Happy 2011!!

I arrived back in Nice Saturday morning after about 9.5 hours on an airplane. I love flying but I don't really like super long flights - it is too long to sit. I do like the airplane food though. Mostly the cute little containers it comes in. Unfortunately this time they forgot that I had ordered a gluten-free meal. :( At first I thought I'd just have to be hungry but in the end they gave me a business-class meal...which was amazing! Real cutlery, butter in the shape of a flower, salad with goat cheese and walnuts and chicken and beef with a mustard dipping sauce :) People around me were totally jealous ;)

Sunday morning on the way to church I passed the same accordian-playing man sitting at the side of the street that I always see. Every time I walk by he says a friendly 'Bonjour Mademoiselle'. Usually I look straight ahead and walk by quickly. Living in Nice, my creepy-guy radar is highly sensitive and I've discovered that it's better just to ignore someone then to have them try to engage you in conversation. That said, I always felt a little bit guilty ignoring accordian man. This time I decided to be polite. So when he said hello I glanced his way with a smile said a quick 'bonjour' of my own. He wasn't what I expected at all and I have to admit I was a bit charmed. He is the cutest little man, probably a gyspy, with enormous blue eyes and a huge smile. It's funny when people aren't like what you think they will be.

Since being back in Nice I haven't been sleeping very well at all. Prob a lot of this is because of jet lag - but some of it is definitly because of the cats fighting outside my window. I never knew that cats fought so much - or that it could be so loud. I woke up to what sounded like babies screaming and a lot of hissing and growling. They were right outside my window. :P I am super tempted to chuck some water on them next time it happens. (cat lovers: I also love cats and I think that this would be the kind thing to do and not let them kill each other!) I think might start keeping a glass of water by my bed and we'll see.

Anyway, hopefully this will just be the first of many blog posts in 2011 ;)

Rain, Snow and Confetti

Thusday morning I woke up to the sound of torrential rain. These are the kind of days that SO make me want to just close the curtains and go back to sleep. But, as I had a meeting to go to, I got ready and rushed out the door - umbrella in hand.

I am bit self-conscious about my umbrella - it is slowly falling apart and is almost to the point where the spokes poke out by themselves. Not very cool - especially in France. Last time I was out with it I couldn't even get it opened properly so I was holding this barely open, broken umbrella above my head when a helpful Frenchman commented loudly: "MADAMOISELLE! VOTRE PARAPLUIE EST MALADE! PEUTETRE IL A H1N1! (Translation: "Madamoiselle, your umbrella is sick. Maybe it has H1N1") French men are not shy to speak their minds. This was embarassing but obviously still not enough to stop me from using it :) I AM meaning to buy a new one but I am being picky - I want one with blue and white stripes :)

By the time my meeting was over, the rain had completely turned to snow! This is pretty amazing for Nice cause it only snows once every 5 years or something! It was fun because people got very excited and were taking pictures and making snowballs. Here are some photos of the snow from my balcony:

FRIDAY

Friday morning I woke up early and headed out to run some errands before lunch. It was a clear day but still pretty cold and some snow was still on the ground. As I don't have a printer at home I've started running to a local copy shop to do my printing. I found a nice one just about ten minutes walk north of my house. So this is where I headed still feeling half asleep.

I walked into the copy shop and greeted the man at the desk with a 'bonjour' (it is important in France to greet the shop owner when you come in) and asked if I could do some printing. When I had finished my printing and had stood up to pay, another man came in and began chatting with the shop owner. As soon as he saw me behind him, he announced in a very loud deep voice "EST-CE QUE CETTE JOLIE MADAMOISELLE A BESOUIN DE L'AIDE?" (Does this beautiful Madamoiselle need help?) I was immediately jolted out of my half-asleep state. He motioned for me to go ahead of him. I smiled awkwardly, nodded, and mumbled something as I went ahead to pay - I'm definetly not very cool when caught off guard. As I headed out the door to leave he bellowed after me: "VOUS ETES RAVISSANTE MADAMOISELLE!" ("You are ravishingly beautiful Madamoiselle") I couldn't help smiling. There is nothing like being complimented loudly in a copy shop first thing in the morning to get to your day off to a good start. ;)

CARNAVAL

Last night was the first day of Carnival here in Nice! The carnival as it is now has been running every year since the late 1800s - with local artisans preparing floats - but the first documented mention of the carnival was in the 16th century! The first evening is the opening ceremonies where they bring out the floats of the King and Queen of the carnival. They acually burn the king on the last day of carnival - I'm really not sure why.

I couldn't find anyone to go with me so I went down to place Massena myself at 9pm to check it out. The only place I could find left to stand was on the ground as the stands were full. This turned out to be the best place cause I was right in the parade route!

There were tons of people, tons of kids and everyone was spraying neon silly string or throwing confetti! To start off they brought out huge round baloons (like Macy's parade size) held by glowing colourful creatures. One baloon even had an acrobat suspended from the bottom. After the balloons they rolled out huge floats of the king and queen. They were quite frightening looking actually - I might have cried if I was a kid ;) Overall it was pretty spectacular and in the end I did end up running into someone I knew as she danced by me in the crowd. Fun night :)

Pizza and Crêpe

One of the best things about Nice so far is the people watching. The city is very busy all day (and night too in our neighborhood!) Yesterday I tried out three different locations for their people-watching potential:

#1 Sitting outside the back balcony (in our very own apartment!) while having breakfast. Our second floor balcony looks onto high apartments with rows and rows of pastel coloured shuttered windows – some closed and some open. Every now and again someone would wander out onto their balcony to see what the day is like. One woman next door even came out with a vanity mirror to apply her makeup by sunlight. I knew that anyone could be watching me too from any of those hundreds of window…although I still decided to lick the last bit of mango yogurt from the bottom of my bowl.:)

#2 From a café: My Welsh flatmate (I’ve decided to adopt this British term) and I went for real French espresso at a café near our flat. It took a while to decide what to have from the menu: café, café restaurant, noisette (don’t know what this is yet), cappuccino, grand café etc. We both were curious about the café restaurant and ordered that – but were told that it was the same thing a café anyway. We turned our chairs to face the street (French style) and watch people shop at the market and pointed out who looked like tourists and who did not. I’m sure that we both still fall into the tourist category.

#3 Having dinner on our front balcony: After cooking our first dinner in our apartment (rice and stir-fry) we decided to eat it on our table outside in the front. Our apartment is also very hot and outside is a lot cooler!
Across the street there is a ‘Pizza and Crêpe’ shop that was entertaining to watch. The three employees would spend their time sitting out side, looking bored, chatting, folding pizza boxes and sometimes getting into heated arguments with cars that would try to park in front of their store and disturb their garbage bin – lots of yelling and hand waving!
Three motorbikes with red boxes on the back also sat out front and occasionally one employee would jump into action and speed off for a delivery but return in just a few minutes. Most of the time though, they seemed really bored…we were tempted to order a pizza (or crepe!) ourselves to give them something to do.
It wasn’t until later I noticed that we were also being watched - the man in the balcony above us to the right would also pop his head over with his cigarette too see what we were up to as well.

So far my favourite is #3.

Où est la piscine?

The name for my blog comes very uncreatively from the title of Julia Child's autobiography. Not that I'm comparing myself to her at all (I'm a terrible cook) but I'm hoping that living here in Nice for a year will inspire me to get better at this.(I'm also hoping to see the movie 'Julie and Julia' sometime soon for further inspiration!)

Today is my first official full day on the French Riviera. I arrived here last Thursday evening but left early the next morning for a week of cross-cultural orientation in Otford, England. As I don't have an apartment yet, I'm staying with my team leaders and their children for a couple days. We also share the apartment with a slim black cat with a Spanish name I can't remember who has her own European passport. For real. Her previous owner was a Spanish woman who moved countries with her cat so she had to get all the paperwork done. I am totally jealous of this cat. It does not seem fair that she can get an EU passport when I can't.

This morning M (my host) took me to the open air market in town to buy fruits and veggies. The market is open every morning except for Monday. It was super hot in the sun as we walked over (which I think is typical for summer). The market was made up of rows and rows of vendors selling fruits, vegetables, fish and other products. I bought myself a bag of seven yummy figs for only .90 euro! I ate them for lunch with fresh goat cheese on top :) An elderly man tried to talk with me but unfortunately my French is a bit out of practise and I couldn't catch everything he was saying. Hopefully I'll improve quickly over the next few weeks.

On the way home, we stopped in the health food store so I could look for 'gluten-free' bread. I was so excited to find that they had gluten free baguettes(!) - and the brochure in the store also promised gluten-free 'pain au chocolat' - which would be amazing! I also loved the health food store because it was the first store we visited that felt very familiar somehow to me - I guess that health food stores are the same around the world.

I haven't seen any celebrities yet...although there was a whole 'parking lot' for private jets at the airport here in Nice so they must be around somewhere... On the bus ride back from the airport yesterday we passed the clinic where Angelina Jolie gave birth to her twins. It is also the place where A (M's daughter) goes to the dentist :)

The rest of the family has gone to the pool this afternoon while I opted to sit and rest for a bit. This reminds me of one of my favourite 'Flight of the Conchords' episodes when they sing the French song...and look for the pool (la piscine). ;)