First, the signs and maps pointing us to the bus stop were not always in agreement. Then we took the bus to the center of Nice, where there was just about nothing going on. We stepped into a couple of shops and the French people working there never even looked up.

We did go to a French McDonalds, where I was going to order a Royale with Cheese, made famous in Pulp Fiction. I can get a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in the U.S. for somewhere around $1, so I wasn't about to pay 7 Euros for one (~$13). So, we just took a photo for free noting that part of the trip.

If planes, trains, and automobiles was a 30-minute television show, we could have written a script. With two hours remaining before we had to be back on the ship -- or it would leave us in this awful place -- we were waiting at the bus stop. The problem was that there were about 100 people waiting at our bus stop. As time past, those 100 people got less and less happy. By the time the bus arrived, a French woman who had just boarded the bus turned around and screamed at the nicest looking 80-year-old grandmother.

We don't mind being aggressive when we have to be, but we weren't going to fight octogenarians to get back to the ship. We saw a few people we recognized from the ship and followed them. We took a shuttle to the main train terminal, just missed the train and would really be pushing it to wait for the next one. Instead, we joined one of the couples and took a 30 Euro cab ride from the train terminal to the ship. Along the way, we saw the port of Nice, which was where we should have gone in the first place. Oh well.

After Kristal cooled off from getting basically robbed by the French cabbie, we attended an improv workshop with the Second City comedians. There were only a few people there, so James got on stage with a couple of others and tried out improv.

We noticed the ship was wobbling a little bit more than before. I'm sure it's the French's fault somehow. So we went back to the cabin and slept for about three hours. Still wobbly, we went to another magic show and then went to supper at the Grand Pacific.

After supper, we went up to the Spinnaker Lounge for the culmination event -- The Quest game show. Usually, a packed house of 250 people or more duke it out for all kinds of prizes in this "adult" scavenger hunt. In the past, teams have had to switch clothes with their spouses for points, etc. Kevin, Tasha, James, Kristal, and two others created the first team. No one else showed. The ship's motion had sent most of the ship's guests to bed.