The months pass quickly, as the process of getting settled continues. It appears that it will, in the end, have taken a year to furnish my place to a comfortable level, what with delays in shipments, the lack of choices for some items, and the time it can take (or take ME!) to find just …
Hello, Readers! My most humble apologies for not posting in ages. The truth is I have been busy settling in to my Niçoise home, which has involved buying furniture (I need virtually everything), making time for new friends, and taking care of bureaucratic tasks. Some of these latter, specifically? 1) Applying for my French drivers’ …
This month went by quickly (even allowing for its abbreviated form). Carnaval, in Nice, of course, was a big deal for the city. Evidently, an additional 200,000 people were in attendance for some or all of the 16-day affair. Yet, the city did not feel crowded – unlike how I suspect it might feel this …
Apologies for the randomness in the timing of my postings. Things have spun a bit out of control of late, with so many things to do, mostly related to moving into my apartment. Please allow me to share now some vignettes of life in Nice of late. After my electricity adventure, Madame continued to be …
First of all, Happy New Year! In France, people say, “Bonne Année,” and “Bonne Santé,” all through January, but not a minute before 12:00am on January 1! The photo above shows one patisserie’s offerings, including the Galette des Rois, otherwise known in Louisiana, as King Cakes. In both the original version and the U.S. one, …
Hello, and a very happy holiday to all! I thought I would share with you some photos of how Christmas is celebrated here, specifically in Monaco and Nice. With France being a secular country, you might wonder why all the hoopla around a day based on religion. The answer is one of practicality. Christian …
To make up for my absence from this blog for a while, this will be particularly long, so, allons-y! Having just finished Week Three, I am finding the Institut de Français, in Villefranche-sur-Mer, to be every bit as intense as I had heard it could be. One report had it that a female student had …
Please excuse my long absence from the blog. Things have been happening…on steroids! My biggest news is that I bought a condo in the heart of Nice! Someone I met at one of the many social events that are offered in this region, in this case, a luncheon at a lovely restaurant near Cannes, highly …
I had been trying to be so careful – wearing a mask when taking public transport, getting enough sleep, taking my vitamins – but fate caught up with me. Knowing that three of my friends in Vence had come down with a bad cold (they tested, and it was not Covid), I was wary of …
Well… (to draw out the suspense a bit more!), I got caught in the one-day train strike the day I was to leave Annecy. I had my tickets booked, but one leg of the trip was not going to be operational. With that leg in the middle of my trip, the whole trip was thus …