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

26.06.2016

La Plage
We went to the beach today. The only buttocks we saw were little kids', but we saw a few topless women. A few years ago a young German friend of mine said that he thought the French were exhibitionists. Only on the beach.

Brexit
An online petition to the British Parliament is asking for a second referendum on Brexit (which passed last week), noting that neither side received 60 percent of the vote and that turnout was less than 75 percent. However, there appears to be no legal basis for those numbers -- it's just something the petition states "should be".

Before the Brexit vote a pollster, Tom Mludzinski (director of political polling at ComRes), said he believed that anything less than 60/40 would put the referendum back on the agenda because it wouldn't be considered a decisive result by the people. I haven't found anything about 75% of the people voting except in the petition. As of today (less than 3 days after the Brexit vote) 3 million people have signed the petition.

Cooling beach breeze on a hot Sunday	Ruth playing Zen Stones with beach pebbles	Lots of families at the Mediterranean

24.06.2016

The Euro fell 2.5% after the Brexit vote.

23.06.2016

The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. It is a non-binding referendum, but the UK is very likely to abide by the wishes of the voters and leave the EU very soon. More info.

Some people who voted to leave expressed shock that the referendum won and twitter is having a field day about that.

But in all seriousness, the vote will probably bode ill for many nations including the UK.   Norway had previously warned UK voters that not being in the EU did nothing in terms of lessening regulations because if a country wants the EU as a trade partner they must abide by their regulations (safety, health, worker rights, environmental protection).

Scottland and Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU, so now Scotland is discussing leaving the UK and other potential solutions are being discussed: the EU could let Scotland stay. We will blog about how this vote effects us as we learn more.

23.06.2016

John and I have our health insurance now and it's good for 1 year.

They added John's last name to the end of my name and I didn't notice so I went back to fix that. I showed them my passport but they said I also needed my birth certificate (certificat de naissance) to make a name change -- even though I am trying to correct THEIR mistake and they already received my birth certificate just a couple of days prior. They gave me an appointment date in mid-July (even though the original application was a walk-in and took 20 minutes). I know -- I should have checked the papers when they gave them to me and when I returned to correct the name error I should have brought all the documentation I brought the first time. I know these things because I've had lots of experience in the states jumping through hoops for government services. It can be such a pain.

It's more than annoying that people think they can just make up names for women. ALL of my documents have my correct name and the people at the CPAM office were provided my passport, apartment lease, bank statements, marriage license and birth certificate. Someone had to really be determined to screw this up. And now I have to make several trips back to CPAM. I experienced somewhat similar scenarios in the states, but it seems to be worse here. In the states I would say my name and that was (usually) it. Here I sometimes get arguments (for crying out loud)! OK. End of complaint. Of course I still love France and I am very grateful for the relative ease and low cost of being insured here. Yay France!

CPAM/CAISSES PRIMAIRES D'ASSURANCE MALADIE/Sickness Insurance Primary Fund
This is how to get health insurance (called sickness insurance locally) in France. More info.

Health care: "All legal residents in France, i.e. employed, unemployed, pensioners and their dependents, are entitled to benefit from the French health care system. The way it works is you pay for their treatment and then ask for reimbursement. You are given back a percentage of the amount, depending on the type of treatment (ranging from 100% for emergency treatment down to 65% for a course of antibiotics). To search for the CPAM local office in your department/city, please visit this webpage."

After we applied for the social security general scheme (health insurance) we were told we would have an answer in 2 weeks. That same day another person said we should have an answer in 4 weeks. We waited for 6 weeks to receive our card in the mail before we went back to the CPAM office.

The first day we went the office was closed (with no notice on the web site that it would be closed). The next day we only had to show our passports and we received paperwork with our social security number and a statement that we are covered for one year.

We realized then that we had misunderstood the application process. We weren't supposed to wait for a card to arrive in the mail -- we were just supposed to come back to the office in 2 weeks (or 4 weeks?). The insurance is effective the day you come back in and is good for one year.

The man who helped us today spoke little English, so we found an English speaker to ask how much the voluntary contributions to the French Social Security would be and how do we pay them. She said we needed to pay no voluntary contributions -- that part is free. When we researched this last year we saw that, for those who had not previously paid into the system, the French voluntary contribution payments were very close to the same amount as our soon to be payments for Medicare. So, of course, since our French contributions are zero, our contribution to the French health care system is less than our Medicare co-payment would have been.

Because we are covered by the French healthcare system now, we only pay 30% of the doctor's payment (medical, dental and optical), medication, hospitalization and supplies. The full payments before deductions, based on our experiences, are 23 € for a visit to a primary care doctor, 25-50 € per prescription and 100 € to see a specialist. We pay 30% of those charges. However, it is also common to buy "top-up" (or mutuel) insurance to cover the remaining 30%. We haven't done that yet. I think the premiums for top up insurance are 30€ a month.

So, the steps we took to getting health insurance in France are:
1) come here on a visitor's visa
2) get residency -- try to apply within 1 month of arriving in France (though legally you have 3 months). You'll need a lease for at least one month in the future to get residency (vacation rental is OK).
3) After you have received your residency sticker for your passport you can get a local bank account. I found a very good link about getting a bank account in France. NOTE: After you have a bank account you can get a long term rental or purchase property. To rent you may need to put down a very large security deposit, but that varies with the property owner.
4) After you have a lease for your place of residence, legal residency, a local bank account, and you've lived in France for 3 months, you can apply for health insurance.
Bring these items to your health insurance application appointment:
     A) lease showing you've lived in France stably for 3 months
     B) proof of income
     C) bank account info
     D) passport with residence visa
     E) birth certificate
     F) marriage certificate (if applicable)
5) After 2 weeks go back to the CPAM building where you applied and pick up your approval for health insurance along with your local SS number: Your benefits are good for one year. You must renew before the year is up.
6) Get top up insurance
Link about EU insurance for ex-pats NOTE: Link The 70% reimbursement can be misleading, because Sécu reimburses a certain percentage of their index (base de remboursement) for consultations. Doctor consultations usually cost 23 €, but if you go to a specialist, s/he can charge more. The Sécu's index is 23 € for specialists, so regardless of how much you actually paid for the consulation (we paid 110€), you will only be reimbursed at most 70% of 23 € by la Sécu.

23.06.2016

Movies
John and I love good animation and Pixar films always have excellent animation, so we went to see "Le Monde de Dory" this afternoon - in French. We didn't understand much of the French, but the animation was excellent as usual. Baby Dory was as cute as baby Nemo. When the Aquarium fish wanted to go with Dory and they chanted "Liberté" over and over, I was moved to chant along with them. There is a very short short after the credits that is cute. Thomas Newman (Randy Newman's cousin) did the film score. Overall it was very nice even though we couldn't understand all the dialog.

2€ Store
I finally found a 2 € store near Nicetoile and Monoprix. The 2€ store is a great place for finding kitchen organizing tools: baskets, boxes, shelves and storage containers. Now we can find stuff in the fridge, freezer and cabinets. Not everything is 2 €s but many useful items are heavily discounted and helpful. I mostly bought baskets for organizing the freezer and under the sink.

Henri Matisse Graffiti Nice style
About a block from our home is a construction site that has been operating for several months. Recently someone graffitied the fence and it's lovely. It's not like the graffiti we encountered in Barcelona. This is a stylized simulation of Henri Matisse's work. Very cool.

Weather
The weather these days is hot (ha ha ha ~77°F) and humid (78%). Here's a weather link for the next several days. Although it gets humid here in the summertime, we rarely encounter air conditioning. Most stores, buses, offices, residences and movie theaters either have no or minimal A/C.

North and south ecosystems around our apartment
Our apartment has 3 detached walls with large windows along each wall. John spends most of his day on the south side of our building and I spend most of my day on the north side. The ecosystems differ a lot between the north and south sides of the apartment. The south side has a lot of palm trees, flowering plants and many birds. The South facing windows and balcony have more light and warmth than do the North facing windows and balcony. John's planters garden is thriving in large part because of all the sunshine. The vast majority of the birds on the South side are starlings that circle madly at dusk in an open square between our building and the next street over. The starlings make high-pitched noises that sound a lot like bats. Our cats love that. Sometimes seagulls make their way to the south side and very rarely we'll see pigeons. On the north side the pigeons are prolific. Seagulls have staked out the roof of the building across the street and Lovey and Dovey come to our kitchen window twice a day to feed. Every day at dawn and dusk the north and south birds make a great racket or sing pretty songs. On the south side there is a short retirement home somewhat close to us. John watches the retirees participate in goofy marches, games and dancing lessons on their backyard lawn (which faces our building). The north side of our building is bordered by a semi-major street with another tall apartment building across the street. From the north windows I watch elaborate parades, young people's sports revelry (Euro 2016 soccer games continue for a month) and casual dinners and garden parties on the patios and balconies across the street. There is almost always music involved. Nice is nice.

John and I still take photos of some of the ornate buildings in our neighborhood. For me, that there are so many beautiful buildings less than 5 blocks away is marvelous. This is our home now - surrounded by ancient, ornate, lovely buildings. I know that someday it will all seem routine and less than exceptional, but right now that is hard for me to imagine.

Table Tennis
We finally got our ping-pong table set up. We've played a few times and if we play the long version game (to 21) I always win (I won! I won! I won! I won! I won! I won! ). But if we play regulation (to 11), then John always wins (He won! He won! He won! He won! He won! He won! ). The table is very large (regulation size) that fills our entry way (our entry way is huge and would be a lot of wasted space if we weren't using it as a game room). The table folds in half and has wheels so moving it is easy. I bought an additional duvet to throw over it when it is stored against a wall in one of the spare rooms. John and I had pool and air hockey at our last house and air hockey before and table tennis before that. Now when we have a gathering at our place we can invite our guests to play a game or two of table tennis. Of course we have enough paddles for teams.

Balcony kitties
Cool breezes flow through both our balconies and the kitties love being outside. Tommy was a scaredy-cat at first but now he balcony surfs (north and south) every chance he gets.

Kitty in a box
We are still getting many of our necessities from Amazon.fr and when packages arrive the kitties love playing with the papers and living in the boxes. Someday we'll need to get rid of those boxes, but I suspect that Danny will put up a big fuss when we do.

We bought a backpack carrier for taking the cats a few blocks to the vet. It's snug for them but they are able to turn around in it. I wanted to get one for Tommy that resembles a baby carrier where his legs stick out like the one Bucky Katt has in the comic strip "Get Fuzzy." Tommy is part Siamese and when he peeks around corners or to the side of his scratching posts he looks just like Bucky (also Siamese). For a while I called him Bucky Katt. When Tommy was a baby I called him "Bolt" for a while because he acted like the excitable hero dog in Disney's animated movie "Bolt". But his name has been Tommy from the beginning. I think I confused him with all the other names. "Tommy" and "Kitty" are enough names for him.

French movie poster of Dorey	Henri Matisse Graffiti	Starlings flying in circles
Senior citizens center behind our building.	Ironworks like this are common in our section of Nice.	Beautiful scrollwork on buildings just around the corner from our place
Utilising space with ping-pong table in our entryway.	Danny and Tommy getting use to the balcony.	Danny in his packing box.
Danny watching the birds.	Green onions are the first produce from our balcony garden.

17.06.2016

Soccer games are full force here in Nice. Today it's Spain vs Turkey and there are Spanish, Catalan and Turkish flags everywhere - plus a million honking horns. It's like an American football game except the flags and costumes are for countries instead of schools or cities.

Traffic frequently comes to a standstill on almost every street around us. Our street, which is not a main street, had traffic backed up until almost 10 PM. The stadium is not close to here so I'm not sure what caused the log-jams. Revelry I suspect (even without alcohol).

Because of recent very bad fights between Russia's and England's soccer fans alcohol sales have ceased until noon tomorrow (starting at noon today).

The weather is back to being cool and not humid. I'm sure that will be helpful too.

12.06.2016

Life is serene these days in our quaint apartment with its lovely plants and singing birds and the beautiful Mediterranean sea only 4 blocks away. The best is an abundance of adventures available to us -- so many cool places to visit nearby.

We went to Monaco/Monte Carlo yesterday. We took a bus because it ran right on the coast and we had a beautiful view both directions. We spent about an hour on the bus each way. When we go further West than Monaco we'll take a train. We plan to go to Menton in the near future which is about 50% further than Monte Carlo.

We visited the Oceanographic Museum (very nice!). There's a very old and ornate cathedral nearby, lots of other ornate buildings, statues everywhere and mansions galore. This map shows where the aquarium is located. You can see it is surrounded by water. It's also a bit hilly -- John and I walked up and down a bunch of hills to get there. I think the tour bus would have dropped us off in front, but we decided to walk and the view was lovely everywhere along our path. The weather was terrific although the humidity has been higher these last 2 weeks.

The Oceanographic Museum was built in 1910 by Prince Albert 1 who lead 28 scientific expeditions. Jacques Cousteau was the director for 31 years. John's childhood involved watching Cousteau's documentaries. The map of the Oceanographic museum shows the 5 levels - one at ground level, two above ground level and 2 below ground. Level 1 showcased Taba Naba, a major exhibition of Aboriginal and Oceanic art on the theme of oceans and water. Level -2 (the bottom level) has a section for sealife of the Mediterranean including a large tank for bal des meduses or ball jellyfish (what we called "Moon Jellies" in the states). There were several other tanks for other jellyfish including one for babies. We took a lot of pics. This aquarium is the biggest one I've been to plus it has a terrific terrace view from the roof where a seagull stalked me for my sandwich. There's a little exhibit on the roof with box turtles and there is an eatery.

The lowest level (-2) has the normal aquarium stuff. The vast majority of the creatures here are what we'd seen before (we used to go to Scripps and Birch aquariums in San Diego) but some of the same creatures looked very different. The piranhas were beautiful. They have bright gold specks along the side like this. I don't recall seeing that before and I've seen quite a few piranhas.

We saw a huge bunch of teeny tiny baby nemos (clownfish) and several Dorys (Blue Tang). Plus many other beautiful fish - as you would see in any other large aquarium. There was a very large room that displayed skeletons of sea animals. A giant whale skeleton was hanging from the ceiling. The museum scheduled a "light show of the skeletons" every hour. It was just different colored lights with some bad music. Hokey.

Almost all the descriptive text was in French and English and some in Italian. Several times we were trying to translate the French and then noticed there was a seperate text in English, so we had a little practice with our French. Of course it's much easier to read French than to hear, write or speak it.

Next time we'll visit the Museum of Prehistoric Antrhopology which is in the Exotic Gardens. When they refer to exotic plants here it is almost always cactus, whereas in the states it is almost always flowering tropical plants.

European flags displayed for soccer tournament.	Monte Carlo sign for steep hill leading up to the Palace. Defibrillator in 20 meters!	12th Century fortress at the top of the hill
Cannon and cannonballs in front of the Prince's Palace.	Statue of Francois Grimaldi outside the Prince's Palace of Monaco. The statue commemorates 700 years of Grimaldi reign.	View of the harbor of Monte Carlo.
Prince's Palace of Monaco, the official residence of the Prince.	Place du Palais	These ornate public water taps are common.
Beautiful building with Saint Nicholas Cathedral in the background.	Elegant streetlamps with crowns	Park near the Oceanographic museum.
Oceanographic Museum entrance.	Jacques Cousteau's yellow submarine.	Ornate museum entrance with ocean life theme.
Lecture hall	Underground aquarium	Lots of beautiful fishes.
Shark and skate	Lots of specimens from the museum's long history.	Seahorse in a mirror
Jellyfish	Lobster. The aquarium used blue light alot.	Ruth meeting a grouper.
Anemones	Rockfish	Flying fish
Octopus	Moray eels	Garibaldi
Baby Jellyfish	Cuttlefish	This cute little guy looks like he's waiting for someone.
Sea turtle	Piranha	I'm not sure what this is, but it looked cool.
Anemones with tiny baby clown fish	Lionfish	Neon starfish
Dory?	Mexican Salamander	Nautilus
Entrance Hall	Giant clam	Giant squid
Exhibit of South Pacific artifacts	John in a tiny early submarine called the Turtle.	Early specimens of the museum
Batik whale in South Pacific textile art exhibit	Wax exhibit of institute's early scientists	Textile native art of sea turtle
Walrus and sea lion skeletons	Whale skeleton	Very early deep water diving suit
Later deep water diving suit	Seagull who was stalking Ruth for her lunch	Always interesting how a modern city shares space with 800 year old buildings in Europe.
On the roof of the Oceanographic Museum	Tortoises	As we left the aquarium we found an exhibit where you could pet sharks.
Great old buildings in Monte Carlo	Ceremonial guard outside the Prince's Palace	France in solidarity with Orlando

11.06.2016

Soccer

We started seeing French flags everywhere and businesses displayed flags from all over Europe. I kept thinking that another of the French holidays was being celebrated but the displays were instead for the European soccer (football here) competition. The French are as crazy for spectator sports as are Americans, especially about football. The French have more reason than usual this year to be hyped up about these football (soccer) games. France is hosting Euro 2016, the European football tournament. That explains the local businesses displaying long streams of flags from all over the European Union. Recently there were violent confrontations among football fans here in Nice. The game was between Russia and England and the fights here were between Irish, Polish and French fans. In the states fans root for teams from other states all the time, and get violent, so this is not a surprise. Stupid (the violence), but no surprise.

09.06.2016

I made reservations for some of our future trips. We're going to Amsterdam in September and Rome in October. Just for two days and one night each. We have a list of at least 2 dozen places we want to visit including Venice for the next Carnival and Florence (I love Da Vinci). We want to visit Oslo, Stockholm, Coppenhagen, Helsinki, Berlin ... Also we will visit many cities along the Mediterranean by train as a long term project. We're having some adventures. Yay!!

05.06.2016

Iron Man Triathlon

For a few days we saw a long line of bicycle stands and refreshment tents along the beach. I wondered if it was because tourist season is here, but it was for the spectators of the Iron Man competition.

The athletes swim two timed laps, bike 1900 meters through villages in the surrounding mountains and finally they run along the Promenade des Anglais. The maps of the paths for 3 components of this competition are linked from the Iron Man page linked above.

As many of you know the Iron Man competitions are world wide and in every U.S. state. They have competitions for women and even for kids aged 3 to 15. That would be fun to watch. John's son Caleb, his wife Carrie and their 4 children Jagger, Harper, Boston and Paisley (our beautiful grand-kids) participated in a 5K together not long ago.

June Miscellaneous
Cooking

John has continued his crock pot cooking and he's produced some great dishes. He made quiche Lorraine and he made lasagna twice and it was oh so tasty. We're switching some of our roles somewhat. His French vocabulary is better than mine and he understands better what people say on the phone. I used to always handle phone calls in the states because of his auditory dyslexia. Now we both have auditory problems. I used to do all the cooking, but here in Nice he makes main dishes periodically and does a damn good job of it.

Ornate Buildings

In our May blog I mentioned how cool looking the ornate old buildings are near our home. I took some more pics which you can see below. Without the sensory overload I experienced a few months ago, the buildings are now perpetual history lessons. Fortunately, John knows history very well and he happily shares his knowledge with me. So cool. We are "happy campers".

French Books

Our French teacher in Eugene has become a friend and frequent correspondent. We send her stuff that we think might be useful to her classes and clippings from our local newspaper and she sends us cool cards and books. Most recently she sent us 2 books: Flirting With French and 90+ Ways You Know You're Becoming French. The latter is very funny and has many references to things we've learned since moving here (and we ARE starting to act like Frenchies). I still have to stop and think, but most of the time now I show my thumb first when displaying numbers. French words flow from my lips much more often than before -- especially the ones that are used daily such as merci, bonjour, s'il vous plaît, désolé, bonsoir, je ne comprends pas, quelle?, où?, avez-vous? and au revior. That's not really saying a lot as we've been here more than 8 months, but it is progress. John is better educated in French than am I. We both have much work to do.

Recently I saw a funny meme about languages on the Internet and the one about French made us smile. Check it out.

The Neighborhood

I've mentioned the bakery, butchery and small shops nearby each specializing in a craft. I saw a fish store very close by too. I took a pic because it looked cool. I love the little shops all within walking distance. Another of the many pleasures of living here.

Cats

We hardly ever see cats roaming around. That's probably because the number of dogs running around is huge. I was waiting to have my blood drawn for labs when I heard a cat meowing. I looked around - no cat. I looked outside the window and saw a woman pushing a baby carriage with a cat inside in a harness. I don't think our cats would want to go out like that. We have a big enough place that the cats get enough exercise. They still whine like crazy, though, whenever any door is closed. Let me in! Let me in! Let me out! Let me out!

Apartment

John has always loved a photo by Robert Doisneau titled Le baiser de l'hotel de ville (Kiss by the Hotel de Ville) which was shot in 1950 in Paris. It's his most famous work. When you enter our apartment the first thing you will see is that photo in a frame above a quote about love stories: "Every love story is beautiful, but ours is my favorite." Yes, indeed! The photo is among the images below.

We are slowly decorating our place. Many rooms are still works in progress. Our toilet room is long and narrow and white. I didn't like the starkness but I wasn't sure how to decorate a small, narrow, stark room with nothing but a very small sink and a toilet in it. I installed bamboo baskets shelving and I attached some mirror circles in varying sizes, some filled and some just stylized outlines. That looked OK, but nothing special. It looked like an attempt at elegance and success at gaudiness. I came across some postcards John brought from the states, most of which he picked up at ComicCon in San Diego, of old time monster movies. I framed them in silver and positioned 10 of them among the mirrored circles and it looks so cool! Seriously! Eight of the images have English text. The Bride of Frankenstein has French text and the Creature from the Black Lagoon has Danish text. So we have worldly other-worldly decorations in our toilet room. As you know, John and I are not the elegant type. However, we do very well with silly and campy, so this is a great look for us.

John's been tending to his vegetables and flowers growing on his balcony. He planted the seeds about a month ago and they are becoming healthy lush plants now. He's got 2 kinds of tomatoes, bell peppers, onions and a hodge-podge of flowers (we don't know what they are until they bloom). He loves staying in touch with nature and I am very much looking forward to those cherry and pear tomatoes in our salads.

John's crockpot quiche	Crockpot lasagna	Local fish market
The majority of buildings in our part of Nice have very ornate facades.	Some have domes.	A church near the port.
Clock tower near the port.	Advertisement for Iron Man Triathlon	Triathlon starts with the swim.
Bicycle leg of the triathlon.	Our favorite photo is in our entryway now.	John's tomato plants are starting to flower.
More of John's balcony garden.	Our WC now has a quirky old Sci-Fi movie theme.
Two great books Orit, our French teacher in Oregon, sent to us.