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Wanderung 10

Boating around the Boot & Gallivanting through Gaul.

October 2005

Wednesday October 19, Nice, France

When daylight finally dawned the wind abated and the ship stopped rocking, but a heavy rain took its place. The rain and dark clouds made the day seem gloomy, but that might have just been me. I was sad to say good-bye to the Astor and all the fun times we had experienced while aboard her.

The cruise ended with a washout when we disembarked and had to retrieve our luggage from some tents on the wharf. By this time the rain had become a torrential downpour and we got pretty wet just walking down the gangplank from ship to shore. But I really got soaked while we were standing in line waiting for a taxi to take us into central Nice. Much to my chagrin I found out that the new jacket I had bought for this trip was not waterproof at all, and I was literally soaked to the skin in short order. I mean soggy underwear, socks, and everything; it felt like I had gone swimming with my clothes on! Fortunately it was a warm rain so hypothermia was not a problem and I could just stand there feeling like a drowned rat until we finally got a taxi about 20 minutes later.

We squished into a taxi with Jim, both literally and figuratively, and it deposited us at Hotel du Centre a few minutes later. The 5 kilometer ride cost us about 17 Euros, which was a bargain considering how desperate I was to get into our room and change into some dry clothes. After registering at the front desk, we carried everything up to our room in a small elevator and examined each suitcase for wet clothes. Although the fabric of the luggage was indeed waterproof, the zippers had allowed water to leak through, and so we had to unpack a few items and hang them up to dry. We also changed into dry clothes and I immediately felt much better about the state of the world.

Heinke and Gustl had misgivings about having booked us into a 2-star hotel, but I was interested in how it would differ from the 3-star hotel we had stayed at in Venice. The only differences I could see were that the elevator was noticeably smaller--one person and a couple pieces of luggage was about it--and the bathroom just had a basic sink, shower, and commode. Since that is all I really want or need, I felt completely at home in the 2-star hotel, which raised the interesting issue of whether I would still be OK in a 1-star or even a 0-star hotel, and as it turned out we actually did stay at those during our drive to Paris.

That afternoon the rain continued to fall, but we finally took a walk to get some exercise, check out where the car rental office was located, and find an umbrella to supplement my rather useless jacket. Monika also wanted to find road map of France to guide us on our drive North into Switzerland and then up to Paris, which was our rough plan. Besides all that, we both really wanted to get a feel for what the city of Nice was like, and we always do that by walking around. Our hotel was right next to a large church, and we turned south on a main street to head to the old section of town and the beach area, looking for a bookstore that might sell maps and checking various shops as we went by for umbrellas..


 

Just a couple of blocks down we found a 4-story pocket mall that had 30+ stores, and we entered with high hopes that we'd find the items we were looking for in one of those shops. This mall reminded me quite a bit of a similar-sized multi-storied mall in downtown Kiel, Germany, that we had wandered through once while waiting for a train (see Wanderung 5). We really enjoyed seeing the variety of shops in this mall, but we were also amused at the differences in the shops we found in a typical German versus French mall. The German mall had 3 bookstores and clocks everywhere, but only 1 restaurant as I recall (plus a stand selling fresh fruit) and no shops specializing in women's lingerie (like Victoria's Secret in the U.S.). In contrast, the French mall had no bookstores or clocks at all, but there were one or more restaurants on each and every floor of the mall and at least three or four shops specializing in women's lingerie! To the extent that the mix of stores in a shopping mall reflects the underlying values of each culture, this would seem to imply a French fixation on food and sex versus a German fixation on time and reading books!

Although we failed to find any maps in our mall search, we did find a shop that not only had umbrellas but even had a fairly nice compact umbrella on sale for 10 Euro. We bought one of those and that at least kept me dry during the rest of our perambulations outside that afternoon. Continuing down toward the harbor we located the car rental agency and in the same block we finally found a bookstore and a bakery! The bookstore had a cheap (5 Euro) roadmap of France and the bakery had cheap sweet rolls, so despite the lousy weather we were feeling quite satisfied with life as we wandered back to our hotel through the old quarter of Nice with its narrow streets lined with boutiques. We also snagged a couple of sandwiches at a hole-in-the-wall carryout place just down the block from our hotel and had those for a belated lunch. In some ways I missed the fancy cruise ship meals, but on the other hand it was a lot easier to control my appetite and keep my weight down if I wasn't being tempted by a variety of sumptuous offerings on a buffet or a long list of great appetizers!

Monika read a bit while I took a nap for the rest of the afternoon, and by then we were all ready for dinner. The six of us wandered around trying to find a place to eat, but we that was much more difficult than we had anticipated because all the restaurants we found were closed! We later figured out that most of the French restaurants didn't even open for business until well after 6 p.m. confirming yet another stereotype about the French eating late evening meals. Still, we finally found a bar that had a small dining area and we stopped in there for a meal. It turned out to be filled with Germans--apparently no self-respecting Frenchman would ever try to eat dinner before six o'clock--but they all welcomed us. It turned out the cook didn't even show up for the evening until 6 p.m., but we had drinks and listened to a bustard play a guitar and sing off-key and then come around with his hat in hand for donations. It was distinctly odd to be speaking English to Monika or Jim while people on all sides of me were chatting away in German and the bustard was singing off key in French. The mélange of languages kept my brain working overtime to try to understand everything. I finally decided I couldn't do that and thereafter tried to screen out the other languages while concentrating on English or German depending on whom I was speaking to.

The (German) folks at the table next to us ordered a calzone (pizza crust folded over fillings), but it arrived burnt and they sent it back to the kitchen. What surprised me is that the cook came storming out of the kitchen and tried to argue them into accepting a burnt meal. I didn't catch the details as I don't parlez Francaise, but they folks were adamant that they did not want burnt calzone and the cook finally gave up and returned to the kitchen, after which they had the daily special. Fortunately my lasagna was not burnt, although the dish it was served in had the porcelain worn off it in several places and had clearly seen better days. Monika's spaghetti was also quite good as I found out when she stopped eating and we did our normal tactic of switching dishes, which is one way I find enough to eat!

Copyright2006 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Prolog
Map
October 2005
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Epilog

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