More bad news I'm afraid…first of all just let me say that we are both OK, but unfortunately we have spent the better part of the day at the hospital today. Kelly was badly burnt on her back this morning when she turned the shower on & it spurted out scalding hot water. She had checked the temperature of the water prior to that by running it out the tap into the bath, but when she flicked the switch to make it come out of the shower head instead, it came out very suddenly, with the force of a high pressure hose (which I'd struggled with myself earlier that morning) & at a boiling hot temperature. The hostel apologized profusely - although they really shouldn't have hot water running at that kind of temperature anyway - & sent us to the hospital in a taxi. I was beside myself at this point, & when we got in the taxi & the taxi driver refused to take off before me assuring him that Kelly wouldn't vomit in his car despite the fact that she was sobbing & I was begging him to hurry to the hospital, I was ready to scream!

Then we got to the hospital & it was quite scary & upsetting because most people didn't speak English. I did my best to translate but under the circumstances I didn't do a terribly good job. They all seemed terribly nonchalant & poor Kelly kept asking me why they weren't doing anything, which of course I had no answer for :( The doctor looking after her was actually a brand new med student…who sidled in looking overly confident although a little clueless, and spent several minutes questioning me in the waiting room before I was able to communicate to him that I wasn't actually the one who was hurt & that the patient was the one in the hospital bed across the other side of the ward! :S I was a little bit nervous about this but he assured me his supervisor would check in on her progress…

They put her on a drip to rehydrate her & gave her some painkillers & then dressed her back. They told us it was not too bad a burn (thank goodness!), but she was still in a lot of pain :( She hadn't eaten since the night before & I asked the nurse if she could have some food, maybe some lemonade even…she cam back with 3 packets of sugar. I was like, OK…Understandably, Kelly didn't want to go back to the hostel so I had frantically sent out a text to Mum, Dad, & Nigel asking them to help me look up a hotel where we could stay for the next few nights while Kelly was recovering. She would need to have her dressing seen to etc. & it would have been kinda tricky/unpleasant to take care of in a dorm room! My phone ran out of battery while we were still waiting there & the hospital staff said there was no way for me to make a call from their phone, so I couldn't work out if anyone had received my messages & couldn't contact Kelly's parents! They finally gave us the OK to leave (Kelly's torso completely banaged) & we were forced to wander the streets trying to flag down a cab…not an easy thing to do on Easter Monday! Eventually a nice man at a local grocery store called us a taxi to a nearby taxi rank & we were able to get Kelly back to the hostel to get our things packed up.

We were both exhausted & frazzled and Kelly spent about 45 minutes calling her family and friends back home to explain what had happened and assure them she was alright. I got online to try & work out where we could stay that night, but happened to catch Mum on skype. Neither she nor Dad had seen my messages until the last half hour or so, but she told me that Nigel had organized, booked, & paid for a hotel for us that was close to both our current hostel & walking distance from the hospital (in case we had to go back), right in the centre of Nice! Oh my goodness - I cannot possible put into words just how grateful we were. I cried; that's how grateful I was & how lucky I felt, to know that there was someone out there taking such good care of us. Nigel & I "argued" for a while over him allowing me to pay him back (I think that argument will be going on for a while…haha) & while I was talking to him on Skype, some American girls staying in our dorm room who had witnessed the whole event early that morning were practically in tears over how lovely he was about the whole thing. Now that, ladies & gentleman, is a wonderful, WONDERFUL boyfriend! :)

We managed to get ourselves packed up & I carried two loads of luggage over to the new hotel, as Kelly obviously can't carry her backpack now. We took the lift up - tired, distressed, worn out, utterly OVER it - & when we opened the door to our room we were both in raptures. Two big, comfy, white beds, a gorgeous bathroom with a bath for Kelly to wash in (because she isn't able to shower), & the most beautiful view out over the streets of Nice. We felt like royality!! It certainly put a smile on Kelly's face after all the awful things that had happened that day. We unpacked our bags (yes, unpacked, everything, just because we could! hehe) & made ourselves at home. It was the perfect remedy to a yucky, yucky day. A world of thankyous go out to Nigel from the bottom of our hearts! :)

That evening we braved the streets of Old Nice, with me carefully guarding Kelly's back from crowds of passers by, to end the day on a high note! We ate in a lovely restaurant with a street performer nearby playing beautiful French music on his accordion. On the way home Kelly stopped, turning to me with a disgusted look on her face…"Oh no". "What??", "Oh no, oh no, oh no" - one of the blisters on her back had popped. And I'm talking, like, a blister the size of a ping pong ball!! Poor Kel walked the rest of the way home with awful blistering liquid seeping down her back & when we got back to the hotel & had to redress her wounds & tuck her into bed. Now, I don't have a strong stomach at the best of times…haha Tell you what, it's a really good thing I'm not a nurse! But I managed (thank god the food poisoning had passed by now!), & we were able to make her comfortable enough to get off to sleep finally. I collapsed into bed (not just any bed, but my soft, big, white, amazingly comfy, HOTEL bed!!) & fell into the best sleep I've had in months…