Leaving

    It feels strange leaving Nice. Right now the biggest improvement to my that I notice is I hear and understand it better. There are things I am going to miss, if course pastrys and gelato. But also the buildings, hearing French everywhere, and the people I've met.

Remembering France

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience in France! Although I have been home for over 2 weeks now, there are some things that still stand out in my mind. In addition to some of the differences others have discussed, I found the locks on doors rather annoying. Unlike what I am used to, all the locks - interior doors included - are completely separate from the door knob. Considering my host family also seemed to like keeping doors closed even when a room was unoccupied, you would never know if someone was in the bathroom until you turned the knob and pushed the door only to find it was occupied and locked!

Another personal annoyance would be the lack of carpet - anywhere! Sure, they had rugs on tile or hardwood floors, but I never saw actual carpet while there. I was happy to enjoy the comfort of my soft padded carpet once I returned....who would've ever thought about missing carpet?

Last of all, one thing I do miss from France are the coffee and hot chocolate vending machines everywhere. Also, never until France had I seen one of these - 

'freshly squeezed' orange juice from a vending machine anyone? 

Nice

    Nice is beautiful and seems more laid back than Paris (but there is still tons of honking from cars.) It is not as bustling and more open. The architecture of older buildings is different due to its history of being apart of Rome and Italy. Plus the weather changes so much it is almost like home.

Quick Rant

I'll make this brief: the horns of French automobiles need to be turned down several notches. That, or people should stop driving in a constant state of rage and impatience, like this cat. That is all.

My Train Ride to Lyon

The weekend of May 15-17 I decided to take the first solo train trip of my life. I have traveled with my family and friends quite a bit, but I had not gone out into the world completely by myself before. I originally wanted to visit the CERN Super Collider in Geneva Switzerland, but after some Web investigations I found that individual tours are now suspended and no tours are given in the subterranean sections of the facility. So I looked for alternatives. I wanted to stay in France to continue practicing the French language, so I decided to try Lyon. The bottom line is that I had fun and all worked out well, but there were a few hiccups along the way. Once I located my connecting train in the Marseilles St Char train station, I quickly found a seat labeled according to my assignment, second class seat number 61. There I happily remained until some new passengers boarded at a subsequent stop and confronted me with the assertion that I was in their seat. Upon showing them my ticket I received a free explanation about the importance of knowing your CAR number as well as your seat number. I could see that my new found teacher was indeed right, his ticket specified car 6 seat 61, whereas my ticket did not have the car number specified. He suggested that I try the next car over, car number 5. I apologized for the inconvenience, gathered my things, and headed toward car 5. I followed the numbers up to seat 61 and found that it was also already occupied by a handsome twenty something year old European male. I approached him with my ticket and explained my situation hoping that he could clear things up. He compared the ticket with his own and noticed that the departure times on the two tickets differed by 10 minutes. Hearing the words “mauvais train” come out of his mouth sent my mind into a tailspin, preparing myself to deal with ending up in some other random city in France and having to pay for another hotel room in addition to the one that was already reserved, and calling my parents to explain to them how I was not competent or adult enough to make it to Lyon by myself. All the worries were more or less put to rest however when I remembered that the conductor had announced at the beginning of the train ride that this train was indeed bound for Lyon, so I was going the right direction regardless. Unsure of my next move, I found a folding chair in the “between cars” area and took a seat to asses the situation. There I remained until our next stop in Avignon where the influx of new passengers forced me back into the train car. I sat down in the first empty seat that I saw, just to get out of the way. It only took a couple minutes before somebody showed up to kick me out of that seat as well, at which point I went in search of the conductor. This took much longer than it should have, but I eventually found him towards the front of the train and explained the situation as I had done several times before, in french. He took my ticket without saying anything and looked at it a bit puzzled. He scanned it, waited a second, then pointed back the way I had come saying “Car 8” in English. I thanked him and made my way back through the train. The remainder of the train ride was uneventful as I felt confident that I was in full compliance with train riding etiquette. I’m still not sure why the departure times were different on our two tickets, but the conductor didn’t say I was was on the wrong train, and I seem to remember the train leaving right on time according to my ticket, so at this point I am assuming that I had not made a mistake. And on the train ride back to Nice, I went to the conductor straight away to make sure I was in the right seat in the right car and on the right train.

Au Revoir, Mon Sandwich!

Irony is a funny thing, though usually only after the fact. In this case, it was funny instantaneously.

The group and I were in Monaco and had just been given a few pieces of advice by our tour guide of sorts: don't walk on the grass, don't be late for meeting back with the group, don't let seagulls steal your food because they're not shy about it... Things like that. Basics, things you can easily follow through with, right? Of course, that was a bit easier anticipated than done. Not long after, Devin, Travis, and I decided to get food. After a bit of looking, I settled on a sandwich and was very much looking forward to eating it in its entirety. As it would happen, irony stepped in in the form of a not-so-shy winged animal. Though aware of the advice given, I unthinkingly had the sandwich essentially advertising thievery by holding it out in the open. Before I had time to even process what had happened, I felt something on my shoulder: it was a seagull foot. A fraction of a second later, I felt its beak powerfully extract and fly away with a good portion of my sandwich. I stood dumbfounded and looked back at Devin and Travis, who started laughing, which, of course, made me laugh. I decided it was best not to continue eating my seagull-tainted-sandwich and parted ways with it, feeling both amused and cheated.

Moral of the story: it could happen to you. Never think you won't be "that guy", because you could be, especially when irony is involved.

Au revoir, mon sandwich.

Entrevaux