Nice was nice, though. Assorted high/low/interesting points follow, in no particular order, illustrated with photos of dubious relevance:
- Owing to a very early flight on Saturday morning we stayed with my friend Cecile in Basel on Friday night. This involved, among other things, eating lots of excellent raclette, which is always entertaining. Aah, cheese;
- I was the only person on the entire flight who had any difficulty at the airport! I had to fill in customs forms and then re-queue and be asked questions and be quizzed on whether I live in Norway or not! Damn those Australian passports;
- Reto lost his bank card thing within about half an hour of getting off the plane in France. Really, it was a Saturday morning and the bank in question apparently didn't open again until Tuesday morning, the day we were coming home, so guess who had to pay for everything? It all seems a little bit too convenient, if you ask me;
- We had bad luck with buses. We missed them, we caught the wrong ones, we were kidnapped by an angry bus driver with an ipod who wouldn't let us out until we got to the airport (which was about 15 minutes past where we wanted to go). On the up side, I suppose we saw more stuff than we would have otherwise, and without the bother of having to walk too far;
- I was verbally assaulted by mean waiters. Sigh;
- The whole of Nice seems to be currently under construction. Around every corner was more scaffolding, more machinery, more noise of digging and building and destruction, more of whatever noise putting down new tram tracks makes, more repaving and painting and so on. All of which made for a lot of noise and a lot of piles of dirt and a lot of taking of detours;
- Nice and surrounding areas seem to be the other home of Australian flora. I haven't seen so many gum trees in ages;
- I discovered that I have less moral fortitude than I imagined (see another post, possibly tomorrow's), or possibly just that I am a bit of a wimp;
- Monaco is excellent. There is really something to be said for these ludicrously rich tax-haven countries in terms of the loveliness of the surroundings.
The beaches there have a far better quality of stones on them (not sand, but not the enormous rocks that you find in boring downmarket Nice either. In Monaco it's more like gravel, but pleasant rounded wave-worn gravel). The streets are pleasantly free of dog poo (also in contrast to downmarket Nice). The boats and the cars are ludicrously fancy (I don't care at all, but even I was happy to stand around gawking. It was also interesting to see how many smart cars and minis there were among the ferraris and lamborghinis outside the casino, which I suppose may have been a stab at environmental friendliness, or possibly people admitting that it's impossible to keep up with the Monaco Jonses).
People who don't seem to be working wear suits, or at least blazers and nice shoes with their jeans*. I didn't witness any crime in Monaco, and no one yelled at me. Sadly I got sunburnt there, and kind of exhausted from walking up and down all the ridiculously steep hills, and worn out from following all the rules (don't walk on the grass! Don't have picnics! Don't litter! Don't touch anything!) but it was sooo much fancier than Nice. Kind of like Switzerland, actually, but in a far better way, hahah; - I saw Australians for the first time in months. They (we) were everywhere, although not as much as English people were;
- I ate some unbearably delicious food. The description of which is hardly likely to do it justice, so you can just take my word for it; and
- Also interesting was my discovery that apparently salade niçoise isn't supposed to have boiled potatoes in it. Weird, because I have never before seen it without them. Also, apparently it has celery in it.
* This "blazers with jeans" look was endearingly reminiscent of my former boss who, on many occasions when he has to dress up, favours the nautical blazer look. You'd fit right in in Monaco, Bob!
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