Day 10 - Nice

We’ve decided not to include the mundane details of waking up, packing, eating breakfast, and so on and so forth (No mundane details! I’m so proud of her) (for clarification, that was Sara taking the computer; the italics are meant to distinguish between this act and that of the designated blog writer quoting the other)*, so for the purposes of this blog, our day began with a visit to la Place Masséna, which is the town center of Nice. This is helpfully located on the map of the area our hostel offered to us... only, this big black rectangle naming it and clarifying what it is covers up the precise location, which rather makes their point of interest designations less useful.

Regardless of the degree of helpfulness and accuracy of said map, we found it, and from there, walked towards the coast (re: more blue). In Nice as well as Cannes, you see, there is a promenade of sorts along the beach; here, it is called la Promenade des Anglais, which was situated next to (perhaps co-linearly with) le Quai des Etats-Unis. Thus, in some ways, our home country has not quite left us altogether.

Nice from le Château.

We promenaded along the shoreline until we came to le Château, which one actually takes an elevator to get to, due to its altitude (there were stairs, but we have been traveling for ten days now, so let’s just leave it at that). The Château has undergone various additions and renovations throughout the centuries, and is currently the object of an archeological investigation. The Château provided lovely panoramas of Nice and the surrounding mass of BLUE, so we took many pictures from various heights and angles. Other fun observations include that people were doing some form of yoga, there was a small park for children, and some of the steps had pictures tiled into them.

Archeological site.

Our need for blue satisfied, we descended to the main town level and headed for the Cathedral, which is situated in the Vieille Ville (old town) section of the city. The cathedral was smaller, of course, than Notre Dame and its Parisian kin, but nevertheless highly detailed, with various small chapels along the sides, large oil paintings, and stained glass windows. Additionally, it also had spots at which tourists could pay to light a candle, just as we saw in other cathedrals and churches in Paris.

The very ornate Cathedral.

We walked through the Vieille Ville towards le Cour Saleya, which our map describes as the host to a “fruit and flower market.” The square does, in fact, have a large market, which sells many local fruits and flowers. In addition to this, herbs, meat (including fish that were presumably freshly caught from the sea), soap, paintings of flowers, and other small trinkets were available for purchase.

From the market, we wandered the Vieille Ville a bit more, crossed the square that houses le Palais de Justice, and eventually stumbled across a museum situated in an old palace (not on the scale of Versailles, but a grand and old house of a rich, noble family at any rate). We happened to arrive during the exhibition on old instruments and music, particularly pianos and harpsichords. Prior to this visit, I knew nothing about the development of these instruments – nothing about their makers or the different styles that could be found in different parts of Europe at various times throughout their histories. My present knowledge is still light, but at least now I am able to recognize a few names and such, and I can say that I have seen very old, beautifully painted pianos, on the likes of which the great composers of yore played. (Here, shout-out to Jay, who probably would have gotten more out of the exhibit than me, given the various sketches of the inside mechanisms of the different pianos.)

A very ornate piano.

Ever mindful of the time of our train’s departure, we ambled along until we came to a promising-looking café. The food was good, although, once finished eating, we displayed our usual level of awkwardness regarding how precisely to pay for the meal we had just consumed. After sitting about for a few minutes, I asked the waiter for the check, and he obliged. I placed my credit card on the plastic bill-holder and waited for him to return to collect it. When he did not, I looked towards the counter, wondering if we were supposed to bring the check there, but that did not seem to be the case. After waiting about for a few more minutes, I managed to get his attention as he passed, and asked if they took credit cards, as that is not always the case. Eventually, a different waiter took pity on us and brought a handheld credit card reader with him. More awkwardness ensued when he explained that he was going to bring back a receipt for me to sign (despite the fact that there was already a bill and one receipt out at this point). There was no place on the receipt to list a tip amount, so we were also left to struggle through that on our own. According to various Google searches done before the trip, tipping is different in England, France, and Spain (both from each other and from the U.S.), but nevertheless it seems like the safest thing to do is always leave at least a small tip, so Sara dug out some coins, which were then left on the table as we made our escape. The whole endeavor, from sitting down at the table to leaving the tip, took about forty minutes; from the time we finished eating to the time we left was fifteen minutes, which means that a fairly sizeable percentage of the time at the café was spent in awkward confusion.

Although the dessert following the main meal is often dealt with at the same time as the main meal, this one deserves its own paragraph. Sara had spotted a gelato shop across the square from the café, so we descended upon it after our grateful escape from the awkwardness of restaurant payments (if our other troubles in this area haven’t made it into the blog, believe me, that is not because there have been none; indeed, this afternoon we joked about all the waiters in Europe getting together years from now to discuss those awkward young American girls who never know what they’re doing). Normally, when I get any sort of cold, creamy treat (namely ice cream, but also any of its various cousins), I get it in a dish, for maximum neatness and thus enjoyment. However, when I tried to ask for my gelato in a dish, the employee got confused, which leads me to believe that the small dishes they had on the counter were for sampling purposes only. Either way, my very tasty gelato was served in a cone. I would like to emphasize the fact that I cannot remember the last time I had ice cream/other similar delicacy in a cone (by this, I do not mean even a few years ago, but rather my early childhood). As I remarked to Sara, I do not understand how one can enjoy the treat this way, as one is too busy desperately keeping it from dripping all over the place to appreciate the taste (we believe the exact quote to be as follows: “How am I supposed to enjoy this? This is just desperate licking!”). Sara was quite amused by my predicament, and took pictures to have proof of the incident.

"What do I do now?" says Miel, as she reaches the top of the cone. Other quotations: "Am I supposed to use the spoon?" and "How do they get it all the way to the bottom of the cone?"

Freshly gelatoed, we headed for the train station. Platform numbers are supposed to be announced twenty minutes in advance of departure; once we were at about ten minutes to departure, I went to an information desk to inquire as to the platform number/reason for the delay (which was not marked on the screen), and the woman informed me that the train was still being cleaned, and that we would have to wait. A couple minutes after this, the board finally switched from “à l’heure” to “retard probable: 10 mn.” Apparently their powers of estimation are rather good, as the train did leave about ten minutes late. Once boarded, we discovered a French gentleman sitting in one of our seats. I showed him our ticket, and he explained that we were in the wrong car (our tickets were for car 5, and he insisted that the car in which we were standing was car 6); a woman across the aisle confirmed that we were presently in voiture 6. Slightly confused, we walked back towards the little in-between space, and confirmed that they were in what was truly car 5. We returned and explained this to the man (or rather, I did), and again he insisted that this was car 6. This time, we went through the opposite in-between place and into the car marked “6,” in which I asked a woman which car it was. After she replied, “Six,” we headed back into car 5, at which point I explained very clearly to the man that this was car 5, and that was car 6. He left, and we assumed our rightful positions. Apparently I am doomed to having (rather calm) disputes with the French, and I do want to point out the amusingness of the situation, in that two young foreigners were actually correct and the middle-aged native was not. Another necessary note about said train is that the air conditioning was not functioning, making the cars rather hot and stuffy.

As an aside, I would like to take this opportunity to thank/apologize to all of the French people on trains, trams, and métros on whose conversations I have eavesdropped (with varying degrees of subtlety) over the past week and a half. One of those people would be an employee of the train company, who spent much of the journey from Nice to Marseille (where we had a transfer) either bringing people water, calming down people who were going to miss their connections, or on the phone with people from the next station in attempts to convince them to delay the trains with large numbers of passengers needing to switch from ours to theirs.

Luckily, our “layover” was over an hour long, so the delay did not affect us. While eating dinner, Sara remarked that whoever decided that European sandwiches could have butter on them rather than mayo was her “best friend,” and I’m inclined to agree with the sentiment. We’ve had quite a lot of “sandwich au jambon, frommage, et beurre” over the past week or so, and they’re really quite enjoyable. (And now, to move on from a detail Sara thinks unnecessary to include…) Once the platform number for our train to Carcassonne at last appeared upon the screen, we headed for the proper train and car, and boarded. The suitcase areas are only in the center of the cars on this train (on which I am writing this note) (point of context: on most city-to-city trains, there is a decent-sized rack in the in-between car spot, and sometimes an additional rack in the center of the car). As I explained to the women watching our attempts to shove our suitcases into the thin racks, “C’est trop gros!” (If I had wanted to refer to the valise specifically it would have been, “Elle est trop grosse;” furthermore, if I had desired to discuss les valises or nos affaires, “Elles sont trop grosses” would have been the proper way to do so, but instead I simply said “it,” and you’ll have to forgive me for the vague nature of the pronoun.) We got them about halfway in, at which point the women assured us that the suitcases wouldn’t move and would be just fine. We then set out to find our seats; however, the numbers were not yet in the screens above the seats, so we chose a pair at random and sat down. When the numbers came on, there was some confusion as to whether or not people were actually going to switch seats around; this was complicated by the fact that some of us had specific seat reservations while others did not, as well as that some people entered after the numbers came on, and thus did not see why people were sitting in their rightful spots. A pair of teenage girls are presently in our proper seats (3 and 4), so we moved to sit directly in front of them, in case of any confusion, which as of yet there hasn’t been. Sara has pointed out the changing scenery, which went from California to more of a Colorado to South Dakota to North Dakota feel, with the addition of random castles and ruins and old churches.

We did go to the best city, Erin!

Sara has altogether given up on attempting to read this while on the train, and is instead reading her book, which accounts for the lack of colorful commentary in this post. I apologize to our DEAR READERS most profusely for this lapse. (Sara did, however, look up to comment on the length of the post, for which I do not apologize, since I will want these details later to confirm my memory.) (I do apologize, as reading it over, it is very, very long and fairly wordy. I shall try to control her better in the future.)

For those of you DEAR, DEVOTED READERS who stuck with me throughout this blog post, you are THE BEST. Sara wants me to apologize to our parents and Ms. H-W because they’re obligated to read the whole thing. With that, good night.

- Miel & Sara

* SparkNotes version of this blog post: We saw old places in Nice, which were pretty. We were awkward about paying for our lunch. I had a gelato cone. We managed to have more adventures on trains. I will make sure the quiz requires further explanation of all of these details, but, to be polite, I’ve made this little note anyway.

P.S. Upon arrival in Carcassonne, we have found that 1) France is generous with free wi-fi (this is the third hotel in a row that has it), and 2) We are now close enough to Spain that the third language on everything is Spanish (and sometimes even the second)!