Hi from Shereen

Hi Guys!!

It's me, Shereen!! Remember me? I know it has been a while, so I decided to come on here to say hi and give you my views on what is going on.

It has been two months since I have been in France. Let’s see, first impression of France wasn’t the greatest. The weather wasn’t helping at all. The first couple of days were very cloudy and cold. On our way home from the airport Shawn and I stopped at a restaurant. As soon as we walked in I realized that the French aren’t as sanitary as Americans. The cups has soap residue and utensils are in a basket for everyone to touch and grab. Also, the food here is, what can I say, DISGUSTING ugh… How can people eat like this? You always hear about French cuisine this, French cuisine that; well let me tell you about French cuisine it is GROSS. The French managed to create some sort of gravy for everything; fish, chicken, beans, you name it they have gravy for it.

So, how have I been spending my time here in France? Shawn’s company was suppose to provide us with a furnished apartment, but for some reason they couldn’t. Luckily for me I get to shop for furniture and spend the company’s money. Ha ha. You would think it is fun to spend when it is not your money, well not really. They gave us an okay budget in Euro that won’t take you far here in Europe. Everything is very expensive. Julie, Shawn’s boss’s wife, suggested I buy used furniture since the budget is tight. I love those used furniture shops. I have been having so much fun shopping for furniture and measuring pieces and parts. Since I am buying used furniture I decided to go for the mismatch look. So nothing in my apartment will match. I will post up pictures as soon as I furnish the place. Also, I was able to order kitchen cabinets all by myself. I know you must be thinking why on earth is she buying kitchen cabinets for an apartment? Let me explain, apartments in France come with nothing besides a toilet, bathtub, and 2 sinks; one in the bathroom and one in the kitchen. No fridge, stove, oven, or dishwasher… NADA.

I finished shopping for furniture and nothing arrived for a month. Julie gave us a TV. French TV is so American. I get to watch shows like Law and Order, Medium, Without a Trace, etc. and movies like the Rock, Finding Nemo. There is a little problem though, EVERYTHING IS IN FRENCH.. AHHHHH. It is amazing how the French are all about American culture, and how dare they take American movies and talk over it in French? WHATEVER!!!

Living in France can be a little frustrating. Everything here is very slow; so slow that nothing gets done. I waited for internet service at my apartment for a month and 2 weeks. It is so hard to live in a country where I don’t speak the language and not being able to contact with family and friends is a killer. Shawn ordered the internet service 2 weeks before I moved here. People here keep telling us that all internet providers in France are bad at customer service.

You always hear people say the French don’t like Americans, or they are rude. So far I found them to be very nice and friendly. They try really hard to communicate in with us in English. However, I think the older French generations are a bit rude. Take our neighbor for an example; he is this old guy who has nothing better to do then to tell me what I need to do. I keep telling him I DON’T UNDERSTAND, he doesn’t seem to care, he doesn’t even try to speak slowly for me to try to understand. I just have to think “what would Jesus do?”: SPEAK FRENCH.

I am starting to like it here. I am learning patience. I am making friends here and there. I am taking French lessons 2-3 times a week. I try to go to the gym 2-3 times a week. It is hard for me to go to the gym here as often as I used to back in the US because I miss Lifetime, the people, the trainers.

Thanks for reading.. Hopefully I’ll post something again here in another 2 months. Just kidding.. I'll try to post sooner than later.

MISS YOU!!

Exercise

The one thing that has gone right for Shereen while in France is finding a decent gym to work out in. She has been going to classes 2 to 3 times a week. Apparently word has gotten out that there is an American at the gym, since she seems to be quite popular, even with those who babble in French to her. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get into a regular exercise routine, and the past 2 weeks have discovered just how out of shape I have become. One of the sales interns at work mentioned that he was playing basketball at a gym in Sully and invited me to join him. Last Tuesday I went after work for the 2 hour training session. I was quite impressed. Most of the time we ran drills, led by a coach who really knew basketball (yes, I could tell even though he was speaking French). The high schools don't have organized sports like in the US, so the towns have their own teams that high schoolers and others join. The training session was prep for the Sully team that will compete against surrounding towns through the winter. Well, to say the least, my legs have lost some spring. I was able to gut it out and stay with the others for the evening, but was basically incapacited for the next week.

I worked late the next Tuesday and wasn't able to play. But on Thursday I joined the American we met a few weeks ago, who is here for a one year assignment, at a voluntary gym night. They have a trainer who leads the group in a variety of sports, including handball and basketball. This week we played team handball, a sport I was interested in learning. You may have seen this sport in the Olympics, France won the gold medal this year. I had a great time. It was easy to pick up and the flow of the sport has similarities to basketball and hockey. Once Shereen and I get our medical certificates, which allow us to participate in these formal activities, I plan to pay the fee to become a regular part of the group.

Bre'r Rabbit

There is a great market within a short walk of our apartment, along the river in Orleans. Each Saturday morning the local farmers bring their goods, mostly fruits and veggies, with a few stands for meat. This past Saturday our perusal of displays was cut short when Shereen noticed a random furry friend in an odd place. As I've said before, there is an emphasis on freshness, and meat is displayed in a manner to indicate "this was killed not more than 10 minutes ago". Well, on the corner of a table with harmless beans, beets, and berries, near where the farmer was haggling with a customer, was a fuzzy bunny, dead for no apparent reason. There was no other meat on his table. Maybe his statement was "this produce is so fresh I fought off this rabbit to bring it to you this morning". Regardless, Shereen was disgusted enough that we left immediately, without buying anything. Later we visited Auchan, where at least the live crabs on ice aren't cute, but at least somewhat humorous, and there are no dead, fuzzy bunnies in random places.

Dordogne

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2172111&l=95cba&id=15616369

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2172113&l=52d8a&id=15616369

Our weekend excursion was to the Dordogne region in southwest France. Inland, east of Bordeaux, this area is most famous for prehistoric cave paintings and foie gras.

Now that we are well into October, the majority of campsites are closed. But since I didn’t bother to investigate this prior to departing on Friday, we barged ahead with tent in tow. Sleeping arrangements turned out to be a park near to a soccer field where yelling players and passersby kept us up most of the night on Friday, and a closed campsite where the guy at the desk agreed to let us stay for one night on Saturday (we were the only ones on the site and I still don’t know why the door to the reception was open). Needless to say we were glad to find places each night to setup the tent and avoid sleeping in the car again.

The lack of camping availability for the next several months could put a crimp in our traveling. Going from 12 Euro a night camping to 100 Euro a night hoteling is a significant budget crusher. We’ll definitely look for a more cost efficient option. Although in the few months here we have covered a good part of France: Paris, French Riviera, Provence, Dordogne, Normandy, and Loire castles. Suppose it’s not too unreasonable to slow down the travel pace a bit…

On Saturday morning we visited the village market in Sarlat. The markets rotate among the towns with each having its own on a different day. The one in Sarlat is quite impressive, even for a non-shopper like myself. The streets are closed for the market, which occupied the entire downtown, and was packed with shoppers and vendors selling various cheeses, butchered animals (the emphasis is on fresh, it is common to see the eyeballs left on a skinned rabbit or a few feathers and beak on a chicken; side note: in the grocery store in Orleans we were amused by a pile of crabs on ice on a flat table that groggily moved claws and blew air bubbles from their mouths, the ice chilled them sufficiently so they weren’t able to navigate from the table), spices, wood carvings (a unique item was a frog with spikes on its back and a wooden pole in its mouth, when the rod was rubbed across the spikes it sounded like a frog croaking), and of course, foie gras.

Foie gras is goose or duck liver that is extra fatty due to the fowl being force fed. There are many farms in the Dordogne area where geese are raised to produce foie gras. Tourists have the option to visit one of these and observe the feeding, but we decided watching a farmer hold the head of goose back and force open its beak with a funnel while corn streamed down its throat was not our idea of a good time.

In the afternoon we drove to a canoe rental and began a scenic ride past forested hills interspersed with white cliffs, occasional towns cut into the rock walls and castles perched on hilltops. The weather was perfect, I almost got a sunburn. We were in the canoe about 3 hours, stopping to pull the canoe out of the river at a cute, one street town in a cliff and then ending at a similar town overlooked by a castle on the cliff with the houses clustered and clinging to the rocks around it. We had over an hour to wait until the van would pick us up to return to the car. Shereen was more interested in sitting after a less than relaxing night, so I explored on my own, climbing to the scenic overlook on a very steep path through town past the castle. I found a place to buy an ice cream cone at the top (we only found ice cream bars and vanilla cones at the river level), purchased a raspberry one, and hustled down the hill reaching Shereen before the melting rouge reached my hand.

Then it was on to the closed campsite for the night. Ended up being a great place to stay; we setup a few feet from the river with only the sound of birds and water.

The next day we visited a cave painting site at Lascaux, location of the most famous cave paintings in the world. Actually we stopped at “Lascaux II”, the actual cave (Lascaux I) was closed in the 60’s after the paintings were damaged due to tourist’s breath that reacted with the limestone and an exact replica was created out of concrete with the cave paintings recreated using the same pigments and techniques accurate to within a few millimeters. Our guide was a humorous Frenchman who made us wish our one hour in the concrete duplicate lasted longer. Interesting that they have found evidence of scaffolding that was used to elevate the painters near to the ceiling. The lower portion of the cave was clay, which is not a suitable canvas, so the artists built scaffolding to reach the limestone. They still don’t know why the paintings were created; the caves weren’t used as homes since they are cold and damp, there’s inadequate ventilation for fires, and nice animals like bears spent time in them. There was an obvious pattern in the layout of several of the paintings and the contours of the walls were used to define the horns, bellies, backs, and walking paths of the bulls and horses.

After this we stopped at a medieval town that was carved into the rock face of a cliff. At a time when enemies could come unexpectedly, this town was protected by a narrow rock path with a drawbridge spanning a gap, overlooked by holes carved in the rock for sentries. In the distance were lookout caves that were used to relay signals when strangers approached. The town would have been quite secure since the only way to reach it was by the path, or by scaling or descending the rock. The slice cut from the rock for the living area was huge, with different sections for a church (with a curved roof to improve acoustics and a notch for a bell in the cliff), butcher (with large basins in the rock floor for blood and guts), blacksmith, and living areas. A stone walkway led to a ledge where trebuchet style weapons would launch projectiles at ships on the nearby river.

That was the last stop of our Dordogne experience. There are several caves with cave paintings in the area; another that looked interesting we arrived too late since they only allow 12 visitors at a time to prevent damage. And we missed the drama of seeing a goose getting its gullet stuffed…

Comment votre Français?

Getting better, thank you. While still not able to carry a conversation, Shereen and I are making significant progress in understanding French. While still not completely clear on all the grammar, the biggest issue is lack of vocabulary. Very quickly we get outside of our scope. Most French speak too quickly for me to follow, but I can pick up a few words. Just being able to differentiate sounds into words has been a big step. At my last lesson I found myself comprehending most of what Isabelle was saying, and could respond haltingly for the most part, but I’m still searching for words and confusing the grammar. Regardless, I now can see myself conversing in French by next year, if only at a basic level.

Provence

Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170455&l=48833&id=15616369
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170457&l=3c127&id=15616369

Continuing our weekend excursions, this past weekend we traveled south, spending about 6 hours in the car to reach the Provence region of France.

As usual, I had difficulty getting out of work early, so we didn’t leave Sully until near 6 pm on Friday. The plan was to drive several hours and then look for a place to camp. Unfortunately we didn’t start looking for a camp site soon enough. Using our camping map we located addresses for sites and used the GPS to navigate to them, but a misspelled address and a few wrong turns brought us to the site after the gates closed at 10 pm. We drove around for an hour and a half looking for a site that wasn’t gated, but not finding any we pulled into the parking lot of a school and bunkered down for a night in the car. It was chilly outside, got into the low 40’s overnight, but we cocooned in our sleeping bags with the front seats reclined and slept relatively well. I was expecting a policeman to knock on our window at some point during the night, but fortunately we were left alone.

The next morning we started driving early to avoid any legal violations. Our first stop was the town of Avignon, famous as the home of the Catholic Church when a French pope decided to relocate. We found a camp site directly across the Rhone within walking distance from the town. We biked across the bridge and then walked around the town. Avignon still has the protective walls surrounding it, giving it a decidedly medieval look. The major attractions were the Palais de Papes (Palace of the Popes), an elevated park with scenic views of the river and city, and stone arch bridge that had been the only bridge across the Rhone until it was partially destroyed by a flood in the Middle Ages and then there was no bridge for hundreds of years. We meandered around town for a few hours, having lunch at a nice, walk-up café.

We then drove a few minutes to the remains of a castle at Le Baux. This was located in the hills, perched above sheer cliffs. At one time the residents of Le Baux controlled the area from this strategic perch. The remains of the fortress were very impressive. Most of it had been destroyed after a battle, but we could climb to the top of a tower, see the honeycombed wall of the huge dovecote where pigeons were raised for food and communication, a large cistern, and the outlines of the huge halls and rooms that housed the residents. There were also full size replicas of a trebuchet and several smaller catapult type weapons.

The infamous “Mistral wind” was blowing strong throughout the day. We literally had to lean into the wind while on Le Baux for balance. The tourist shops surrounding the castle all seemed to contain items with images of cicadas. It was too cold and windy for cicadas while we were there, but I would assume during the summer the sound of their rubbing wings prevails.

Leaving here we traveled to Pont du Guard, a huge Roman aqueduct crossing a nearby river. The Roman arches are the largest anywhere resulting in the second highest Roman structure still standing (the top of the aqueduct is only a few feet shorter than the Coliseum in Rome).

That was enough for one day, so we bought dinner at Auchan (local Walmart style store), and bunkered down for a cold night. Not having properly staked the tent before we left, the mistral wind had blown it several feet, but one of our neighbors had dragged it back and used our bike rack to hold it in place.

The next day we drove to Arles, another Roman town with its own arena and theater. The Roman arena is where bull fights are held during the summer. Interesting that this structure has been in use for nearly 2,000 years. The church in Arles had an intriguing façade, with sculpture of the Christ and the apostles, along with the saved and the damned walking in hellfire. Christ was surrounded by Luke (represented as an ox), Mark (winged lion), Matthew (winged man), and John (eagle).

The weather was chilly, so we didn’t stay too long before driving to a scenic loop in the mountains. Lunch was at one of the small towns in the hills, surrounded by vast fields of grapevines. There were numerous bikers on the road as we circled higher and the views of the valley and mountains were fabulous. After that we were on the road back home.

How to Miss an International Flight or Metro Confusion

A couple of weeks ago Shereen and I were scheduled to fly to Chicago to complete the Visa paperwork for our stay in France. Our travel to and from the airport was less than ideal, to say the least. The good news is that we had a great time in Chicago and there was no problem with the Visa application. But that diverts from the story.

From Orleans it is about an hour and a half to the airport, without traffic. With traffic this can easily double. Someone told me that a good way to get to the airport was to drive to a metro station outside of Paris and then take the metro to the airport. The idea being to avoid any traffic jams in Paris.

Our flight was leaving at 10:20 am on Saturday. We were on the road before 6. After this a series of small time losses at each link in our journey added too much time. We lost a few minutes driving around to find parking at the metro station. Then several minutes dragging our bags up stairs, across the metro line, down the walkway, up stairs again, back across the line (we didn’t need to cross in the first place), finally finding a ticket machine. Then onto the train for a longer ride than we expected: about 90 minutes to the airport.

And before we reached the final stop we were burned by the quirks of train travel in Europe. When you enter a train no one checks your ticket, you could sit down without any ticket and no one would stop you. But there are random checks where the ticket-checkers walk through the train. You might get lucky and they don’t check, or if they do, and you don’t have a ticket, they charge many times what the normal ticket was. Well, I didn’t read the ticket machine properly, so we had tickets that took us only to the center of Paris, not to the airport on the north side. One stop before we were to get off the uniformed officer came through and informed us we would need to pay extra. What was normally a 7 Euro ticket would now cost 25 Euros. At least he had a portable credit card machine so we could pay right there.

Then off the train into the airport. It was now about 9 am. I had ordered our tickets through Northwest, but hadn’t looked closely at the flight, which was actually going to be a KLM flight. Thinking Northwest, we walked up to an agent guarding the entry to check-in. She said that the Northwest line didn’t open until 9:15. So we waited. If I had been thinking, I should have know something wasn’t right, since on international flights you need to check-in one hour before the flight. Well, after walking up to the security questioners, they sent us to the KLM desk, which was a short walk down the aisle. By the time we got through the questioners again, it was after 9:30 and the agent informed us the flight was closed.

After a few minutes of consternation they offered to put us on a flight later that day for free if we could prove we were in the airport before 9:20. Fortunately we had talked to the agent who told us to wait until 9:15, so she remembered us and was nice enough to state our case. So we were put on a Northwest flight leaving 4 hours later, which had much better movie service than the KLM flights.

When we returned from Chicago we had to retrace our steps through the metro. Unfortunately our flight arrived during rush hour. Believe me; you do NOT want to be dragging large, heavy bags through the Paris metro with thousands of workers rushing to get home. It was shear chaos. We blocked narrow walkways, struggled to climb stairs as people pushed past, and were confused about which connection we needed. After several minutes of frustration we determined we would need to ride one train, and then take another to where we parked the car. We didn’t understand well enough and the first train ended up stopping in the center of Paris. The whole train emptied and a mass of people packed in. They looked at us strangely and a few said something in French. We knew they were asking where we were going, I said the station, and somehow they communicated we needed to get off this train. People were packed shoulder to shoulder, but a few stepped off the train and stood at the door to ensure it wouldn’t leave, the rest passed our bags over their heads and Shereen and I squeezed through the rest. We now had to drag our bags through more crowds, up more steps, and squeeze onto another train. At one point were packed in tightly with sweating neighbors leaning on one another as the train rocked. After what seemed like hours later we arrived at the car, vowing never to take the metro to the airport, or use the metro during rush hour.

Paris

Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170297&l=9589f&id=15616369
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170298&l=4ad84&id=15616369

To celebrate our one year anniversary we decided to spend a weekend in Paris (obvious choice).

We arrived late on Friday, checked into the hotel, and walked 20 minutes to see the Eiffel tower. The tower is lit up at night and is quite impressive. There were hundreds of others straggling and meandering beneath its spreading feet.

Saturday morning we got up early to get in line to ascend the Eiffel tower. We bumped into a student from a Canadian university, who seemed a bit too eager for conversation. He found us in line, in the elevator, on the first level, at the top, and in the elevator on the way down. By this time he was giving me his email address and saying he would be looking for a job in a few months. I think he was lonely traveling by himself…

From the top of the tower we noticed a large crowd gathered in a plaza about a mile away. Someone mentioned that the pope was in Paris and had attracted the crowd. We descended to take the metro to the shopping district. Shereen was keen on finding the Louis Vutton store. Exiting the metro we walked through the streets, stopping in some ridiculously pricey jewelry stores. It must have been obvious we couldn’t afford any of this stuff, the salespeople barely said hello before going back to their own chitchat.

Not finding what she was looking for, we walked to the Champs-Elysees, and found a huge Louis Vutton store. I’ve never seen anything like. The place was packed, with customers and salespeople. I have a feeling this one store makes a significant portion of the companies sales. Combining the foot traffic with the price tags would make for some hefty revenue…

Walking a bit further we approached the Arc de Triomphe, which is well protected by a whirling, multiple lane traffic circle fed by 12 streets converging on this one point. Not seeing the underground tunnel until later, we ran like confused puppies through the traffic chaos to reach the Arc. We didn’t stay long, hopping on the metro to visit the city center.

We walked along the river before stopping to the Saint Chappelle church. This is a superb church with a lower level for the peasants and an upper level for the aristocracy so they never have to see one another. We were fortunate to time our visit when an English tour started so we were able to learn the details of the church. The upper level has walls made of stained glass that stretch several stories vertically. The glass displays stories from the Bible and the Middle Ages, starting with Genesis and Exodus and working around until the last panel shows the story of how the relics (crown of thorns, etc.) were found. Quite an impressive sight, especially with the sunlight glowing through. The glass is divided into smaller panels, each panel showing a story, so there are hundreds of individual stories including Cain clubbing Abel, the burning bush, Noah’s ark, and many less well known stories. The glass had been removed and replaced several times to protect during conflicts and there were a few errors in the order it was replaced. An example was one medieval battle scene showed the soldiers fighting on horses, then the king sending them out, then the soldiers riding to battle.

After this we were exhausted so hopped on the Metro back to the hotel. In the mood for Thai, we were turned away at the first place we stopped since we didn’t have a reservation and the few tables were packed with diners shoulder to shoulder. We found an Asian place down the street that wasn’t as busy.

The next day we visited the Louvre. I had been here several weeks ago by myself, on the first Sunday of the month when it is free and packed. Now that I understood the layout better, Shereen and I were able to walk directly to the most interesting items and eliminate traipsing all over this immense museum. The Mona Lisa is a bit of a disappointment, alone on a large wall, behind glass, with a rope perimeter keeping you over 20 feet away, 4 guards nearby, and hordes of people crowding around. The Venus de Milo is impressive, but my favorite statue is the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The large format French paintings are inspiring as well, including Delacroix’s “Liberty leading the people”. Shereen’s favorite was the Napoleon apartments, directed lavishly with rich couches and elaborate chandeliers. The Louvre is monstrous and we spent about 5 hours meandering without seeing everything.

Connection

Well, now that we are a few weeks beyond our Orange debacle I suppose we can laugh. But to update you on what happened to finally get service setup, we’ll go back to where we were waiting for the second technician to show up.

This time Monique had given her number to them so they could call if there were any issues. Our time slot was in the middle of the day, so I stayed home from work to sit in the car by the gate. Well this time we weren’t seeing anyone so we called Monique. She called Orange and the response was that the technician couldn’t find the apartment so he had called our apartment phone, WHICH HE WAS COMING TO FIX!!! For whatever reason he couldn’t turn around and come back, so we were stuck again. This was reaching crisis mode as Shereen was now very frustrated. Monique decided to put the pressure on Orange. ArvinMeritor does business with Orange, so she solicited the assistance of our IT rep to find a management contact at Orange. I’m not sure everything she said, but apparently she said I was a VIP and the ArvinMeritor would reconsider doing business with Orange unless the situation was resolved. Well, within 2 days we had a technician at our apartment. After 45 minutes of poking around in the wiring we were in business. We couldn’t communicate with the tech very well, but there was some problem with their system. Anyway after over a month of delay and grief we were now connected to the world!

Orange!

The past few weeks have been somewhat of a struggle since the primary communication portal we were counting on, internet and local phone service, still does not work. This leaves Shereen feeling isolated during the day, with only unsatisfactory trips to McDonalds for internet. Fortunately we now have a cell phone from work that we can use for local calls. At least we are now able to keep in touch. We had canceled both of our US cell phones, and once Shereen’s expired over a week ago, it was nearly impossible to get in contact during the day.

We signed up with Orange to provide internet/telephone service over 5 weeks ago. Normally it takes about 15 days to setup. We are discovering that customer service at the previous national France Telecom, but recently privatized Orange is abysmal. Which, unfortunately, seems to be typical of most French services. Multiple calls to Orange have produced responses that the line is established and should work. We have received the appropriate hardware in the mail (so named “Livebox” that despite its moniker plays dead). But our daily attempts to connect produce no more than the mocking “flashing 4 times per second” of the ADSL light indicating the line is not active.

Two weeks ago, with the assistance of the charming Monique, we called Orange to schedule a service call, with the earliest appointment being a week later, last Wednesday. We gritted our teeth and impatiently waited for the promised time of 8 AM to arrive. I stood at the gate to our apartment complex just to make sure there would be no issues with the intercom system (our name has not been added to the digital directory next to the apartment number yet). Well, no one came. Shereen used a pay phone to call a secretary at work, who called Orange. The answer came back that our appointment had not been confirmed. This was a shock, our hopes of connection were dashed. I had been with Monique when we scheduled the appointment and there was no mention of a confirmation. She was surprised as well after learning of this later.

After weighing the options (canceling Orange for a competitor, setting up a cable line) we decided that our best chance of establishing a connection would be to setup another service call with Orange. The earliest appointment is, once again, a week later on this Tuesday. So we wait and stew. My suspicion is that Orange has connected a neighboring apartment; that being the reason they believe the connection is active but we can’t get a signal. We shall see. I asked if threatening to cancel would produce a more timely response, but the locals indicated this would not change the situation.

Nice

Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2168981&l=e8d94&id=15616369

As advertised, a couple of weeks ago we traveled to the French Riviera, the area along the Mediterranean coast of French, just west of the border with Italy. We were armed with a map, from the Orleans tourist information center, showing camping sites in France. Our plan was to drive as far as we could on Friday, then use the map and GPS to find a campsite. From Orleans to Nice is nearly a 9 hour drive, so we were planning to leave in good time on Friday, but didn’t get started until after 5:30 pm.

Although the roads in France are nice, the toll roads are a bit pricey. One way our total tolls approached 50 Euros. So for the round trip we paid about $150 in tolls. Good thing we were camping and not staying in a posh hotel.

By about 10:30 we had driven as far as we could stand and began looking for a campsite. Using the addresses listed on the map, the GPS got us close, and then we followed signs to the camps. We found a small one that we drove into, not seeing anyone to pay, and found an open grassy area to setup the tent. There were several car campers nearby as we setup the tent in the dark. In the morning we were able to see the neighbors. The campers were relics, with mostly older couples camping in style: tables with tablecloths and flower centerpieces, clothes drying on the line, and stoves cooking breakfast. We looked very rookie as we gobbled our bread and fruit as we hurried to pack and get on the road. As we loaded up, a woman walked up. She was the “owner” of the site and asked for payment, in acceptable English, and pointed out the showers and shop we had passed on the way in. For one night: 11.40 Euro.

There was still a long drive to reach Nice. Once we were close we began looking for another campsite and found a more professional version than our previous night’s stay. I’m still not exactly sure which town we were in, it was one of the small ones on the coast south of Nice, about a 40 minute bike ride from Nice as we were to find later. This was a gated site, with well marked sites for tents and campers, showers, and ping pong tables. For one night: 25 Euro. After setting up the tent and leaving the car, we headed for the beach. Similar to Italy, the beach is small stones, which my bare feet protest loudly when subjected to. We can confirm that the beaches were full of Europeans with a more liberal opinion of what minimal beach attire is. It was strange to see liberated mothers cavorting with their children on the beach. Not to say that this was the standard, I would guess that only 1/3 diverted from what Americans consider “normal” attire.

In the evening we drove to Nice, a few minutes away. Parking in a garage, we walked to downtown. There were hundreds of people on the street. During the course of the evening we passed a group of young break dancers surrounded by a crowd (there was an overweight college tourist goofing by pretending to break dance in the circle to the amusement of all, while the pros responded with real moves, including a headstand spin), an amateur magician practicing rope knot tricks for a small audience, a spray paint artist creating nature scenes as we watched, a tall, thin, tackily dressed Michael Jackson impersonator who was dancing to his songs blaring on a small boom box, and a talented pianist in the center of a square banging out classical to a large audience in a manner that even a non-musician like myself could appreciate (the stand-up piano had wheels on the back that would have been used to move it).

Following our usual drill, we consulted Rick Steves for a nearby restaurant, but unfortunately since this was still the holiday season, the first 3 we tried were closed (the owners had shut down for several weeks while they vacationed). We ended up at another one his suggestions, an extremely popular outdoor place where we ordered food from a window and ate at picnic tables on the square: pizza and the ever present “frites” at a reasonable price. Not so romantic, but surrounded by local flavor at the crowded tables. For dessert we looked for a gelato stand. Entering a large square it was easy to see why Steves recommended the gelato place we were looking for. The locals swarmed around it, while on the opposite side of the square, a smaller competitor had almost no customers. Walking by with our fruity cones I noticed that his prices were about 50 cents cheaper; insufficient, apparently, to coax the locals into buying an inferior product.

The next day we decided to ride our bikes back to Nice to explore in daylight (and eat lunch at a Thai restaurant Shereen had spotted the day before). After some uncertainty we were able to navigate the bike path along the beach to the boardwalk in Nice. At the north end of town we climbed the cliff to what was once a castle overlooking the bay. The castle is gone, but there is a large park, with great view of Nice to the south and Monaco to the north. Yes, there were multiple HUGE yachts in the port of Monaco. We stopped for Thai for lunch and I can report that the Pad Thai was very inferior to the Michigan version (no kick, bland flavor). With the long drive ahead of us, we left early in the afternoon.