I've been putting off sharing this story for a very long time - but it's one that feels due soon. In March 2025, I embarked on a solo trip to Europe. It was the first time I've ever done anything like that and I was honestly a bit scared. The second my friend dropped my off at the airport in Dallas, I was all alone for 2 weeks, with nobody as company. I picked three cities to visit; Nice, France | Geneva, Switzerland | Athens, Greece. A weird concoction of countries and cities, but places I had dreamed of visiting.
Nice, France was my first stop and probably my favorite. My accommodations were nothing more than a small room that had a bed, and a half folded desk. The hotel was built in the 19th century, and preserved a lot of the neoclassical architecture from that period of time, including beautiful stained glass. The reason I had picked Nice was because I remember when I took French in high school, there was a small section of the textbook that had a story about some small cafe in Nice. So there I was, my broken rusty French for 3 days. Let me tell you, the amount of freedom you feel just being alone with a pair of headphones and a book on a rocky beach is just unreal. I spent probably 7 or 8 hours just sitting on the beach in just three days. The city truly lived up to its nickname, Nice la Belle.
On the second day, Nice's geography caught me completely off guard. I was trying to figure out what to do and I found out that Monaco was just 30 minutes away. I grabbed everything I needed and crossed the border, and spent the afternoon behind the wheel, driving on the Grid Prix circuit!
One of my favorite things that surprised me about Nice was the food. I expected to have some difficulty with the food because I was told by my friends that food in Europe was extremely bland but it was some of the best damn food I've ever had (pardon my French). I was amazed, almost everything I ate tasted felt like it was prepared and plucked off the branch just a second ago. Even the fruits there tasted surreal.
Besides the time I spent eating and at the beach, I visited a lot of different shops and museums in Nice. There was a record store off the side of the Main Street. I was able to use my broken French to communicate with the owner of the store, and he explained to me all the original pressing American vinyls he had acquired over the years. We got to talking and he asked me if there was anything I'd like to buy. I told him I was looking for a very special vinyl that I wouldn't expect anywhere but in Europe, which was the Otis Redding Live in Europe vinyl. He told me to wait a second and pulled it out of a basket a few minutes later. I have it hanging on the wall and I'm looking at it right now as I write this.
Heading away from Nice was almost heartbreaking despite the short time I spent there - but it was on to the next stop. I had booked tickets on the SCNF (The French National Railway System) and was on my way to Switzerland. I got there on a Sunday and I needed formal shoes for a meeting I had (A story for another time). Everything was closed and I was running out of time.. Luckily, at the bottom of the Geneva train station was a bunch of stores and in there was a shoe store that had some pretty limited options that were less than ideal - but I was desperate so it was more of a who cares type of buy.
I then had to prepare for this meeting that was 200 miles away from me in Geneva, in a small town near Basel on the opposite side of the country. I got up at 4 am the next day and began that journey. On the way back, I spent majority of the time talking with the people on the train and asked them dozens of questions about the music they listened to, what they did and actually got to use more French. (In Switzerland, they speak French, English, German, and Italian!!)
When I got back, I realized something on that train: I should NOT have picked to stay in Geneva. In that moment, I wanted to be back in those small cities and just in silence like I did in Nice. So the next day in Switzerland, I went to another city called Lausanne. When I tell you it was just breathtaking - I'm being serious (The roads were super hilly and I was wheezing climbing them). Besides the point, I spent another whole day roaming a random city and I discovered this was no random city, it was the home of the Olympic Museum. Naturally, I spent the next few hours roaming those exhibits and learned more about the history of the modern Olympics and how brands like Lacoste and Adidas had a huge impact on its history. I spent the rest of my day sketching the mountains of the city in my notebook and left the city around nightfall.
By the time I left Lausanne, the fear in me that was there when I left Dallas felt like a distant memory. I had navigated border crossings in Monaco, language barriers in record shops, and cross-country treks in Switzerland.
I was exhausted, my French was still rusty, and my legs were sore from the Lausanne hills, but I was ready. I’ve decided to save my time in Athens for a separate piece, simply because a city that old shouldn't be squeezed into a post-script.
Thank you for reading this!
-Keshav