Où est le soleil?

Alright Nice, seriously.  I signed up for three months on the Mediterranean!  WHERE IS THIS SUN!?

Okay, had to vent just a little.  But in all honesty, I’m a little bummed that its been so gloomy here.  In Nice, there really isn’t much to do except eat and shop when its grey like this, and the ladder I should do without, because Nice does have wonderful shopping, and I have very little self control when it comes to shoes and handbags.  I mean, I’ve been giving boots like these the same amount of wishful glances as the tartes au citron in the bakery windows!  Needless to say, I should avoid mindlessly walking around the mall.

I will say though, we still haven’t visited any of the museums.  I suppose now would be the best time to do so.  They’re free, but they’re also small, so it would really only buy us another maybe, 3 or 4 afternoons of entertainment before we’re back to square one.

On a brighter note, Jon and I are in the process of planning a trip this weekend to Torino, Italy.  Its only about, 6 hours away by train, so we would get there around 7pm, stay up all night walking around and exploring, check into a hotel that morning so we can shower and take a nap, go out and enjoy Torino during the day and into the evening, and get some sleep in our hotel Saturday night so we don’t miss our early Sunday morning train.  Sounds like I should have a caffeine section in my budget for the weekend, thats for sure.  But we want to get the most out of Torino without paying for two nights in a hotel.  We’ll see how it goes as we get closer in our planning.

So, for those reading in other parts of the world, I hope you’re weather is beautiful.  All my Florida friends have been bragging about tanning at the pool or the beach; you bet the moment the sun comes back out I’m going straight to the beach after class, Kindle in hand, ready to soak up that beautiful sun.  Or at least try- those who know me know that I’m very fair skinned, burn easily, and freckle.  Which means I should probably figure out what sunscreen is in French.

Bonne journée!

Oh! Also, if you’ll notice, at the bottom of my posts I’ve added buttons so you can easily share them with your friends and family on whatever social networking sites you frequent!  So feel free to share!

Le Défilé des Lumières

Yesterday was another parade day for Carnival, and Jon and I had every intention of attending both the Bataille de Fleurs (Battle of the Flowers) and Le Défilé des Lumières (The Parade of Lights).  At €10 a piece, mind you.

However, we learned something critically important for our future parade plans:  tickets are on sale only two hours before the start of the event.  So when we arrived at the day parade location at 3:00 pm (30 minutes after it started) we were greeted by closed ticket booths.  Now, I’m already frustrated enough that we have to pay to see a parade.  In the US, the most you have to pay for are premium viewing seats, which for those willing to pay for them, more power to you!  But all of the Carnival parades are paid events with the exception of the opening ceremony, and Mardi Gras.  But to show up and find out that we couldn’t even pay to see it because the ticket booths were closed was frustrating enough to make me want to boycott the whole thing.  Okay, not really.  My mood was helped significantly after finding a gummy candy stand full of my childhood favorites, and a stand selling Venetian style masks.  Jon suggested we buy ourselves one and dress up for the night parade.  This came as a bit of a surprise to me, I can’t even get him to partake in Halloween parties, but you don’t have to ask me twice to dress up.  Jon also enjoyed a beignet filled with warm apple sauce that was simply amazing.

After walking around a few more carnival stands, we headed home, mouths watering, and exciting plans for the night to come.  After a good two hour nap, and thirty minutes of primping and layering as much as possible while wearing tights and a dress (and of course, a coat) we were off.  We got a lot of looks walking down the street, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they were good.  But when we got to the parade location, I totally didn’t feel silly anymore.  We got there pretty early, to ensure we’d be able to get tickets, and enjoyed a good hour or so of people watching before the parade actually began.  I saw a lot of glittery wigs and funny hats and face paint.

Once the parade began, it was just like the first night.  Silly string and confetti everywhere.  Jon and I were pretty fortunate not to get plastered with silly string, and I welcomed the confetti.  I thought it was fun.  The parade itself was incredible, and incredibly long.  But not the long you feel when you’re performing in a dreadfully long and boring  parade.  This was the sort of long that, once you finally feel your toes start to become numb with cold, you look at your watch and say “Oh my goodness, its already been over an hour!”  I think I had better luck taking pictures for this one, given that the Parade of Lights would probably be fairly well lit, however, my battery did die probably 3/4 of the way through the parade.  Which worked out to Jon’s benefit because he filled up his memory card, and had to use mine.

After the parade, I finally tried the churros I had been boycotting since we arrived.  I felt pretty strongly that €4 for a small thing of churros was pretty outrageous… until I got close enough to read the rest of the sign.  A small comes with ten churros!  I did skip the chocolate (even though it was temping, since they dip theirs in Nutella) and went with the classic churros, covered in sugar.  And, lucky me, they were fresh out of the fryer.  So. Delicious.

So, here are some of the pictures I managed to snap before my camera died.  Amusez-vous bien!

Un récapitulatif fin d’un déjeuner mal documentées

So I learned something very important the night before our big Greek lunch: its very easy to forget that you promised to take pictures when you’re wrapped up in converting your cups of yogurt to grams.  So, unfortunately, the only picture I managed to remember was a picture of the table full of food before everyone dug in.

The Spread

Looks pretty delicious, right?  From the bottom to the top we have: Macedonian salad, lemon and dill chicken and rice (Jon and I pretty much made that one up, and it turned out great!), our beautiful tzatziki sauce which is next to Neelima’s dish, a traditional Indian chickpea dish, and finally, enough bread and pita to feed an arm.  I unfortunately failed to remember to put our dessert in this picture, but we had a fruit and nut tart of some sort that was delicious, and a chocolate hazelnut tart of some sort that was simply divine.

Well, thankfully, everyone loved it.  The lunch went off without a hitch.  Everyone had a great time, and even stuck around for nearly four hours just talking about all sorts of stuff.  When your table has two people from the United States, two people from Saudi Arabia, one person from Mexico, one person from India, and one person from Russia, the subjects vary greatly from alcohol, politics, movies, and food.  When everyone parted, Jon and I took a very well deserved nap, and the remainder of the evening consisted of taxes (I’m getting nine whole dollars back!) and filling out my FAFSA, which went off a lot better this year than last.  Thank goodness.

Today after class, since the weather was beautiful, Jon and I walked back down to the marina so he could jump around on all the rocks and the break water.  Needless to say, he had way to much fun reliving a little bit of his childhood.  It was fun and scary to watch him.  I guess I’m just not the dare devil I used to be.  So here are some pictures from that.

Jon and I before he started jumping around

Climbing

And jumping

And giving me funny looks

And resting

And strechting-ish.

As for the evening, it was fairly relaxed, considering we spent about 5 hours of our afternoon just walking around.  Tomorrow I’m hoping to brave the slight chill in the air for some tanning time on the beach.  I’m in desperate need of some color.  Carnival parades continue tomorrow as well, so hopefully the weather holds up for us to finally go see one.

Until next time, bonne nuit!

J’ai eu un dîner niçoise magnifique avec mon copain

So since our host family is out of town this week, we are not obligated to have dinner with them every night at 8.  Well, I say obligated, but we really don’t mind.  Its very easy, and always good.  However, we haven’t been able to go out to dinner since we arrived (which is probably best for our wallets), so this week proved to be the perfect opportunity to do so.

Yesterday, Jon did some online research, and found a wonderful little restaurant nestled in Vieux Nice (Old Nice) that serves traditionally niçoise cuisine, including an incredibly simple chickpea appetizer called socca.  It was sort of the chickpea version of a crêpe, drizzled with the best olive oil I’ve had in a long time, and some fresh cracked black pepper.  C’est magnifique!

The entrée choices were somewhat expected; a lot of sea food, fresh vegetables and pasta, and homemade pizzas.  Jon and I both, after heavy consultation with my pocket dictionary, opted for the raviolis ricotta quatre fromages (four cheese ricotta ravioli).  I know, the food in Nice sounds very Italian.  But if you haven’t checked a map recently, Nice is a mere 18 miles from the Italian border, so its no surprise a dinner of cheese raviolis would be typical in Nice.

However, you could not call these raviolis typical.  In the US, when you ask for anything “4 cheese”, its usually consists of the typical mozzarella, parmesan, provolone, maybe some goat cheese if the chef is feeling a little frisky.  But in France, when you ask for 4 cheeses, they’re rarely low on flavor.  This was the cheesiest (the good kind) ravioli I have ever had, and I have no idea what sort of cheeses actually made up the sauce.  Needless to say, they were strong, but fantastic.  Served with pieces of a baguette along side (best eaten at the end to try and eat all the left over sauce) and a few glasses of water, and we were in cheese-lover’s heaven.

Now, despite the fact that we were stuffed full of cheesy goodness, the moment I saw crème brûlée on the menu, there was no leaving without having some.  I think it followed our ravioli quite nicely.  Then again, I would eat it after any dinner, it has always been my favorite. C’est magnifique!

Okay, now that your mouth is watering a little, I do have to bring up the lunch.  Apparently ground lamb is quite difficult to find in Nice.  So its looking like we’re going to end up making chicken.  Which is totally fine with me.  I love chicken, and I can’t think of anyone I know that either can’t eat it because of religious practices, or because they don’t like it.  And with Neelima bringing some sort of chickpea dish, Doha possibly bringing dessert, and Olesya bringing wine (for those who can drink it) I think this is going to turn into a pleasant lunch.

As for today, its laundry day, so we’ll be apartment bums for at least two hours until we can get all our clothes through the washer and hung up.  Then grocery shopping, and the preparation begins.

Bonne journée!

Nous prévoyons un repas grec

In my previous post, I mentioned a lunch that Jon and I had with a few classmates of ours, and that this week we’d be hosting one of our own.  After pondering on a cuisine type for a day or so, we landed on Greek.  Obviously, Jon and I are not Greek, but we’re firm believers in the fact that there is very little that one could call “American Food”, with the exception of soul food, which would involve frying chicken, and I don’t want to try that for the first time for a bunch of new friends.  So therefore opted for one of our favorites.  Our choice may have been swayed slightly by the fact that we’ve been craving tzatziki sauce basically since we got here, but that is neither here nor there.

However, planning a meal for people of many different cultural and religious backgrounds could be a little difficult.  For instance, Khalid and Doha are both from Saudi Arabia, and Muslim, so pork is not an option.  Fine by me, its neither my favorite nor Jon’s.  But Neelima is from India, so Hindu, and cannot eat beef.  So that leaves us with chicken, lamb, and fish.  Lamb would be classically Greek, so definitely an option.  Fish isn’t possible because I’m weary of serving fish that isn’t purchased that day, which would make having a quick lunch after class a little more difficult.  And of course, the comfort zone, chicken.  Somehow we landed on Greek meatballs, made with lamb, onion, feta and Kalamata olives, despite the fact that neither of us have cooked lamb before.  Hopefully this goes well, otherwise all we’ll have is a rockin’ Macedonian salad and tzatziki with pita.  I am remaining optimistic though; Jon and I surprise ourselves in the kitchen sometimes, so I’m confident in our ability to follow a recipe.  Converting US standard measurements to metric may prove to be a little annoying and time consuming, but alas, we always did well in math.

I will be photo documenting everything, and we’ll start preparing everything tomorrow night.  I’m a little more excited than I should be, but I love to cook, and I haven’t been able to in over a month.  Wish me luck! :)

Nice commence à se sentir comme Londres

Today I learned an important traveling tip: When spending an extended amount of time in one place, its okay to have flexible plans.

Today, Jon and I were supposed to venture to the small medieval town of Saint Paul de Vence with one of our classmates, Fabiola, and her boyfriend Niko.  I saw some of her pictures on Facebook from the place, said it looked gorgeous, and she insisted she take us there to see it.  Sounds great?

Well its cold and rainy.  We had two days full of beautiful sunshine after nearly a week of rain, and today it came back again.  I’m starting to feel more like I’m in London rather than on the Mediterranean.

Had this been a week long trip, and we saved Saint Paul de Vence for our last day, sure, we would have probably still bundled up and gone to see the town, umbrellas in tow.  Our memories would probably be the only pictures we’d have, and nothing would appear as beautifully vibrant as expected.  But we’re staying for 3 months, there is always next weekend.

This week ahead does look promising though, even if it rains.  Our host family is leaving town, so Jon and I will have the apartment to ourselves.  Our family has been wonderful, but sleeping in on the weekend is a little difficult with a three year old outside our bedroom.  Also, this past Friday, one of our classmates, Khalid, had Jon, Fabiola and I over for lunch, and we had such a great time that we decided we should each host at least once.  It would be very difficult to do this with our family here, so this week is our week!  We just have to figure out what to make.  Fabiola also informed us that the museums are free, and we plan on visiting them together this week!  So even if it does rain, so long as I don’t get sick [*knock on wood*] it will be a great week.

Le temps d’un peu d’auto-publicité

Thats right, time for a little bit of self advertising.

I lost my Yahoo! ID and figured it was time to start paying closer attention to my photography again, if I ever want to do anything professional with it.  So I created a new account and uploaded a few pictures, and I insist you check it out and add me if you have a Flickr account too!  Okay, maybe not insist, I’m not that bossy, but I would greatly appreciate it. :)  So check it out here!

Also, I’m not the best at Twitter, but I’m learning and I know a lot of people really love using it, so if you would like to follow me, please do!

Alright, enough of that! Ciao!

Carnaval de Nice: Roi de la Méditerranée

So last night was the start of Carnival, and the one in Nice happens to be one of the largest in the world.  You know, up there in ranks with the ones held in Venice and Rio de Janeiro.  Needless to say, it was quite the spectacle.

We went together with our host family, but they left within maybe ten minutes of getting there.  It was 8:30 in the evening, and Nicolas would normally be getting a little cranky anyway, but the whole thing scared him.  Poor thing.

The theme this year was “Roi de la Méditerranée” or King of the Mediterranean.  They had these huge balloons shaped like various sea creatures, a dragon of some sort, and some crazy mermaid thing that had cat heads for boobs.  I really wish I could have understood what they were saying, because if they described that I would have liked to know.  Oh well.  The crew was a lot of fun to watch, the people pulling the balloons had some crazy make up, and the spectators were throwing confetti everywhere and hitting people with silly string.  I must say, I’ve spent many hours watching the Travel Channel, and of all the things I’ve seen people throw in a celebration, these two are preferable, by a long shot.

Now, I don’t really know how to describe the rest of what I saw.  It seemed to require the same amount of acid to create this event as Beatles used while creating the Magical Mystery Tour album.  So I’ll have to once again let the pictures do the talking.

BUT: My camera is poorly suited for night photography.  I have not had the funds available to purchase a proper DSLR, so I’ve been working with a Canon PowerShot SD1000.  That being said, its definitely the best point-and-shoot I’ve ever had, and Jon had the same one, but I acquired it used from a pawn shop and its a little dated now, since they don’t even make it anymore.  Needless to say, my first big purchase (aside from a Vespa, scooter or small car of some sort) once I get back to the states will be a proper Nikon DSLR.  Its hard to make photography a real hobby, or even more, with a point-and-shoot.

So, long explanation aside, the pictures are blurry.  I couldn’t let that keep me from showing you guys just how crazy and huge this event it.  So here are my pictures.  Jon is still going through all of his (which turned out much better), but he will be posting them in a blog post soon, so keep checking in on his blog here for his pictures.

Balloons!

The octopus balloons were my favorite

Aren’t they cute!

Jon and I… amongst a few thousand people

More balloons

Even more balloons

Crew member gettin’ his groove on.

And even more balloons.

Can you tell they were my favorite?

They were moving pretty quickly, so I barely caught him. This is what the people pulling the balloons looked like.

TROIS, DEUX, UN… CONFETTI!

Confetti over a few thousand people

King of the Mediterranean float

The Carnival Queen

Some weird lady float

The seahorses with the King

Seahorses again, I thought they were awesome

And again, seahorses.

The crowd

Crew members standing on crew members. You know, nothing out of the ordinary.

Crazy lady float

The Carnival food stand. Its just as big of a rip off here as it is in the US

The Ferris Wheel

Definitely the biggest one I’ve ever seen in person

Also, here’s a short video clip that Jon took!

J’ai peut-être allergique aux crevettes

So, I’m sorry for my lack of posting the past couple days.  Its still raining and miserably cold, so Jon and I really haven’t been doing much of anything other than catching up on various homework tasks and rest.  Which is good since I feel the tickle of another cold in my nose, which is frustrating.

Actually, the majority of this week has been rather frustrating.  Earlier this week, I finally had to tell my “host mom” that I didn’t like something that she made.  I was totally bummed, because I was hoping to avoid the conversation all together.  I’ve been able to stomach through eating my carrots, but we weren’t having carrots that night, we were having sausage and beans.  Beans are probably one of my least favorite side dishes under the sun.  And sausage, every kind is different for me.  So after she rushes back into the kitchen to whip me up some mashed potatoes (with my apologizing like, every 5 seconds as usual), Jon and I sat down and made a “Je n’aime pas” (I don’t like) and a “J’aime” (I like) list.  The I like list was just very generalized, since Jon and I like a lot more than we don’t like, but the don’t like list was rather short and specific.  For me: ham, beans, peas, bell peppers, mayonnaise, sausage, bleu cheese.  For Jon: olives, pickles, bleu cheese and ham.  Shrimp, and all other crustaceans of the sort should have been on our don’t like list, but alas, its hard to remember all the food you don’t like.

So that brings us to last night.  Shrimp alfredo.  Now, when I say I don’t like shrimp, its mostly a texture thing, but I don’t care for the flavor or the smell your house gets when you cook them.  But since it wasn’t on our don’t like list, I decided to be polite and eat them anyway.  Four hours later I realized that was an awful idea.  I woke up a little before midnight feeling really nauseous, and voila.  I got to praise the Porcelain God until 1:something in the morning.  Fun.

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  Most shrimp, or shellfish, allergies usually result in the sort of symptoms that fall under anaphylactic shock; rash, hives, fever, dizziness, trouble swallowing or breathing, you know, those sorts of things.  But alas, my wonderful boyfriend did some online research and found out the GI responses are possible, just not as common.  The reason I decided it must be an intolerance of some sort was because I was the only one sick.  If the food was contaminated, or the shrimp were bad, all four of us would have been fighting over visitation rights to the Lord of the WC, but that wasn’t the case.  I ate the least amount of shrimp, and I was the only one sick.  Not to mention I felt pretty much 100% all day except for some mild sniffles, and it couldn’t have been something else I ate that day because I didn’t eat anything new, and everything I ate, Jon also ate.  So readers, do you think I’m too far off thinking this might be an allergic or intolerant response of some sort?  Either way, I guess I’ll finally get that scratch test I’ve been putting off forever; I have a few other possible allergies I’d like to confirm.

So there you have it.  A picture-less, rather miserable and frustrating recap of my week.  Good thing everything happened when the weather was miserable and best suited for curling up with a good book before drifting into an afternoon nap.  I’d feel bad if I kept Jon in with me while the sun was out.  Which it should come back tomorrow, thank goodness. :)

Bonne St-Valentin!

I don’t really have a whole lot to say about today, as it was fairly laid back.   But alas, its Valentine’s Day, and I felt I couldn’t go through my day without at least wishing everyone who reads this a lovely day.

Today is also Olesya’s birthday, and she brought a tarte aux fruits for us to enjoy during our coffee break today.  C’est magnifique!

After class, I had to go buy a new charger for my laptop, which was frustrating, but alas.  Basically, the SmartCharge charger I had failed to perform within its given voltage range, and the transformer box thingy exploded.  Okay, not like, shards of plastic and electrical fire sort of explosion, but one of the circuits did break and the thing melted.  Chinese piece of crap.  Ugh.  So after picking one, opening the box, and realizing that it might not actually have an adapter for my laptop, we rushed home to try it just to find out that it sort of did.  When I say sort of, I mean it charges, but it doesn’t have the same… “hook” the other one did.  The old one wouldn’t fall out if the wind blew, this one probably would.  But alas, we have it all set up, and I just have to refrain from using the laptop while its charging… Sounds way too complicated and annoying for something I’m going to have to replace when I get back to the states anyway, but alas.  So, my future travelers, if you have an extra charger for whatever reason, bring it just in case.  Always check the maximum input voltages on your electronics; just because you have something that converts the plug type doesn’t mean your US electronic device won’t explode when you plug it into the 240 volts they use in Europe.  Now, my charger was “supposedly” good up to 240, but whatever, done venting about that.

I also had to spend a little more money on a new coat.  Now, I have a rather nice, black wool peacoat that I just love, but here in Nice, its really been sort of a pain in the rear.  The weather here is sort of frustrating.  In the shade, its too cold to go without the coat, but when in the sun, its too strong to wear it, but then the wind is too strong to go without it, you follow?  Basically, I needed a coat that wasn’t as warm as the one I have, because the only other thing I have, and brought with me, are light cardigan sort of sweaters, which do nothing when the sun goes down.  Now, I only came to this conclusion after consulting Nice’s Wikitravel page to find out that the temperature is only going to go up about 5-10 degrees during our three months here.  Not much at all.  So we went shopping again.  I was quite successful, and its even sort of semi-water-impermeable.  I would not call it a rain coat… but water does bead on the surface should I find myself umbrella-less in a light drizzle.  Pretty sure I’d be soaked in a downpour though.  So there’s travel tip number two for the day: bring a coat that can work in a wide range of temperatures, and that can be easily layered with a sweater for more warmth.

Okay, sort of a ramble-y post.  My apologies.

Bonne St-Valentin!