A couple of things done:

Fixed the layout to look all nicey-nice.
Got rid of the last few bored-out-of-my-mind posts.

I promise I won't get off-topic again. heh. Time to go to the beach ... it is Saturday, after all.

too sweet!! Dale is away from work today, so it gave me the hour or so I needed to make an archive by place! Yep, just pick a place and you'll be whisked away there. Brought to you by rLowe^©   ;-)

Just thought I'd give you fair warning: not much is going to happen for a little while. It's a little over a month before my next visitor (Anny) comes along, so until then I'll just be working and reading books to pass the time.

Yeah, I know I lead an exciting life here. :)

This Past Weekend

I hear from Brad on Thursday: the boys are going to Montpellier, France and I should meet them there (a 6 hour train ride - I'm stoked nontheless) ....

.... I heard nothing until Friday morning. It's Bob, Montpellier fell through and he's back in Nice. Brad and Crusoe went ahead to Spain. I should meet him in Nice Friday night.

So I did.

That night we had a few brews and just chilled out. Nothing much going on Friday night.

On Saturday two girls that Bob met in Shinco Terra, Italy (mental note: go there) came to Nice and we met them at the train station. Bob and I had our first real "meal" instead of sandwiches for dinner and then we went to Thor's again ...

Our waitress this time was a danish young woman that looked like Gerri Halliwell (people called her Ginger, if that wasn't cheesy enough) before the real Gerri became incredibly incredibly (gross) skinny. When I ordered my first beer, a Carlsberg, her face lit up and she said "That stuff's from my home town!" .... need to get myself to Denmark, methinks. Compared to the dark stuff I've been drinking, the Carlsberg went down like wadda. After that I had a pricey bottle of Corona, just because I missed the taste. It hit the spot quite nicely. Just don't ask me how much it was. *SHHH!* (that was a pre-emptive "SHHH!") I said don't ask me! :)

Later in the night a really drunk Brit fell on his face really close to our table. His face made a splat! sound when it hit the hard sidewalk (oooooo .... THAT'S gonna leave a mark!). But after about 10 seconds the guy was back standing up and joking again. I was both scared and impressed at the same time.

On Sunday I took them to Antibes on their way to Cannes to go to Heidi's English Book Store, where I get all of my books. I had to leave them early though, because the busses back to Sophia don't run very late on Sundays. Ah well ...

So as you can see, nothing really crazy/exciting happened. I had my camera pretty much the whole time, but I didn't take any pics this weekend. I even bought new batteries on Friday. I should be ashamed (heh) but I think I was all pictured-out from last week. You understand, right?

Meta-Physical

My eyes are still brown. I'm still just short of 6 feet tall. I still wear t-shirts all of the time to stay comfortable.

I haven't washed my hair in a month, I just rinse it. It's much more manageable. It's about the same length it was before I razor shaved it in April. It's getting lighter from weekends in the sun. I considered gelling it, but I'd rather just let it go long and scruffy, getting a 35$ haircut every so often. I wore a hat in May because it spikes straight up when it's short. Now it's lying down flat.

My nose is burnt badly from the weekend with the guys. Skin flakes off it like paper-thin layers of shale rock. My eye-sockets are a bit lighter than my face because I wear my Oakleys all of the time (I can't see in the bright sun without 'em). My tan is uniform and stops abruptly at the waistline, like the difference between black and white on a chessboard. The tan fades in again at the knees and goes all the way to my toes.

My nails were longer before I bit them all off yesterday, annoyed with the length. I have no other reason to bite them - no stress here, no anxiety.

I think I'm losing weight because I'm eating a lot better but I don't have a scale here. Three steady, heathly meals a day, hardly any booze (except last weekend), again no stress. That and I run through an exercise course 2 or 3 times a week (or at least I was until last weekend).

I'd say I'm better off physically than I would be in Ottawa, still eating pizza and chicken fried in hot sauce (mmmmm ... hot sauce) and sleeping weird hours. But I do miss lifting weights.

Meta-Mental

I knew this would be the hardest part. I tried to prepare myself for the loneliness and I think I succeeded. I've always liked being alone anyway. I didn't think I'd have to deal with people I didn't like so soon, but sometimes these things can't be avoided (and I can't avoid him at work, for sure). I keep thinking it's a problem with me but I think I'm more frustrated that I have deal with the fact that he's a anti-social self-centered moron and he doesn't realise that he is one. I haven't felt that negatively about a person in a long, long time.

Dale, on the other hand, is a good boss and a nice guy. His inexperience as a manager is educational though, because at least he doesn't trudge blindly along - he asks (read: pays) people to help him. I think the secret of a good boss is knowing what to tell your workers ... and Dale hasn't quite gotten that down yet. I also can't help but sense his helplessness now that he doesn't know the system like he used to because he's doing so many management tasks.

As for friends here, I have none. I meet the odd English-speaking person in Antibes passing through and I've met a few younger people at the CIV but no one I'd consider a friend. I keep telling myself that when I learn French it'll be easier, but I think the problem is more of location: there are no people my age here. I'll either have to move or get transportation or both. Planning is in the works after Bob & Co. leave the Riviera.

I miss my music, even my older CDs like Pearl Jam's Ten. I can't wait for them to get here. I'm also pretty bummed that I won't get to listen to some new discs for a bit, like Tool's, Big Wreck's and Bran Van 3000's new ones. In due time, I suppose ...

I'm reading quite regularly now, too. It's true that there isn't much else to do, but I forgot that I liked to read and in Ottawa I (thought I) just didn't have the time. I go to the Antibes English bookstore every weekend to pick up new books (yeah, English books are expensive - but it's worth it). It's about time I expanded my mind past logical computer-type thinking - it's been dormant far too long. Thinking outside the box you work in is a Good Thing^TM.

Monday Night

Brad met me in Antibes after work and we headed to Nice, had more sandwiches at that place next to the beach and ran into a few friends of his from university by pure coincidence. We had to wait quite a while for Bob and Crusoe because their train was late, but we just hung out on a street corner across from the hotel we stayed at earlier, drinking Heinekens.

Sitting on the corner, we met a guy named Bryson (from California) and chatted him up a bit. He was travelling alone and had just come from Spain. Another guy just came up and stood beside us for a few minutes without saying anything, so rather than continue that weirdness I offered him a beer. His name was Tim (from Dublin) and he was looking for people to board in his extra room. Somehow we got to talking how he got to Nice, and he told me that he'd been to Paris, New York and other cities just following women that he was dating around, doing odd jobs. Talk about living by the seat of your pants ....

Crusoe, Tim, Bryson, Bob, Brad - yep, drinking on the street again

So then we headed down to Thor's again. Yeah, we like the place. Just after we got there, a guy came up to our table and started babbling (I think) French ...

d00d, where's my car?

... near the end of the night Bryson started talking to a girl from Cali (but really she just moved there from Arizona). She seemed nice enough, so when the rest of the guys went back to the hotel, I stayed with Bryson and played wingman (the girl from Cali/Ariz had a friend with her, Kate). We went to this tiny little bar next to the beach called L'escaliers that played alright music. I remember getting a pint of dark beer for Kate and I, but for the life of me I can't remember the name of it. We ended up having one of those I'm-half-in-the-bag-trying-to-have-a-serious-conversation conversations. It was good fun. I got back to the hotel at 4am.

I left Nice (late) by train for work at 7:30am.

Sunday

Bus service is really poor on Sundays, so Brad and I only had about 4 hours to spend in Monaco. Plenty of time if you are walking, I say. I won't bore you with blah-blah-blah (there isn't much to say) and I'll just take you straight to the pictures.

at the train station in Antibes:

flowers
flowers

on the way, I took some pictures through a grimy train window ....

on the way
on the way
on the way
on the way
on the way
on the way
on the way
on the way
on the way

When you step off the train in Monaco, it's truly amazing. The pictures didn't turn out too well, but the place is beautiful, and seemed larger than the Nice train station.

Monaco train station
Monaco train station

You have to go up a lot of escalators and an elevator to get to the exit, and here was the view from halfway up:

inside the station looking out
at the top, outside the station across the road

Monaco is built on the side of a mountain pretty much. There are many roads and garages in tunnels and spaces in the rock. Almost the entire Monaco train station is underground, wedged in a narrow valley between two high rocky peaks.

We wanted to see the casino and the water first, so we had to walk all the way back down to sea level ... on the way, we couldn't help but notice how clean the streets were. All of Monaco looks like it's been under a dust cover taken off just before you arrive.

long flight of stairs
on the same stairs - looking at old Monaco
city buildings

part of the harbour
part of the harbour
look up ... waaaay up
more buildings
yet another huge, imposing building

side view of the casino (Gucci to the left)
the Congress Centre
Car alert: a new blue beamer convertible
front view of the casino
art or helicopter landing pad? - the roof of the Congress Centre
looking east on the Congress Centre
the water
mountains and Monte-Carlo
the water again
the garden on the other side of the casino

a side street
Car Alert: green Lotus
Car Alert: a Mercedes and an old Ferrari, I think
Car Alert: Bentley's at the Bentley dealership (only $250,000+)

Then we ventured into the Japanese garden ....

Japanese garden
Japanese garden
Japanese garden
Japanese garden - duck and ducklings
Japanese garden
Japanese garden - waterfall

I forget the name of this building ...
looking back West
more Monte-Carlo
more Monte-Carlo

The pylons in the previous picture were for the triathalon that was (apparently) held earlier in the day.

Monte-Carlo beach
Monte-Carlo beach boardwalk
fountain at the end of the boardwalk
hotels

Car alert: a dark green Austin Healy

We went so far east, that we walked back into France

Car alert: red Lambourghini - front
Car alert: red Lambourghini - back
Car alert: another (silver) Lotus
Car alert: red Porsche

The Grand Hotel, I think
retro 70's fountain

We went through the tunnel under the Grand Hotel and the Congress Center and ended up back at the harbour:

around the harbour
Congress Center
harbour lighthouse
a rather large boat
Monaco from the end of the harbour
hotels, I think
the castle in old Monaco (top of the hill)

Car alert: silver Porshe Boxter convertible *drool*
Car alert: statue of an old race car

looking at the train station from below
the tunnel back to the station

*phew* .... ok, I promise I won't take that many again. Hope you had fun in Monaco. ;)

Saturday

Bob and Crusoe wanted to go sky-diving in Interlokken, Switzerland so they left Saturday morning. I took Brad back to Sophia with me so he could have a cheap (read: free!) place to stay for two nights. Of course, before we went to Sophia we did a tour of Antibes.

You've already seen the Antibes harbour if you've been following along, but on Saturday I went into the "big boat" area that I previously thought I wasn't allowed into.

big boats
the biggest boat docked in Antibes
a nice clear picture of Fort Carré
Biot from the Antibes harbour
the harbour lighthouse

We spent the day on the beach (where Brad yoinked my copy of The Hobbit and started reading it, only to finish about 24hours later) and the night in Sophia, reading. Brad could barely contain his excitement the whole night ... but at least he had his dwarves to keep him entertained, as he bought the Iron Ring trilogy at the English bookstore that day. I started reading The Body by Stephen King - another book from Different Seasons - which was made into the movie Stand By Me in the 80s.

Friday Night

Old habits die hard and new habits die harder. We went back to the hostel courtyard again to meet people and ran into three Norwegian girls from Oslo. They spoke great English, but were still modest about it. Ah well. I didn't get the spelling of their names, but they sounded like Keen-a, Orig-nil and Sirine with funky Norwegian syllables in there just to make the names unspeakable save for Keena. The shortest one was about 5"10 and the tallest was 6"2.

I got all the way to the beach when I realised I forgot my camera - so I have no pictures of them. *drat* We sat on the beach for a bit and then went back to Thor's, which was Friday-night-packed. We managed to squeeze some people out (nicely, we're Canadians, eh) and fit all 7 of us in.

Not much happened that night, I must say. But Norway sounds like a cool place to visit - in the summer. :)

Friday Afternoon

I kept blabbing about Cannes, so they finally gave in and let me take them there. There are so many cars in this weekend's pictures, I'm just going to put them in when I took them.

Car alert: An old Rolls Royce in Nice

Only one new pic of Cannes. I was busy givin' the tour, ya'see.

one of the film festival buildings near the beach

We hung out on the beach all day again ... taking a break from that hard work to swim out to a floating dock-type thing that they have at public beaches and cottages in Canada. It's a good thing that it was salt water because I wouldn't have made it otherwise. I just floated to take breaks. It was a looooong swim.

After that, I took them over to all of the posh shops (and women) on Rue D'Antibes, which runs parallel with the beach but two or three streets back. It was pretty busy there for a Friday afternoon.

Bonus pic: you cheeky monkey! - ha ha, I told them I wouldn't post this

Thursday Night

So went went back to the hostel to hang out again and met a few cool people. We also ran into Bob, coming from Italy. The word was that there was a beach party for Wayne's (the bar) 10th aniversary. So we grabbed more wine and headed down to the beach.

The beach in Nice is nice (yes, har-har) at night, but pretty cold especially when it's windy. But that night it was calm. The beach party looked sparse, so we just sat next to the beach and I nursed my wine .... every sip going down like lemon juice. Then I just stopped drinking altogether.

Bob, Brad, Nicole, Crusoe

Nicole is from San Francisco, but her mother is Canadian and she's moving near Vancouver in two weeks, I think. She was really nice (in Nice, *quipquip* - sorry, I'm not good with adjectives). In fact, all of the Californians I've met so far have been.

So the beach party was a bust and we just headed back to the old town again to a place called Thor's. Which I'm pretty sure is a Danish pub. There were a lot of english-speaking people there. The best thing about Thor's:

the Thor's "beer bong"

Unbelievable. 2.5L of liquid courage staring you in the face. And I was sick as a dog. Kind of ironic, maybe. Anyhow, that's 5 half-litre pints (which is how big the "pints" are here) in case your math is bad or you still work in ounces. About 8 bottles of Canuck beer. 'Cept you get your own tap! Sweeeet. heh

Thursday Afternoon

On Thursday there was good news and bad news. The good news was that I didn't have a hangover. The bad news was that I had an upset stomach (the acidity of the wine, methinks).

After dining on sandwiches at a place close to the beach, we sat down an enjoyed the sun. I'm even darker than I was before if that's possible. Brad and Crusoe are ridiculously dark, just coming back from Italy. I look like an albino in comparison.

on the beach, facing East
on the beach, facing West

Everything was going dandy-fine until a vendor started picking a fight with another vendor, yelling and screaming. Background info: there are vendors on every beach you go to around here, selling drinks, donuts, beernuts (more on this later) and other stuff. I guess the two were having a territory dispute or something because one of them started throwing rocks (!) on the beach. An most of these rocks are about half the size of a (fastball) baseball. When the thrown rock hit the beach, it kicked up other rocks and flung them at people. The whole beach was looking at the two guys and the cops finally came and talked to both of them. They went their seperate ways.

Twenty minutes later, they were both back ... and they started lipping more this time. One guy had a rock in his hand ready to throw it and a girl from Wisconsin behind us was yelling at us to tell them to stop. We just shrugged and watched the action - there wasn't much we could do and we were far away anyway. The cops came again and broke it up. No arrests, no fines. The whole thing struck me as very strange.

When we got home, I took a picture of a free souvenir I got from the night before. Crusoe tells me that I fell straight backwards on my can at least once. Funny, my can didn't hurt at all.

President's Choice: Memories of Nice

Wednesday

I look back on wednesday now and it seems like months away. I'll try to remember ....

I took the bus at 6pm from Sophia to Antibes and then the train to Nice. The bus was OK - with expected rush hour traffic - but the train was about an hour late, so I didn't get into Nice until about 8:30. I bumped into Brad and Crusoe right outside their hotel. Bob was still in Italy.

Here's some background about the guys I stayed with ....

Bob was Travis Burke's roommate for the past two years and he just graduated from the University of Ottawa with a business degree in marketing. He's from around the Stittsville area, I think.

Brad is a friend of Bob's from high school and just graduated from the University of Guelph, also with a business degree in marketing. He's also from around the general Stittsville area.

Crusoe (or Coruso?) is actually Dave. Brad forgot his last name at school when he met him and the name has stuck since. Also has a marketing degree from Guelph. An interesting note is that Crusoe's parents live in Newmarket, where I spent 7 years of my childhood (grades 3-9), and he went to Newmarket High School. He knows of a few of the guys I went to school with, though most of them went to Denison.

Ok, back to it ....

The boys did an excellent job finding a place right in front of the train station, the Hotel des Nations, costing us only about 20 $CAN a night. It was a dive as far as hotels go, but it was perfect for hostellers and students. It even has a TV! .... ok, so the TV had no volume knob and the remote was lost ... what can ya do ....

the room

Brad and Crusoe had already been there one night, so they took me over to the hostel (right next door) and introduced me to Nicole, a very nice Californian, and we got something to eat and drink (6 bottles of wine, the most expensive of which was probably about 6 bucks). We sat in the courtyard of the hostel and socialized and we met up with three girls from New Hampshire that Brad met in our hotel lobby. We ended up going to a bar in the old part of Nice called Wayne's. I don't remember the music they played, only that it was really loud and the place was really packed. The way to the bathroom was a neck-breaking-two-steps-down-two-steps-up right across the dance floor.

Laura, Maggie, Brad, Stephanie, Crusoe - I still don't trust stangers with my camera *grin*

What's that? Oh yeah, good eye: we are drinking on the street - and it's perfectly legal. That picture was taken before we went into Wayne's in a big open area with a courthouse in it (those are its steps).

We left Wayne's and a few minutes later, Maggie realised she forgot her purse in the bar. She had everything in it .... passport, eurorail pass, etc, etc ... so you can imagine she was pretty upset. I would have gone back to look for it, but I wasn't *cough* able to at that time. So I just stayed put while Brad went back. We ended up losing Brad and we just headed back to the hotel.

slow going ...

... trying to catch up with work and getting the pics ready ... it's taking too much time to prep them, so I think I need a better system. *nods to self*. Should have Wednesday night up soon. Yeah, you heard me .... Wednesday. :)

small update

I,m in an Internet café with no apostrophes and lots of accents on the keyboard. Having a great time in Nice so far with the buddies from Ottawa (Brad and Crusoe so far, Bob is on the way). Got pretty influenced by the wine (5 bottles for 65F! about 13 bucks) last night to let off some steam and it felt good. Yeah, I,m sorry to say that, but I was due for a night out with some comfortable people. One note to Aur & RobinJean: I,m sane, THANK GOD!. £smiles£ (there are no asterixes on this keyboard either). Alright, I,m good.

Will post the pics when I get back.

Heard from Brad today. Going to Nice tonight. See you next week. :)

I've been hearing from Bob, a friend of mine from Ottawa, every once in a while ... he's hostelling around Europe for a bit, and is going to be around Nice "real soon now" (last estimate was Wednesday). I have Thursday and Friday off though, just in case. But if things get pushed back, I want to see if I can get Monday and Tuesday off too to travel a bit ...... but knowing them and knowing Nice, they'll probably want to stay there a while and sit in the sun on the beach, and watch stuff (the planes of course, the runway is close) pass by ... trying not to have a heart attack *cough* ...... *grin*

.... don't worry, I'll take lots of pictures of us having a good time that you guys won't get to see. :) ..... and I'll probably be in some of them too!!

Oh yeah, and I'm going to fix my archive soon so people can look back .... I'm working on it.

Sunday

Someday a real rain will come and wipe this scum off the streets.

Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver, 1976

That's what I was thinking of today, walking around in the half-rain. I was in the city that starts with "M" and ends with "arse, eh?" .... and there's probably a good reason for that. Marseille is the first city I haven't liked in France. It does have a few gems though and the train ride was pretty nice ..... but Marseille, second in population (with one million) only to Paris as a whole is a real hole. Maybe it was just because I was there in the half-rain .... maybe because it's not next to the sea like the rest of the cities I've been to here .... it's hard to say, I was only there for three hours.

You guys haven't seen the bus station in Sophia yet, and no one was there this morning to wonder why a guy would be taking pictures of a bus station so I took one:

Gare routière des Messugues
a SONA-tagged shed at the bus station

I guess SONA is a local tagging group or gang or something. No one I've talked to knows .... but they make some great "art".

I decided Saturday night that I'd try to catch the 9:07am train to Marseille even though the bus to the train station is scheduled to arrive at 9:10am. If I missed that train, I'd just take a train to Monte-Carlo or something. No big whoop, right Linda Richman? So I get to the train station at 9:11am or something and figured the train was long-gone. But TV monitor with the scheduled trains said that it was leaving at 9:15, so rushed to get a ticket and all that and MADE IT. I was pretty happy at the time .... :)

The express train to Marseille makes very few stops. The schedule in the SNCF book is:

Stop	Time
Antibes	9:07
Cannes	9:18
St-Raphaël-Valescure	9:41
Les Arcs-Draguignan	10:01
Toulon	10:40
Marseille	11:20

The train was practically empty where I was sitting, so I took over the whole row (4 seats) and went back and forth taking pictures (you can tell by the blur direction, maybe - heh). I took a lot of pictures on the train, so I'll just go through them in order stop by stop.

some houses
graffiti - it's on the walls like that all the way to Cannes
graffiti
"dee plane, boss - dee plane!"

Cannes - 9:18

local relief

St-Raphaël-Valescure - 9:41

houses, mountain

Les Arcs-Draguignan - 10:01

At this stop about half-a-dozen burly French army guys got on the train and busted up my seat hogging party. I didn't mind though, I'd rather sit with military guys than complete strangers.

Les Arcs-... train station
Les Arcs-... train station (um, I think)

A little subject-left-to-right blur
I think these are grape vines ... not sure ... but they were quit common
if you move your head fast enough, this will come into focus as - more vines (I think)
more hills and buildings

the geology starts to get more impressive ...
... and continues ....

Toulon - 10:40

Some background on Toulon: it's a very important French military port. I was going to visit it, but after reading about it I'm not as anxious ... the port is dominated by huuuge military vessels and there are very few beaches .... yeah I know, boooo. :)

Toulonian building
Toulon train station - very practical, lots of quais (more than Nice) but not as "nice" looking ...

In case you've been under a rock (or are over 25), Radiohead released their new album, Amnesiac recently. The disc is pretty pricey here (about 145F - around 30 bucks), but I already have it anyway .... I downloaded it piece by piece from the net about three months ago and brought it here</brag> ... heh. Seriously though ... it's good stuff. Anyway, I told you all of that because they have these GREAT two-ad Radiohead posters at all of the train stations around here ....

*droooooool*

... geology still impressing ...
... geology still impressing ...
a farm
... and, I'm spent.

Marseille - 11:20 ... and I was there.

train station looking in
train station looking out

The train station in Marseille is a little different - you don't through it, you park in it like a garage. This gives them a lot more room for quais (platforms), I guess.

looking down the quai - pr. "kay"

The Marseille train station is under pretty major construction, so I didn't have a good place to stand to get a good picture of it. It's also at the top of a very large hill. But I did get a picture from the top of a large stairway leading down from the station ...

looking down Boulevard D'Athènes
looking back up the stairway - oh, there's the station :)

So I walked down that boulevard until I saw this on my left:

church

and naturally walked closer:

church

... while walking to the church it started to rain. I also started to get lost, so I pulled out my map that I bought at the train station and found where I was. After I did that, I looked up and saw one of those large maps (like the ones in malls) with a "you are here" label on it. Yep, it was one of those days.

That corner (another six-street intersection) was the first time I started feeling uncomfortable in France. There were lots of men around ... and they weren't doing anything, not talking to each other, but sometimes sleeping ... all in the rain. It was kinda weird. Weirder still is that I'd see a girl with one of those mini see-though umbrellas skipping across the street during all of this ... it was like a prelude to trouble in some Tarantino movie ... so I (briskly - heh) headed in the direction of the port, now that I knew where it was .... but before I left:

closed to the public - silly

Then I started walking down La Canebière, I believe and took some pictures along the way ....

trees make good stationary umbrellas in a pinch
the corner of La Canebière and Boulevard D'Athènes
buildings
Ciné les Varietes
important building (it has its own clock, you see - heh)
Bourse et Chambre de Commerce (side)
Bourse et Chambre de Commerce (front)
looking back up La Canebière
Hotel à Hargome(?)

... and just as I was about to hit the port, I saw this to my left:

neat-o, pillars!
ah, it's the OPÉRA MVNICIPAL
OPÉRA MVNICIPAL (the whole she-bang)

making my way back to the port, I saw this, which is right in front of the port (the property must have cost a fortune):

these things spread like weeds

... moving along ... on the east side of the port is a large round-about-slash-intersection. In the middle of it are two large gardens with flowers and grass for dogs to doo on ... :)

the green sign reads: "Caution, wet grass"
des fleurs

It was then that I was conned out of 140F (~30 bucks). I won't tell you how it happened, only that it did and that I have two very expensive pictures (not from my camera) to prove it. Damn Marseille. Damn stupid me. So that was pretty much the last straw, and I didn't really feel like being there any more ..... but I was there, and I probably wouldn't be there for a while so I decided to take more pictures anyway on the walk back to the train station ....

church tower, appartment buildings and a stairway to the street above, from the port
it's quite blurry, but there's a gold statue up there
castle at the entrance to the port
another castle on the other side of the port

then I left the port, cursing .... :)

across the street from the port - staircase (it looked nice enough from there, but smelt terrible)
building on Rue de la République
looking up Rue de la République

post offices are always good-looking buildings in France *shrug*
L'Arc de Triomphe! seriously! Marseille has one too :)

and as I was walking from the Arc to the train station, I spotted this through a chain link fence:

crazy-good graffiti (would have been nice to be able to get closer)

The train ride back was a lot different. The train was packed and I had an aisle seat so I couldn't really take pictures. I was in a seat where you face the people in front of you, so there are four people with a table in the middle sort-of-thing. The three other guys slept.

The first thing I did was read the "Tourist" info part of the map I bought (which I should have done when I bought it). You see, Marseille was, for a long time, a very important military and shipping port. It was fought over furiously and for a long time (even though it was part of a greater governance) it was run pretty much independently. When Marseille was given to France with the rest of Provence, the citizens rebelled. Concequently, the French government (King) built the two castles at the entrance to the port - to guard the port (there used to be a chain strung across the port entrance, which was stolen once by Italians and is currently on display in Italy) and to watch the dissidents in the port that liked to cause trouble because Marseille was no longer independent. They were both used mostly as prisons long ago. I think some of that independent spirit still lives on and I did not feel too welcome there - just a note to travellers. Besides, there are more beautiful cities you can spend your valuable vacation time in .... like Antibes! :)

After that I read the first two chapters of The Hobbit covering, amongst other things, the intricacies of being dwarvish (which is different from being dwarfish, apparently) .... it's a slow read. Good. :)

Saturday

In an interesting twist (well, not really) I'm updating my blog on a Saturday! *gasp* ... yes, it's true. I'm at work because I forgot my French homework (I usually do it at work in the morning, but she gave us a lot to do for the weekend). So here goes Saturday ....

Just so you don't get excited about pictures: I didn't take any today. The reasoning behind that was that Saturday is the only day we have off that the stores and other businesses are open here so I didn't think I'd get too much of a chance to sight-see. I also travelled alone today. The reasoning behind that is because I needed some no-Waldemar time. The polite way to say it is: "there's only so much you can take of one person, day in and day out for a month ...."

So as I dangerously predicted, after taking the bus to Antibes, I got my hair cut at a place called "The Cutting Shop" (recommended by Dale, since they speak english). It is a dandy of a haircut, and it aughta be for 145F (~28 bucks). Yeah, *ouch*. I even got a free head-message from the hair-washing girl (get your mind outta the gutter guys, come on). But I am completely and utterly satisfied with my hair. If it takes 145F to get there, then so be it ...

After that I went back to the English Bookstore. After tearing through Fahrenheit 451 and The Catcher in the Rye last week, I needed something longer. So I picked up Different Seasons and The Hobbit.

Then I took the train to Nice, except I took the wrong train - an express train - that doesn't stop at the Nice-Riquier stop where the big TNL mall is. So I just went with the flow (honestly, people ... how often do I do that?) and walked down to the beach (about 8-10 blocks). Instead of going right (west), this time I went left (east) on the walkway next to the Promenades des Anglias. The beach is pretty much the same the whole way down (about 5km maybe, I dunno): private beach, public beach, private beach, public beach .... so it doesn't really matter where you sit - the rocks are uncomfortable everywhere! heh Serously though, sitting on a bunch of golf-ball sized rocks has its advantages; like you don't have to worry about sand getting everywhere and on your towel and in your shorts and GEEZ. I mean, Juan-les-Pins has the nicest sand beaches in the Riviera but sometimes the sand just gets to you. I'll probably get used to it ... especially since Juan-les-Pins is the best place to check out .... oh nevermind ..... this is a G-rated blog, remember? Ok, PG-13 then.

So I sat on the beach (under a "veiled sky") and started reading Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption from Different Seasons .... and three and a half hours (and 104 pages) later I was still on the beach (and now the sun was out in full force), and I was done it. It went by pretty quickly since I didn't have to follow the story or the characters - I own the movie on DVD, and it's one of my favourites. I was really only reading it for the differences and the backstory (which books do much better than movies, of course). Also, the whole book is from Red's perspective - a memoir of sorts - so it's a bit different. Stephen King is a very easy writer to read. Reading his books are like watching a movie or TV ... and that's probably exactly how he wants it to be. I wish I could have read that fast in high school ... maybe I wouldn't have hated English so much. :)

[my favourite quote from the book that I'll put in on Monday, you keeners - oops, I can't .... it's over PG-13] *grin*

After that I went back to the train station and over to Riquier to the big TNL mall. It was soooooooo busy it's not even funny. I went into a huge Walmart-slash-grocery-type store called "Carrefour" ... which is French for: "Place where crazy French people try to pretend they've been in a store this big before". It's like the first day of high school every year when the grade 9's can't walk the halls and you feel like shoving them out of the way .... and then there's the odd North American (you can tell because they yell at each other from across the store) that's just trying to get through the place without getting killed .... like me, yaknow? Speaking of "odd" things. A (quite!) rare overweight couple that was buying groceries in front of me spent 2440F (about 450 bucks) in a single shot (one cartload). I tried to remember if they bought any gold-plated cheeses or something, but I couldn't recall. So I got my hangars and some shoe-deoderant (I made the mistake of wearing my running shoes without socks one day and BAM! - they smell like heck-tar-hooty now) and haulled buns outta there. I came to France to get out of the rat race, ya know? So I go to Nice and instead of rats it's frogs .... <g> .... ;)

Nice is comfortable though. It probably reminds me of home the most because there are so many different kinds of people vacationing there. It's kinda like Florida where only like half the population at any given time is made of actual born-in-Florida Floridians - the rest are all out-of-towners. Also in Nice a LOT of people speak English. The French are very timid when it comes to English - I think they find it difficult - even though the ones that can speak English are quite good at it, they say they only know a "little bit" .... which is exactly what I say in French when someone starts speaking to me in French .... except I really *do* only know a little bit.

So that's it for today's excitement. Sorry about all the gory details, but I rarely get this much time for a Blog update (so don't get used to this length, eh!). Saturday nights are slow here with no transportation. Hint hint, wink wink, nudge nudge. Yeah, I'm working on that.

Plans for the Weekend

Probably going to Nice on Saturday after I get my hair cut in Antibes at the English-speaking barber's shop (I was glad to hear there was one of these in Antibes). I might go to a mall area in Nice (Riqiuer) which is one stop past the main train station. On the other hand, I don't want to be stuck out there all day instead of in Nice soaking up sun. :) I don't have money to spend anyway. heh

On Sunday it's supposed to rain, so I'll pick up another book in Antibes on Saturday to read ....

My Room at the Centre International de Valbonne (CIV)

There are lots of things at the CIV to talk about, but first I'll do my room ... I live in a pavillon (building) called Bastion which is connected by hallways to Bastide, another pavillion. Bastide is on top and up a hill from Bastion. If you don't know your way around the hallways, which normally go in a direction crossing the hill, it's easy to get lost. But then you just follow the hallway until the end, go out the door and you know where you are. There are also a few open courtyards within the two pavillions where people hang out, talk, smoke, etc ...

My room is on one of the top floors of Bastion at the end of a quiet hallway. The reason why it is so quiet is because they use three rooms near mine to store supplies for the cleaning staff. The only time it isn't quiet is at 6:30 (sharp!) every morning (including saturdays and sundays, argh!) when the cleaning ladies (femmes de ménage) go to the rooms to get their stuff, talking about god-knows-what in French.

Also near my room is a (bleeping) door that slams shut when it closes. There's quite a bit of traffic through the hallways there because that door leads to the stairs going to a bathroom. When the door slams, it makes metal-to-metal contact with the door frame and makes a loud bang/click combination. It only took me one bang/click-filled night in that room to get enough motivation to fix it, so I folded up a piece of paper and taped it in the top corner of the door frame. Now when the door hits the frame (the paper) it makes a dull *thud* sound. I can still hear it in my room, but at least it's not a loud bang/click and it doesn't wake me up. Yay ... :)

Speaking of the bathrooms .... (quickly going off topic) .... they are pretty bad. The administration knows this, but they just shrug ... they can't do anything about it because people just keep trashing the bathrooms (the toilets, the sinks, etc). It seems as though very few people in the residence know how to flush a toilet, too ... ya, gross. And there are no toilet seats .... everytime I want to sit down, I lay a nice protective mat of toilet paper down (à la the guy in American Pie). At least there is plenty of TP around to do it with! :) Anyh00, the bathroom closest to my room was so bad (damage, smell, etc) they closed it for two weeks.

OK, back to the room. It's orange. Yep, it is. It's also about 8ft by 15ft and the ceiling is pretty high (about 15ft too). That gives me 1800 cubic feet of space! Sounds like a lot, eh?

"wash yo face in my sink"

... the door is to the left of me while I took this picture. The sink is very handy! There is also a little shelf to the right of the sink for bathroom stuff.

wardrobe?

A closet/wardrobe-like piece of furniture. It has a lock latch on it (another handy thing) so I lock it all of the time. Except when I unlock it. I'm not 10 feet tall here, I took the picture with the camera raised above my head.

my sliding patio door

Yep, I have a patio kinda. It's about 3 feet deep, so I can't really sit out there, and its shared with four other rooms. I guess I could have taken a picture of it, but I didn't. :)

desk

my desk. I use it to pile clothes since I have no hangers. Well, I have 3 hangars now that I got in Nice .... but I pretty much have "no hangars". Hangars are quite hard to find, apparently ..... maybe I should just go door to door in Haut-Sartoux (a nearby neighborhood) .... people always have too many hangars.

bed

... the bed is a single, and came with a pretty poor pillow, a top blanket, a sheet and a wool blanket. Nights here get pretty cold, but I haven't needed the wool blanket yet. I folded it and put it in a pillowcase for a second pillow (the black one). It's pretty hard for a pillow though. :) The reading light next to the bed is also, yes, very handy. The map is up so that I don't have to unfold it every time I want to look up a place in France. Besides, it's good to know where things are when people say "I have a brother in Lyon", etc ...

the "head board", I guess

.. above the bed I have a few choice pics. From the top, left to right are: J-Lowe, the bush in Renfrew in the winter, "The Bartenders", "Shank's Bachellor Keg Party", Shane, J-Lowe and I, and the boyz in front of Travis' place.

... and that's the whole room. Kinda silly of me to describe my room now because I'm changing rooms tonight (the cleaning ladies, the door, the bathroom are the reasons) to a quieter room with a bigger balcony. Yay to that.

Monday

"Another holiday?" you say? Yes, it's true .... the French like their holidays in May and early June. I don't mind them much either. It gives me time to check out the place.

So with nothing specific planned on Monday, I narrowed it down to either Cannes or Nice, deciding on Cannes in the lineup for train tickets (one is west and the other is east) since it had been three weeks since I was last there.

So I step out of the covered train station in Cannes and I see this:

An old Vette?

... not a good place to park a car like that. Buses park to the left of it, and have to back up when they leave. What a shame it would be to see that thing crushed under the back end of a bus.

So I, of course, walked down to the beach ...

On the way to the beach ...

... on the way I also saw a couple (pretty attractive, both of them, I must admit) getting their picture taken by someone. Not so odd, but then the other person just said "Merci" and took off. I figured they were French celebrities or something .... I might have recognized them if I had watched any French TV up to that point ... :)

beach left
beach right (harbour)

So I took pictures of interesting things as I walked East down the beach ....

the beautiful Carlton hotel (left side)
the beautiful Carlton hotel (right side)
looking East down the beach

I don't know if I've told you guys this yet, but most of the taxi cabs here are Mercedes. And I'm not talking about dinky Mercedes (if they even exist) ... I'm talking full-out luxury cars. Some of the cabs in Nice were also really nice, big Volkswagens.

one of many Mercedes taxis

At the end of the beach(es), there is a garden and another marina ....

east end of the beach
east end of the beach (a bit more to the right)

Notice the wind in that last picture. It was really strong that day, and the day before in Antibes (where I saw more than one umbrella go tumbling across the beach).

looking West at Cannes at the East end of the beach
the marina at the East end of the beach
I turned 90 degrees counter clockwise and .... the garden

... on the way back (West) I took a pic of a Harley Davidson motorcycle I saw on the way over ...

yellow Harley

... and then stepped out on the street and took this:

(some boulevard)

... later on, I stopped to take a picture of myself:

say "liverworst and onion sandwiches"!

.... and a picture of the festival buildings. I think this one is an auditorium ....

Festival building

.... and after all of that walking I took a seat in a nice park (sorry, no pictures of that). Then I walked down a road called "Rue D'Antibes" where all of the posh shops in Cannes are apparently. It's a nice street, I guess .... but nothing to write home about (yes, intentional irony). At the 'top' of the street where it peaks I took two pics:

Rue D'Antibes looking west
Rue D'Antibes looking east

... and then I went home on the train/bus combo.

Sunday

Nothing to report on Saturday .... just went to Antibes and sat on the beach. It was pretty dumb of us, actually because everything is open Saturday and closed on Sunday and Monday (yet another holiday). "Doh!" to that. I *did* notice a beach store on Saturday in Antibes and made a mental note of it ....

Sunday however, I did the full walking tour of Antibes. Well, kinda. There's only so much ground you can cover in one day in sandals. Now I know why everyone here doesn't wear sandals. I wanted to get this whole 'Tour of Antibes' out of the way too .... I keep mentioning it and I've only given you about 20 pictures ...

So I started at the train station. There's a pretty big park/garden right outside the SNCF (train) station where you can wait for a train. It's really quite nice, actually. .... there's lots of beautiful, green grass for dogs to do their business on ... and believe me, they do it. Rule #45 while in France: Where there is grass there is dog doo .... :)

SNCF park

Then I walked up to a nearby bridge to get a picture of the SNCF station ...

SNCF station (west-bound train coming in)

Turning around, I took a picture of one of the busier intersections in Antibes ....

Look mommy, cars!

.... walking south, I ran into the bar that Waldemar and I had our first Stella Artois in. Big deal, yeah I know. But in front of this bar is the most confusing intersection in all of Antibes. Six streets meet together and cause chaos. You could spend a whole afternoon drinking beer, watching all this craziness ....

Stella!

Pretty much in the middle of Antibes is a square with beautiful gardens and all that. I know how much you guys love gardens ... here are some pics! (you awake? *poke*)

the square in Antibes
flowers in the square

... I looked like a real bonehead taking those pictures. About 8 billion old people (all locals) were looking at me as I walked straight down the middle of the square. They must have thought I thought I owned the place. (get that?). Then I walked south towards the bigger southern beach along (some road) ...

a house on (some road)
looking south on (some road)

at the end of the road I took more pictures of the token take-lots-of-pictures-of-this-place-we-made-it-look-nice area. It looks pretty nice alright.

looking south again

... but then I got distracted by a Mercedes Kompressor. *drool* .... it was either black or dark purple ... I didn't seem to care at the time. It probably could have been orange with green polka dots and I still would have drooled all over the sidewalk ....

black Mercedes Kompressor convertible (back-side view)
black Mercedes Kompressor convertible (front-side view)

... *shakes head* ... ok, more niceness ....

nice looking South
nice looking North back up (some road)
Look mommy, boats! (off the railing)

Then I moved in a northeasterly fashion to take a picture of a little garden/dog doo repository and took a pic of the wall ....

wall, garden, doo (kidding!)

Then I went a long while without taking pictures, as I walked back towards the train station. What can I say, there just wasn't anything interesting although it was a new way. Until I saw this:

the French have a lot of time on their hands ...

Then I went to the harbour over by the north beach. But that was after I bought a few shirts at this beach-type store called Beach-somethin'-er-other. Yeah, I'm great with names. :) One of them I had to buy as soon as I saw it ...

2 new t-shirts and my stinky feet (I'm standing on a chair)

... I bet you can't guess which one.

boats
big boat
another big boat (from the Ivory Coast)
more big boats
a moving big boat (I think I saw this boat in Cannes the next day)
boats (and some castle)

I was once again easily distracted by vehicles .... but with these ones it was kinda understandable .....

BMW motorcycle
a sweet FIAT convertible
the first Corvette I've seen in France

... and back to the tour ....

the boulevard next to the harbour

... and then I had lunch. Paninis are wonderful things. I'm definitely going to miss them when I leave. Heck, I miss them right now.

this water was green through my eyeballs
snow on the peaks of the Alpes past Nice

... taking a walk to the bigger (yes, bigger) boat docking area I saw this:

huuuge boat
a gaggle of huuuge boats (note the Heineken can in the foreground - I kicked it taking the last picture)

.... and then I went home. Yep, long day. A lot of walking in my sandals (which I don't recommend, even in comfortable Nike sandals)

To cap off the day, I took a walk up this huuuge hill opposite the residence where there is a shortcut to the last bus stop in Sophia (more on this later) and took a pic:

Bastide and Bastion residences

My place is behind a tree in the middle of the picture vertically and one third of the way right horizontally. I'd circle it with some fancy imagining software but I have to go eat. Bon soir for now!

Friday

Went to a bar in Valbonne Village after work. Yep, this has become a tradition at work now. It was my first time in Valbonne (it's not really that close) and the little square that we had a drink in was beautiful, with all of these colourful buildings and tons of people around shooting the breeze on a Friday evening.

We had Guinness in a bottle as the first drink. I ordered it because it was just as expensive as the other beers (35F ~ 7 bucks) but I didn't realise it was in a bottle. It was more 'refreshing' than a typical Guiness though, and it was pretty good. The second beer was a half litre off the tap and it was called St. O(something) .... Dale couldn't remember it this morning either .... and we let him drive us back home that night! ... heh