Nice is nice

I had to go there. I just had to.

But look at this place - how could I not?

I really, really like Nice so far. It is so colorful and it's right on the Mediterranean and there are lots of nice places to walk around. I definitely feel like I'm on vacation; it has all the requirements of a vacation city!

I got here last evening after a very long day in the train. I walked around a bit and saw the beach (I'm about a five minute walk from the beach) but didn't do too much yesterday. My pictures all turned out poorly as well - not sure why. But I took 96 pictures today, so I made up for that!

This morning I got up and decided I would just start exploring the city. There was a chance of rain and since it was decently sunny, I wanted to get going. The clouds in the above photo were making me worry it would be overcast by the end of the day, but it ended up staying dry and getting nicer! I have color on my face and chest as a result of today's weather. Quite a difference from Périgueux...where it apparently was gross today.

Anyway, I walked through Nice's famous flower market this morning. Since this is the Côte d'Azur, plants of all types grow really well here.

Orange and lemon trees as well! 

Variations of roses.

There were enormous flower and tiny flowers - but they were all super colorful. There was also a ton of lavender and soap for sale, plus all the normal things you'd find in a market.

After the market I walked along the Promenade des Anglais (The English Walkway) that runs along the beach. It wasn't too crowded in the morning, but when I walked again this afternoon it was packed. The Promenade runs for miles along the beach in Nice and was installed decades ago when the British started coming to Nice as a vacation area.

There's a big hill between the old part of Nice city and the area with the port. The hill is the site of the now-in-ruins castle that used to overlook the sea and the city. I thought it was just a small tower to climb to the top of for panoramic views, but in reality it was a massive hill with parks and vistas and a waterfall and cemeteries and all kinds of things. I ended up wandering on the paths and seeing the views for almost two hours.

There were paths like this that criss-crossed all over the hill.

Mediterranean + Nice + the Alps

A cool structure of some sort up on the hill - no idea what it was.

Ruins of the old cathedral that was at one point on the hill along with the castle and a fortress.

There is tiling like this all over the city. It gives the city a very Mediterranean-feel. There are a lot of places that feel kind of Italian, too. (Which makes sense because we're not that far from Italy.)

Tiling again - there was also a big one that said "Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage" meaning "Happy is he, like Odysseus, who has taken a beautiful trip."

The port of Nice - lots of expensive boats.

The Mediterranean - which was all kinds of different colors, depending on the time of the day.

The area around the port was nice, though I really liked walking along the sea. I got really lucky with the weather, that's for sure! After exploring all morning, I decided to walk to a big Russian church that is one of the big landmarks in the city. While waiting for the church to open (lunch break - gotta have the lunch break), I met an American girl and her mother. They were from California but the girl had been an assistant for two years. Her first year was in a small town on the border with Germany while this year she was in Paris; she simultaneously did her assistantship and her first year of her Master's in Education. I ended up seeing the church with them and then walking back to the main part of town with them. They also invited me to get dinner with them, which I took them up on. It was nice to have company! Liane, the girl, is also going to be in New York next year for school - so we exchanged American numbers as well.

Just some typical shots of Nice...pretty buildings/windows/sea. 

The Russian Cathedral.

Russians cathedral and part of its gardens.

I have to pause this blog for a second - my friend Ana from high school had seen my status on Facebook about being in Nice and commented that she had just arrived in Nice. I knew she was in this hostel, I just had a feeling, and what are the odds? She's here. We just met up in the hall freaking out. She's traveling with a friend from Tech. How funny is that?? Anyway, we're going to meet up in the morning and hang out! I'm so excited!!! We're going to hang out tomorrow - we're meeting in the lobby for breakfast. So excited!

I'm also sleepy, so to finish this blog off, I'll also put up some pictures of "Old Nice." It's a lot like other old parts of French cities except that it's much more colorful. All the buildings here are very pretty and very colorful; even as if gets dark it seems pretty bright because so many of the buildings are painted bright yellow. Such a happy place!

Itty-bitty streets.

Colorful buildings on one of the streets leading up to the castle hill.

I really liked Nice today. I definitely feel like I'm on vacation - and it just got even better with Ana ending up in the same hostel and everything! What a good way to start my European trip! :-) Tomorrow we'll go see some little towns on the coast - hooray!

Goodbye (part two)

This is the last night that I'll be in my apartment in Périgueux! It is no less strange than it was yesterday...

Tomorrow I'm getting up early because I have a long list of things to do before I meet with my landlord in the evening. It's all very do-able, but I want to get up and get a move on tomorrow so I don't feel rushed.

This will be my last post in Périgueux, so I want to talk about my last week of teaching and some of the other celebratory things we did this week. It was a good last week here!

Little ducklings on the path by the river today. (Random, I guess - but they're cute!)

The last week of teaching was fairly uneventful. I didn't even have all of my classes because there were exams going on. Most of my classes were normal, though a few of them had little parties to say goodbye. The kids brought food and drinks and then we played games (I stayed in the classrooms with the teachers rather than taking a group to teach on my own). One group of seventh-graders wrote all over the board at the end of the class:

For some reason they started drawing animals. My favorite part of this board was "Si you soon" (a phonetic misspelling) that someone unfortunately corrected to "See you soon" before I could take a picture. Also "good nyt," another phonetic misspelling - and a mix-up between "goodbye" and "good night."

This class could be a handful but they were generally nice kids. A little girl brought me a note that said "For Mégane" in which she thanked me for English class and wished me a "bon retour!" to the US. It was very cute.

I wasn't sad to say goodbye to teaching, though I was very sad to say goodbye to my tutoring students, Anna and Matéo, the kids that I tutor on Tuesday. They were the first students I started tutoring this year. I stayed for dinner, as usual, on our last evening and played badminton with them. We went to a play after dinner - put on by the students at the high school - which was actually pretty entertaining. Afterward we had to say goodbye and Anna wouldn't let me go and was starting to cry - I didn't want to say goodbye either! Matéo assured me that it was okay because we're going to Skype. I had written them notes to say goodbye so when I saw their mom at school on Thursday, she gave me some notes and pictures they had drawn for me:

Anna drew a picture of us playing outside her house and Matéo spent a long time drawing the Eiffel Tower for me so I could remember France.

I'm definitely going to send them both postcards while I'm traveling - and I'll have to buy some when I'm at home as well!

That's how my week with students went, though I also tried to do a lot with my friends this week as well. We took advantage of the nice weather and had drinks outside a couple times, and Friday night we went to an English pub where we sometimes go to play their trivia game. (I can't remember if I mentioned this yesterday - if I did, oops.) Our team tied in the main round of trivia and then won in the tie-breaker round - thanks to me since I knew four of the five answers...but also cause I can write really fast. We got five free beers out of it!

Hooray! The tie-breaker round.

The winning team. We were "Noche Flamenca" because afterward Azahara and Eve danced flamenco as a show for the bar!

Flo's birthday is Tuesday (the day I leave) and he's turning 30, so there will be a party for him. Since I won't be here, we also got together last night at Eve and Flo's and celebrated. We got him a book of recipes involving cheese and a party game where you have to solve mysteries. We ended up playing games and eating pizza until almost two in the morning, and had a nice night. As I've said before, I'm really going to miss the friends I've made here!

Tomorrow evening we're going to go out for dinner since it's my last night! Very sad!

My goal is to also write a blog post about general thoughts on living in France - and the things I'll miss. I have about nine hours on the train on the way to Nice on Tuesday, so I'm going to try to write that then. Otherwise, salut depuis Périgueux pour la dernière fois! Ciao!

Goodbye (part one) to Périgueux

I'm down to my last two days in Périgueux...

It's very weird. It's starting to sink in, mostly because my bags are mostly packed and I've started cleaning my apartment, but it seems strange to think that I'll be leaving early Tuesday morning. It's also stressful to think that. I don't like packing, and this is a particularly stressful packing situation because I need to get everything into my backpack and a carry-on size suitcase (which my purse needs to fit into). I filled two boxes to send home, so I think I'll be fine, but I won't feel relaxed until I'm on the train on Tuesday.

The point of this blog post, however, is to take a break from packing and cleaning and to post some pictures and thoughts I have about Périgueux. I took a bunch of pictures this week in town and on the path along the river so I could have a pretty last post about Périgueux.

Of course I have to start with the marché. I will definitely miss the market - both the fresh food and the atmosphere. As much as I detest grocery shopping, I enjoy going to the market!

So much color! 

Monbazillac and Bordeaux wine for sale in the market.

The main square of the market in front of the cathedral. There are also stalls in two of the other squares in the old part of town.

Because it's spring, there are tons of fresh flowers in the market now, too. All of which are very pretty and very cheap.

The market is Wednesdays and Saturdays, so I usually went at least one time a week. I guess I'll be able to go to farmer's markets at home, but it won't be as easy. Here all I had to do was walk out the door and turn the corner and I was right there in the midst of it. Apart from the language, markets are probably my favorite thing about France.

I also took advantage of the sunny day to take some pictures in the pedestrian roads of town. I took a bunch of photos like this when I first got here, but I figured it would be nice to take some more before I left.

A shot of the garden within the remains of the old Roman amphitheater.

Some of the little streets.

And old antique book store - there are actually quite a few of these in Périgueux. I got a cool book about the origin of different French words in one of the stores.

This street definitely shows how old Périgueux is.

I'm definitely feeling more favorable toward Périgueux than I did for a lot of this winter. Everyone keeps telling us how the assistants are unfortunately here for the worst time: October to April. I guess between the end of April and September it's much prettier and much livelier. That's unsurprising because already we've had some really nice days and there have been a lot more people in the streets. And of course the fact that I'm leaving makes me think more favorably toward the city. It's definitely a pretty little city, and I would like to come back and visit someday. But I'd like to visit for a weekend...not for much more.

One of the other things I liked about Périgueux was the path along the river. I went running there with Eve a lot and sometimes Katie and I would go for walks. We went for a really long one on Wednesday so I could take photos of the path and the river.

View from one of the main bridges into Périgueux.

All the baby ducklings are out in full force!

There are yellow flowers all over the place - it's really gorgeous! And this is to prove just how deep into the country Périgueux is - horses right next to the running path.

The view of the cathedral as you walk back toward Périgueux!

Unfortunately the weather hasn't been nice since I took all these pictures, so these might be some of my last shots of Périgueux looking pretty. It's been kind of gray and rainy for the last couple days and it doesn't look like it will be too nice tomorrow or Monday. But, hey, that's been part of the experience here as well!

And, to finish, a few shots of the monstrous cathedral that dominates the town:

Definitely a cool cathedral - very different than many that you see in France.

So that is my ode to Périgueux, if you will. Tomorrow (when I need a break from cleaning) I want to write a little bit about my last week of teaching and a few other things I've done this week - the rest of the goodbyes.  And then I guess my next post will be from Nice as I start my big and final trip. Pretty exciting!

In all, thanks, Périgueux. We may not be best friends, but if given the opportunity in the future, I'll at least stop in to see how you're doing.

Sword fights, as promised

I don't have a whole lot to report today, mostly because I haven't done much. I slept in, went for a run/walk, wrote my itinerary for my upcoming trip, and watched some TV. We did head over to the Medieval fair though, as I said we would. It was in one of the squares in - what else? - the Medieval part of town. There were booths and crafts and some foods; not much, but a small little Sunday event.

A whole lot of Périgueux was there because, hey, there's nothing else to do on a Sunday.

The highlight, of course, was the sword fights. There were dozens of kids who had a ball watching the men fight and put on a show. They were as fun to watch as the sword fighters were. It was also cool because the actors were surrounded by Medieval buildings - pretty cool. I will miss being able to see ancient historical buildings every day! It's pretty cool to live in such an old town - even if there's not a lot to do.

The old Medieval building (one of many since this is the Medieval part of town) that they sword fighters were fighting in front of. Pretty authentic in that respect.

"Fighting." The kids loved it. One started flicking his hands/wrists like Spiderman and yelling for the guys to use that move.

This funny puppy was bored. 

More fighting. The one guy looked like a pirate and had a headband on. So maybe less authentic in respect to the costumes, but still funny to watch.

We wandered around the fair for a bit and then went and had ice cream at a cafe we go to sometimes. The weather was okay today - I went for a run/walk and it was nice and sunny, but it's not nearly as lovely and warm as it was last week. I think it's supposed to get nice this week before I leave. I hope so, because the second part of my trip is going to be COLD (Berlin - iffy, Stockholm - cold, Iceland - cold). It's going to feel nice to step off the airplane in DC...for lots of reasons!

I'm looking forward to seeing my friends and wandering around and eating in cafes this week. I'm definitely going to enjoy my last nine days in Périgueux!