I call it "Homework"

It's the random stuff that I will remember the most about this amazing place, this part is for me. And the friends that I made there, Claudia, you know that picture is for you.

There is the Fete de la Musique every year during the Summer Solstice in Nice and all over France. Bands of all kinds everywhere in the city and crowds of people street drinking and surrounding them outside of bars and houses and cafes. It not bad. We started at a dancey-trancey place, moved to another one and then, somehow, ended up in a brazilian drum parade. Narrowly avoiding being thrown to the dog (french men) by my nearest and dearest ( you assholes), we shimmied and shook what our mamas gave us through old town. THANK GOD I TOOK AFRICAN DANCE. It was really, really fun. I wish I had pictures...maybe not.

We watched a LOT of football in Nice, which was great, because we didn’t have to think, and it still counts as doing something “cultural.”

The last day in Nice, I proposed that we rent the fancy chairs on the beach that run 15 euro a pop and enjoy a beach day without back pain. SO we did, and it was fancy, and they even made their part of the beach a little sandier. Happiness can be bought.

The Matisse museum, oh god, I love color, and parks. Its perfect. Go, now.

Antibes for the Day

Travelling around Nice is pretty easy, with trains and busses that never take your ticket, you can get to Monaco, Vence, Antibes, Villefranche, St Tropez and Cannes in about half an hour.

We took our Saturday to Antibes, a small city on the coast and mostly settled on greek ruins. Looks a lot like Nice, but with a HUGE luxury boat port, and sandy beach and more public art. The Picasso museum sits nicely on the water with a view that contributed nicely to my blog profile picture. Built on a greek church or castle or office building or something, its intimidating and stunning beautiful, much like JJ walking out of the ocean. (zing.) The stuff inside wasn’t bad either, but always makes me wish I were more artistically inclined. Then I try to draw in my journal and snap out of it. A few coffees, a walk to P Diddy’s yacht and the day was going great...until. Until....

I heard the familiar riff, played at many a minor league baseball game, and became immediately happy, but no...wait, what IS that?!?!?! The worst singer on the face of the planet butchering “Sweet Home Alabama.” Why the hell they were playing that song is beyond me, why they started it over mid song, is something else all together. And people were WATCHING. People, real people, paid MONEY for this. I thought France had discriminating taste in art...nay.

Le School

Our school in Nice is lovely. In an old creaky building with bright colors and lots of light, the classes are small and helpful and fun. Well, fun after coffee. School starts at a painful 8:45am and they really do want you to be there on time, its doesn’t matter if you are on vacation. Espresso in the morning becomes less of an indulgence and more of a necessity. The reminder that I suck at French is cheerily there every morning, but I don’t mind too much, everyone knows I came for the food.

The people in the class are from all over the place. We got Mexico, we got Ireland we got South Korea, we got Germany, we got (gasp) WISCONSIN. It was a great group really, and I miss the accents in the class that were worse than my own. Met some very good people there...Zoe, who I’m pretty sure is a supermodel/pop star/painter or something, posing as a chemist, and Claudia, an international heart-breaker looking for EU citizenship who speaks 3 languages better than I speak english.

After morning classes, walk to Boulangerie Sophie where we get something with butter and chocolate in it, and probably a quiche, then there is nap time for JJ, then lunch time when we eat the rest of the bakery stuff and I try to trick JJ into eating veggies, then beach time. School is le hard.

A usual day has dinner in Vielle Ville, the Old Town, or sandwich a la Cait and a cold 1664 (beer) at one of the bars on Rue Jean Medicin while watching France embarrass themselves on a worldwide stage. Watching Mexico BEAT FRANCE made me miss Tucson even more.

Leg One: Paris and Welcome to Nice

It started with a question. “If you could go anywhere right now, where would go?” Immediately, the answer was France. I think we were outside biostats, JJ was trying to study and I was not.

“So lets go then.” As simple as that. Ok, not really as simple as that. After that conversation came researching language schools in France, then tickets, then accommodation, then budget, then “I don’t know if this is going to happen.” But it did.

JJ is a friend from NYU. He puts up with, and I think is entertained by, large amounts of my crap. He tells jokes better than I can, has better insults than I do, can organize anything, is a good listener and tans like a greek god/stripper. Ladies, the line forms to the left...Anyway, he had never been to France, and it takes very little persuasion (zero) for me to buy a plane ticket to somewhere like Paris. Oh, we are going to Nice too? Ok, fine...I guess.

So me and my buddy jump on a plane, going through Iceland no less, catch some midnight sun and arrive in Paris, haggard, smelly and ready to party (sleep). After a less than relaxing voyage to the apartment we stayed in, we settled in showered and crashed. Morning came again around 2 and we did one of the most comprehensive tourist sweeps of a city that I have even been a part of. And I do this stuff.

From Notre Dame, the flower market, Les Halles, the Louvre, stop for pastry, the Tuilleries, The Champs Elysees, Arc de Triumph, Trocadero (where the ill-fated French team was playing in one of the first World Cup games) and finally the Eiffel Tower. Its so big. I have been there 4 times and the only thing that I can think about when I see it is, “Holy cow. That’s big.” Which is generally followed by “ice cream?”

I’m not a mathematician but adding up all those miles...I’d say we walked about 100 or so. So dinner time. Thank you Rick Steves for your hand-drawn map with smiley faces and sqigglies, we found the food street.

I started with a creamy, frothy carrot soup that I had not intended on getting until I saw it go to another table and got jealous. Then I had pigeon. Not pigeon, pigeonettte. Its a type of smaller, better, darker and probably cuter pigeon that they feed nothing but figs and barley to fatten it up and make perfect. Probably has a large vocabulary and volunteers with disabled kids on weekends kind of pigeon. Now there are many reasons why I love the French, and the purposeful creation of this bird goes on the list.

Served too-hot to touch with skin sizzling and surrounded by green pea and mint risotto, this bird was not, as they say, “fucking around.” Nor was I. Elbows on the counter, face in, butt out, and without regard for those around me, I devoured the cute little guy. Between bone sucking and skin ripping bliss, I made JJ try it. I think he was a little bit scared, I get kind of intense when I love what I’m eating. The fact that I had carcass and pigeonette fat dripping down my chin probably didn’t help much either. I think he had fish, it was probably really great. I talked about the bird and he rolled his eyes silently the whole way back the apartment.

First day in Paris: A+.

The next day we took the train to Nice. I had assured JJ that the train was the way to go because you get to see so much of France, there’s food, and you get to people watch. I was right. After our arrival we got into our apartments where our landlord made sure to fulfill every negative stereotype of French men possible. (I ended up liking him a lot later, but for the time being, he was being a le dickhead.)

Nice is beautiful in all the right post card ways. The beach and the lights and the terra cotta roofs and the people and the wine and the stuff. Its all pretty. I had Coquilles St Jacques that night for dinner. Scallops cooked in cream and fish stock with zucchini, carrots and loads of wild mushrooms. I was really happy. JJ ordered the antipasti Nicoise (which may or may not have been thought to be pasta) and enjoyed roughly 60% of it, but got 700% of his sodium for the week. And smelled like salty fish after. Win win.

It was an early Saturday night, as I had to prepare for Hurricane Lenore, who was coming in the next morning. But Nice, for the start, was nothing less than delicious.

Business as Usual

So best friend Lenore came to visit me in my new home. By new home, I mean the place that I arrived roughly 12 hours before. I know little to nothing about Nice at this point, only Rick Steves has been kind enough to through some info on what to do and not do, and I don't really listen well anyway.

Lenore gracefully enters Nice, as a Queen would do so, returning to the land that she serves. As long as that queen still smells like booze and has party make up on from the night before. The three short days that I had with Lenore were exactly as expected; fattening and perfect. I miss her so much. After introducing two people who know way too much about me over lunch at Wayne's, an ex-pat bar, JJ, or Gigi as he is now referred to, accompanied us up the Chateau Mountain at the end of the beach. I feel like the word "mountain" should generally pertain to something that I cannot climb in my sandals. But I'm not French. Anyway, we had our obligatory pseudo-excercise for the day and took 10 pictures of the exact same thing from different levels, and then retired to the beach.

Now, I love the beach, I do, but I always seem to overestimate the kindness of the water. This is another way of saying that I got my ass kicked by waves. Badly. Lenore did too, in the snot-inducing and "oh holy shit where's my top" way. Adding insult to injury, the beach in Nice is made of what the Nicoise refer to as "pebbles," which is crap. They are evil, giant stabbing rocks. So, as you are trying to crawl to safety and salvage what's left of your dignity (everyone is watching of course) you have to walk on daggers. This may be an exaggeration, but they hurt.

We spent the rest of the day safely on our towels.

The next few days were spent drinking and eating and I think I remember being late to school. She cheered for Italy, I did not, she was introduced to Hoegaarden, and still thinks its funny. It is. Sharing a twin bed is not easy, probably why I spent a lot of time on the floor, but I would do it all again.

Having a friend that tells you when you are being a silly asshole is really important, especially when she is one too.

I LOVE YOU LEN.

Welcome to the Introduction

So I leave the country sometimes, a lot. I have seriously considered thinking about possibly starting a blog a number of times, but it seemed like a lot of work. So now, on a rainy morning in my apartment on the Cote de Azur in France, I'm blogging. I'm a blogger.

This e-diary of my life will consist of stories of travel, the occasional emotional dump, my feelings regarding men in tank tops, and my not-so-secret lust for everything battered. And a few other things..

1. There will be a lot of things on this blog that you might not care about, or that might not even make sense to you. You might not know who or what I'm talking about and there's a good chance that I will neglect to explain it. Sorry.

2. The F word. It happens, I'm not proud of the fact that when I get mad/excited/happy/tired/hungry I tend to use it like a Staten Island Pirate, but I do.

3. I talk about food in a Danyelle Steel bodice-ripping way. I become overly descriptive and sometimes I have to take a walk after I write about burratta mozzarella. I love food, and if you know me at all, you know that there are few things that bring me more pleasure than a good burger, the perfect pigeon or a really great coffee.

4. I won't talk about my love life. One must have said "love life" to discuss such things.

5. Even with the best of intentions, I probably won't update this as much as I plan to.

6. I will try to find a balance between narcissism and thoughtful insight in what I write, but lets be honest, this is really all about me. Me me me me.

7. I don't really like the number 7. Skip.

8. I over punctuate. A lot. Like right now. But I will never use bad grammar. There is no excuse for it and I will not have that kind of garbage on my blog. Oh, and you will never, EVER, see any "ttyl" "lol" "brb" "or "fml" on this thing. If you use any of these ridiculous acronyms around me, I will e-punch you in the face.

9. Through the next few months, I will be traveling through France, Switzerland, Malawi and South Africa. There is a mixture of work, school and play in most of these places, and bound to be some pretty blatant bragging. Ignore, or post a snarky comment if desired. Oh, and there is a pretty good chance that I will write after a few cocktails. Again, feel free to ignore anything that starts with "aieruhjkjawinef;aiudhv 945djn your mom."

10. In all honesty, the reason for starting this blog is that while I love nothing more than eating my way through cultures all over the world, I miss my family and my friends dearly. This makes me feel a little bit better, as though telling you all stories on here is a temporary substitute for the back porch, the big bed on a sunday morning and the couch with too much wine.

So now the French sun is out, had its espresso and cigarette, and is ready for the day. And so am I.

Happy reading.