For the first time here, SG screwed me up. Somehow DBS drafted my money to Austria, even though I told the counter lady who did the draft I was going to FRANCE. I thought DBS didn't have a partnership with any french banks, so I didn't think anything was amiss.
When I got my credit card yesterday, I was shocked to find that my bank account had 0.00euros (technically I had -40.00 euros after withdrawing 40 euros to activate my account). I was frantically pressing all the buttons on the machine I could, haha.
Doesn't help that I can't understand the words on the atm screen. I learnt later on that my money had to take 3 weeks to be transferred over from austria.
Luckly my dad wired some money over and now I have some euros in my account. YAY!
I found it amusing that the bank people gave up trying to speak to me in french and started using english (for important issues) instead because I couldn't understand what they were saying. hahaha!
ANYWAYYYY... back to nimes!
We took a lousy corail train to Nimes on the night of 26th jan. Sometimes, I really can't tell when the french are joking. I needed to pee and intially the train captain told me there were no toilets. Later on he went to find a toilet for me (but i didn't get to use it in the end because all the toilets on the train were en panne, aka not working. Incidently, "en panne" was one of the first few french words I learnt here because lots of things are en panne often).
We reached Nimes pretty late, and it was quite a dangerous walk from the train station to our hotel (nearby). We could see wierd people and thugs around the streets. Nimes isn't really a touristy place.
Wanqing looking 'happy'.
Our hotel was located near the gare. 15euros/person/night, which is considered cheap for a hotel. I shared the bed with wanqing while ben and angie had single beds in another room. I stole the hotel's soap. Hehe.
Nimes is REALLY small, and one can walk around the whole nimes in perhaps... 2 hours?
Random building
La fontaine Pradier (1851).
We went to the place des arenes, located 150m from our hotel.
This place is fantastic for trigger happy people. Fantastic photos. It's also sunnier and warmer down south, so lots of nice sunshine.
We paid 7.50 euros to visit the arena and maison carree.
I was on an unstoppable phototaking rampage in the arena, because the arena was so grand! Too bad we came at the wrong time; they have bullfights there sometimes.
Bull fighting arena. Lots of history behind it.
One kind of gladiator. Le Retiaire uses his fishing net to trap his opponent and a forkspear. He has a leather guard on his arm, and that is his only armour. The lack of metal armour makes him able to run around very fast.
Le Mirmillon carries a large shield with sharp edges, which he uses to cut through the opponent's vests.
After the arena, we walked over the Jardins de la Fontaine (garden of fountains)
random statute
I had a kebab for lunch, and kept a small portion of it for dinner. Cost 4.50euros but was fully of meat.
My first kebab.
The golden gates (entrance to the garden)
Fountain.
Temple de Diane, some random temple located in the jardin which is ...erm... old.
After having lunch at the garden, we made our ascend up the hill to visit tour magne (tower magne), another old relic.
Awesome views of nimes from the top of the tour:
I look like a raisin.
On the way down from the hill, we saw a big patch of grass with people lying on it. since we had loads of time to kill, we decided to have a siesta there.
nice patch of grass
Me sleeping.
We saw a bunch of people rolling metal balls on the ground.
We then walked over to maison carree.
Nothing much here. Just a building.
We skipped dinner to save money, and walked over to the Notre Dame of Nimes. Ben went in to pray (as it was sunday), while wanqing and I quietly walked around the cathedral. It was beautiful, like the other Notre Dames in France.
Sunset against red sky.
Wanqing was very excited about the red sky, though I told her we also get red skies in sg. -__-
We took a train back to lyon and were back at 11pm.
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