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The most recent entries are at the top of this page. Earlier entries follow in reverse chronological order.

25.02.2016

John goes to the corner bakery every couple of days to get bread and pastries. We also have a pâtisserie nearby which we haven't visited yet.

I love the pastries that are gooey, wet in the center, have candied fruit in them but otherwise look like the palmiers or a flat cinnamon roll. The texture is sort of in between those 2 pastries also -- the palmier being flaky and the cinnamon roll being chewy. John usually wants bread such as croissants or loaves. He and I both like the loaves with 3 large bumps. They are buttery and soft. Today he got a loaf that resembled sour dough bread in texture and taste. I like the bumpy bread better. I'm going to make grilled cheese sandwiches from the next loaf. John loves grilled cheese sandwiches.

The bakery has cheesy bread and it also makes sandwiches from soft bagels and other breads. We had some that reminded us of the fresh panninis with chicken and spinach (and other stuff) we used to get in Eugene. The name of the bakery is J. Multari. We'll bring home some J. Multari baked goods for you when you come to visit.

J. Multari has flyers in the windows for Carnaval and for a circus that came to town in another section of Nice. John and I didn't go to the circus but we passed by it while we were out shopping a few days ago. That's pretty cool -- a big time Carnaval and a pretty good size circus in town at the same time.

Our French teacher in Eugene told us a bit about what to expect regarding shopping in France. I suspected that she was talking about many years ago and that things were different now but she was spot on: there are specialty shops everywhere. There are several individual shops for cheese, meats, hardware, women's clothing, hair cut and styling, grocery, household goods, alcohol, candy, shoes, cosmetics, electronics ... all small facilities and most individually owned. But there also are several large stores (hyper marches) like Carrefour and supermarkets for groceries like Casino. And many other vendors large and small.

Businesses here are doing well. There's also a lot of new construction, infrastructure repair and renovation going on. The work is completed relatively quickly but it's clear that, in the realms of construction and infrastructure, there are sufficient revenues for growth and maintenance of the city. I don't know about other city functions. I do know that, sadly, dog poop clean up isn't a priority here.

Our neighbor corner bakery	Daily menu and specials	Tasty baked goods
The bakery is always busy	Large display case has baked goods, homemade sandwiches and pizza slices	Carnaval poster
Circus poster	Pain de mie or "bumpy bread"

21.02.2016

We went to the main Carnaval parade yesterday. It was amazing. The day was beautiful with the Mediterranean Sea showing many shades of blue. The float forerunners make barely enough room in the streets for the floats to get by and then the handlers drag the giant balloons down to where they touch the crowd (like dragon tails, bird wings, other appendages), touching kids on their heads or even drifting over their faces. Each main float is preceded by a troupe of 10 or more walking or dancing smaller versions of the float's main big heads entities. And almost every float presented social commentary. The theme this year was the Effect of the Media. These are definitely not the floats you see on Thanksgiving Day Parades.

The spectators were in costume -- many in Disney, Star Wars, and garb of other franchises (all while the floats criticized media and commercialism) and many were in traditional Halloween garb (witches, devils, ghosts). Very cool. Carrefour and other stores were selling bags of confetti and cans of silly string in anticipation of the parade. During the parade the spectators, especially the kids, were spraying each other and the people on the floats with silly string and tossing confetti on everyone within reach. John and I got dosed by both. Near the end of the parade a bunch of people in burnt orange costumes were standing near us carrying large burnt orange pots and backpacks with lawnmower engines (started by another burnt orange person who yanked on the pull cord). The smell was weird. Suddenly a pack of the burnt orange people stepped into the parade in different places and their whirling pots shot great lengths of white steamers into the crowd. A finishing touch the kids adored.

John and I will go to the flower parade later this week. We expect to be showered with flowers. We're also going to the night parade and the end of Carnaval festivities next weekend. We'll try to catch other Carnaval events too. A ball, some foodie stuff ... We missed the Queernaval (not Queer naval, but Queer-nival with a French spelling) that premiered this year: Read more.

There was also a charity foodie event VIRA LA RODA last week where local chefs get together and share their wares on the ferris wheel. Read more. Video Link

Detailed info on the Nice Carnaval from the Nice Tourism Center. (2013)
Read more.

The carnival is made up of two major events: the Carnival parade -or, at night, Parade of lights- and the Flower Parade. There are very different kinds of entertainment. 18 allegorical or comical floats, supported by entertainers, street artists and musical groups from five continents will parade around Place Masséna. These carnivalesque parades will look like journeys of discovery... a trip round the world in 90 minutes! The grace and elegance of the flower battles by the sea will be a reminder of the power of flowers and highlight the floral heritage of the region. It’s a more poetical facet of the carnival which is, however, integrally linked to the more ironic elements.

The Carnival Parade is made up of some 18 floats designed on the theme with 50 big heads and 100 attraction elements in a colourful parade with dazzling colours, and the participation of street theatre as well as music groups from all over the world. In the evening, all the floats are illuminated and the evening parades light up the heart of Nice. On the very last evening, His Majesty King Carnival marches alone before being burned in a bonfire at sea or on the strand. A firework display set to music inspired by the theme then lights up the bay. This event is heralded by 1,000 school children. For the last eight years, the education authorities have worked together with the NCVB on a pedagogic project on the theme of Carnival.

60 classic acrobats, or of street (stunts, jumps, «urban» balance), wading birds, jugglers, tightrope walkers, contortionists and urban dancers (Hiphop, Street Dance, “tektonik”) for half amateurs contribute to multiply tenfold the party. The Street performances A genuine reference for the Carnival of Nice, street arts punctuate the parades, blending different world, cultures and fantasy to the original floats in the Carnival and Flower Parades. Again this year, famous street artists will offer a will to open to the world; 70 groups from all over the world, one-third professionals, one-third amateurs and one-third local people presenting their latest creation during the parades.

Here are some links to Carnavales around the world (Rio de Janiero is very famous) Read more. We plan to go to Venice next year for Carnaval.

I was thrilled with all of it - the parade, the social issues represented by the floats, the spectators (especially the kids) in costume, throwing confetti and streamers and spraying silly string, In America Halloween was my favorite holiday by far. Carnaval is better.

This is a media link which provides some info about the meanng of the floats. Read more.

The first half of this video is the Flowers Parade, starting at 1:50 is the Corso Illumine, which is what we saw (except we saw it in the daytime). Video Link

Large headed manikin waitress at a beach restaurant.	Long line of tourist buses for the parade.	Two little French princesses admiring doves.
The Big Brother float. Who's watching who?	Two giant clockwork figures.	A giant balloon handler.
Giant dinosaur balloon	Anonymous Ship float	Skeleton cavalry
Tiny confetti throwers	Made in China float	Sinister USB connectors
Webmonster float eating print journalism	The 3 Monkeys of Media float: Say everything, see everything, hear everything!	The King of Media float
The Queen of Media float	We had no idea what these were suppose to represent.	The firefighter's float
Carnival Kid float	Giant spider float bouncing on the crowd	The Messengers float: From Moses to the Arab Spring.
Local radio float	Bizarre rock creature	Bird woman
Local generic newscaster float	Robot character	Media Thor float
The Trap float

20.02.2016

Ric, one of my friends from San Diego, emailed me tonight with some info about the T-connectors I had mentioned earlier in this blog. He said the T-connection is the F-010, which is an old French standard that was replaced with modern RJ45 in 2008. Refer to the picture on 15.02.2016.

Some of our neighbors across the street have ground floor patios surrounded by thick foliage. It makes for a nice private patio (if you discount the eyes from above and that sound travels far and isn't muffled in this close collection of old high-rises.

Tonight one of those neighbors had a party.The party music began at 8 PM. Not unreasonable on a Saturday night. It was pretty cool music, too. Like a combo of an anti-war drum circle, an American native dance and Paul Simon's Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes. There were drums, trills, clip-clopping sounds like coconut halves subbing for horse hooves in a Hi Ho Silver radio show, wood flutes, bells, vocals and laughter. Our neighbors would appear on their balconies across the street, then retreat only to reappear a few minutes later. A little like a gentile whack a mole without the whacking. I did the same thing.- on the balcony, back inside, looking out the open kitchen window, dancing with the kitties ... Did I mention that I really like this place? I like the apartment, the neighborhood, Nice and France.

18.02.2016

On the night of the 13 November bombings in Paris President Hollande declared a state of emergency for all of France. Yesterday the French Parliament voted to extend the state of emergency until May 26.

Human Rights groups are strongly opposed to the extension. Read more.

"Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International published separate research at the beginning of February, pointing to cases in which excessive force had been used in raids, leading to human rights violations including violence.

Citing dozens of testimonies, the groups said that since November 13 France carried out abusive and discriminatory raids and house arrests against Muslims, traumatising and stigmatising those targeted, including children and the elderly."

In section 1 of a recent Nice-Matin (newspaper) the security procedures covering the Carnival are discussed.

Newspaper article on Carnaval security because of terrorist concerns.

17.02.2016

I pulled a muscle so John went to get the dishes we liked from the big Carrefour store. The design is poppies, but not the poppies we liked the best (those were ceramic). These are porcelain. Elegant and looking much prettier than the pictures convey.

We will host a dinner party soon. Our first goal is to to get our dining furniture. We ordered it when we ordered the couch, but somehow that part of the order got dropped.

For a few weeks John had been talking about visiting the giant blockhead scuplture up close. It's real name is La Tete Carrée Library. It's by the local artist Sacha Sonos. Read more. When John went to get the dishes he made ??a short side trip to La Tete Carrée Library. He got close to the building, but not to the base and not inside. We'll do that together. It's cool looking, don't you think?

Poppy dishes.	Poppy dishes with food.	La Tete Carrée Library

16.02.2016

On 5 February we moved into our new place. It's lovely but old. Almost 100 years old. Our friends Dave and Charlotte moved to Sloat CA last year into a home as old as ours. Theirs looks like a Swiss Chalet. Ours looks like 18th century Baroque. It has a lot of scrolls and other ornamental features - most of them in turquoise tile. This building is known as the turquoise building for the ornamental features in turquoise and the turquoise tiles in the common spaces.

Our apartment is 96 sq meters in size. It's funny to me and John that this place seems so big even though it's smaller than the last house we had in Eugene that seemed so small to us when we lived there.

We bought a microwave a few days after we moved in. I haven't seen any microwaves larger than 800 W but 700 W is the standard. I've only seen one 800 W for every ten 700 W ovens. I haven't seen any 1,000 watt ovens which are common in the U.S.

The microwave we bought has some function switches that are not familiar to us and the symbols and text are not understandable to us. It comes with an instruction manual in 7 languages -- none of them English. The E language listed on the manual's cover is labeled ES in the manual. That's for Spanish.

Our major appliances arrived about a week after we moved in. We couldn't order them until we knew how to open the front gates to allow the furniture to be delivered. The person who oversees this building has the key. We just had to give her 2 or more days notice for the gates to be open at a specific time.

We have a small room for the washing machine and the only machine that would fit in there was a top loading washer with a cage that rotates vertically (i.e., around a horizontal axis) as though it were a front loading washer. The control selections for our washing machine are expansive (see photo). The cleaning results are great and the clothes are very near to dry after the spin cycle. Each load takes 2 or 2 1/2 hours to wash, so some planning is needed relative to when clothes should be washed - especially if the clothes are being air-dried.

Our washer actually takes up only half the available space in our little washer room. It's little and cute and washes 6 KG loads (comparable to US machines). I had seen a top-loading horizontal axis washer like this before but I don't remember when. John said he'd never seen them before.

Here's a synopsis of pros of European washers: The prices are great for all appliances here, be they American or European. And prices are much better by 20-50 % during the Soldes.

We were so very happy when our furniture came a few days after the major appliances arrived. The kitties were happy too. We'd been sleeping on air mattresses. I was so surprised that the kitties didn't poke holes in them. In our quest to find furniture that Danny wouldn't scratch we ended up with a lazyboy couch and chair. I love them. You can put them back far enough to use them as beds and they are VERY comfortable. Nice!

Carnival started here last Saturday. Some of the giants from the float are parked at Messina Place just looking cool. John and I went shopping yesterday and the streets were covered with confetti, silly string and pieces of small balloons. We'll participate in one of the parties later this week. And take pics, of course.

Danny loving the cool tile floors	Tommy loving the hardwood floors	The view into the living room before furniture.
We live on the third floor (France) or fourth floor (United States).	Scrollwork on our front door.	No elevator, but stairs with old iron bannisters.
The palm tree outside our living room window is home to many sparrow nests.	Tommy melts into our new easyboy chair.	Ornate balcony from our bedroom.
A view from our balcony of the ornate scrollwork.	Another view.	And another.
And still another.	A view of the building tiles at the back of the building.	The back of our building. We are at the top right.
Our entryway before furniture.	Tall doors and high ceilings.	An actual bathtub! Haven't seen one since we've been here.
The toilet has it's own room (WC) as is normal in France.	Tiny washing machine does the job!	Microwave manual in 7 languages, but not English. Better improve our French!
In the back we have a orange tree and our neighbors have a lemon tree.	Local newspaper article on Carnaval.

15.02.2016

My computer died again so I've been out of the blog writing business for several days. I kludged together a couple of dead laptops and I have a usable machine now.

Before we opened our Internet account one of our neighbors warned us that the fiber optics here is messed up resulting in speeds slower than DSL. I didn't have time to investigate then, and I still haven't looked into it, so we are connected via DSL. Our bandwidth need these days doesn't require super fast speeds because we aren't uploading large files. A speed test I did last week shows our upload speed is 60-100% of what it was with Comcast in Eugene 6-10 Mbps vs 10 Mbps. The download speed, however is about 50-70% of what we had in Eugene 25 Mbps vs 50 Mbps. We were paying top tier prices in Eugene. If the fiber connections work here and we switch we'll have up to 10 Gbps. (NOTE: GB in English is Go in French.)

The Internet outlets in the house are different from in the states. The outlets had a T shape that the cable box plugs into. The standard connection is wireless cable with an option for an Ethernet cable connection. Before we got our box we were looking for a coax cable connector and we thought maybe the only Internet connection available was through the phone. But we couldn't find any phone outlets either. Then I went online and found that fiber was available at this address. We were still stumped until we saw the T connectors and learned that everything goes through the T connectors either with a cable box or a converter box for the phone. The cable box also allows for VOIP which is what you get with a phone/Internet package, just as in the states.

T shaped outlet for Internet connection

02.02.2016

John and I finally made it to a doctor for a cursory check up and to get our prescriptions filled. It was strange (of course). No one was there, except for the doctor. No receptionist, no nurses, no other patients. There was almost no equipment that we could see -- just a table for the exam and a blood pressure cuff. The cost of our seeing this doctor, having an exam and a consult and getting refills for all our prescriptions? 23 Euros each. Pretty amazing.

Even prescription meds are handled much differently from in the states. The pills come in boxes of 14 or 30 days rather than bottles of the exact number of pills prescribed so, for example, a ten day antibiotic regiment requires that you buy a 14 day box and throw away 4 pills.

There are no pill IDs (numbers or letters) on any of the pills. The coloring and shape and the box and blister packs are the only pill ID designations. There is no patient identification.

We haven't done this yet, but to get a vaccination here you need to get prescription from your doctor, go to pharmacy for the vaccine which is in a syringe inside a box, go back to your doctor to have the vaccine injected.

See what I mean about labor intensive? It is very time intensive having to make three trips instead of one to get a vaccination. I think that is because, out of the hospital setting, doctors operate as ours does -- no equipment, no supplies.

Our first French perscriptions

01.02.2016

We will soon move into our first non-holiday rental since we've been here. It's been an adventure and a half just getting the place. For our own place we need sheets, blankets and towels in addition to curtains, furniture, appliances and even light fixtures (the previous tenants took theirs with them. At least I'm a bit handy with that and can install them without paying an electrician.

Bed sheets here are 190 cm or 200 cm long as are beds. I don't know why. And comforters for beds here are different from those in the U.S. These comforters have a removable outer cover which is usually made of the same material as the sheets. Different materials are available, but are less common. The inside is like a regular comforter but comes only in white. These insides can be washed just like an American style comforter and they come in varying thicknesses which you can change out as the weather changes. You can also use the covering alone in the summer. The covering would then have the same weight as 2 sheets. The inside comforter is very thick yet is amazingly light and very warm. I don't really need for it to be that warm but it is very cozy and ... comforting! It's also big-time fluffy -- kinda like a nice stuffed toy. I love my new comforter. The comforter comes with 2 matching (or semi-matching) pillow cases. Most of the pillows sold here are square -- usually 60x60 cm and, of course, so are the pillow cases. You can get longer ones but they are less common.

We were supposed to move in to our new apartment on Wednesday this week, but there have been some SNAFUs, so it may be a day or two later.