[Summer in Grenoble] Nimes - Day 1: Off to Nimes... Where It was Pouring...

June 12th, 2015
Right after the biochemistry midterm exam

My friends and I hopped on to the tram

and began our first weekend adventure.
No study abroad would be complete without some trips to other places, right?

I still wish to go on a semester study abroad to countries like Germany, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, or Norway, but unfortunately, I have too many required classes for my major and it's a bit too late to apply for one, since my undergraduate years are almost over.
How sad... :'(

Anyway, we first went to the Grenoble train station.

We had some time to spare before our train departure, so we decided to have some snacks at McDonald's. I actually packed a lunch for myself, so I didn't buy anything.

and This was actually a pretty surprising discovery.
It might be because I've never been to a McDonald's for more than 3 years, but McDonald's at Grenoble train station had a pretty good looking McCafe.

After picking up the ticket I've ordered through the SNCF website from the SNCF building,

We made our way to the platform.

Our train arrived shortly, and we got on it.

It was the first single-story regular train I've taken while in France.
On the day I came to Grenoble, I've taken a single-story high-speed train (TGV) and a double-story regular train. But this single-story regular had the nicest interior.
It was clean, air conditioning was nice, and the seats were nicely spaced.

After an hour on the train,

We got off at 'Valence TGV' station

and quickly ran to another platform.

Where we awaited for our transfer train.

The train arrived very soon, and that's why we ran all the way to this platform
It was a TGV, but the train looked a little bit different from the TGV I took on the day I came to France.

This was also a double-story TGV
I've been noticing a lot of the double-story trains in the recent years.

This is what the interior of the double-story TGV looked like.
It seemed to be more focused on taking in as much passengers as possible, instead of having more room for luggage, compared to the TGV I took on the first day.

About an hour later, we had arrived at Nimes.

This was the inside of the train station.

and this was the road you can see right after coming out of the train station.
We could've gone exploring right away, but we all had a pretty heavy backpacks, so my friends and I decided to go to the hotel first and leave our stuff there.

It was raining a little bit, by the way.

Gare De Nimes.

The TGV we took to get here was departing for it's final destination, Montpellier
It was quite surprising to see that such an old-looking bridge can hold up such big train.

As our google maps completed loading, we left the train station and made our way to the hotel.

....but we found this on our way to the hotel!
I had never seen a vending machine this big in my life.

After walking for a while...

We finally arrived at 'Hotel Campanile Nimes Centre - Mas Carbonnel'
We checked in, got our keys,

 and went up to our rooms.

This is what the room looked like.

This was one of the largest rooms I've ever stayed while in France, bigger than Hotel Trianon for sure.

After taking a short rest in the room, we went back outside to start touring Nimes.

After taking some pictures of the view from the hotel, we went out to the city.

...and it was raining a lot harder before we knew it....

Heh.... Darn it....

but we went on

and made our way to the Nimes Arena.

We made it.....

My goodness, it was pouring so hard....
Heh heh...
cries*

We tried taking some pictures of the Arena

but we gave up pretty soon and started desperately looking for a place to avoid the rain.

We found some of the arches that did not have the metal cells blocking the way, and hid ourselves there.

While avoiding the rain at the arena, I took a sweeping look outside, and I could barely find people walking out in the rain.

Well, the rain was pouring so vigorously, as if it were trying to penetrate the ground,

and most of the people were avoiding the rain at the arena like we were.
I mean, what else could anyone do?
It was raining so hard that the umbrella was pretty much useless...

and Yes, that means my shorts and my shoes were completely soaked.
my camera was very wet too (thank goodness that it's still working...)

We found this place around where we were avoiding the rain.
"Visite Des Arenes"
This was the place where people can sign up for the tour of Arene de Nimes.

Unfortunately, there were no more tours for that day.
So we just decided to buy tour tickets for the next day in advance.
I remember getting some discounts with our UJF student ID.

Now that we had done all we could do at the arena, we had to make our way back to the hotel...

It's hard to tell from this picture, but it was still raining really hard.

But the rain did not seem like it'll stop anytime soon, so we just started walking through it.
Getting soaked, of course.

Ran into a shoe shop.
These kinds of local shops were not so common where I live, so it was nice to see small local shops like this.
I did see a lot of new things while in France.

We were trying to find a place to eat, but it was a bit too early for most of the French restaurants to be open for dinner. So, we just dropped by this Kebab restaurant, which we were fortunate enough to run into.

and I was perfectly okay with Kebabs.
I love Kebabs.

It was a very small Kebab restaurant.

I ordered a kebab that came in this tortilla-like flatbread.
I personally thought this was one of the best kebabs I ate while I was in France.
the bread tasted nice, everything was very easy to eat, and the meat was relatively less saltier than the other kebab places I've been to, if I'm remembering correctly.
(or it just might have tasted better, because I was soaked and exhausted.)

After stuffing our stomach with Kebabs, we started walking again.

We did come across this plaza along the way, but we were way too uncomfortable, way too wet, and we all had enough of the rain, so we just kept on walking to the hotel.

and ahhhh yesss!!

we came back to our Hotel Campanile Nimes Centre!

but my friends wanted to have some hot chocolate before heading in to the hotel
so we went to McDonald's that was right next to the hotel.

Some of us just drank some hot chocolate, some of us ordered some snacks along with it.
I didn't really have anything in mind back then, and I was concerned about saving money, so I didn't order a thing.

But I regretted that very badly when I got to the hotel.
Maybe I should've ordered another kebab to go....

Anyways, my friends and I had some chat while having some snacks at McDonald's
Then we all returned to the hotel, took a shower
Played some card games together.

I also tried to dry my drenched socks and shoes with the heater we had in the room (it was no use, of course.)
Then we all just went to bed.


Really wanted to have a better look around Nimes, but all we did was get drenched instead.
Thanks for your awesomeness, weather...