I am here and all is well! Sometimes I have to pinch myself to convince myself that I'm not dreaming! This city is more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. I was very jet lagged yesterday but I forced myself to stay awake and stroll through the city to get my bearings. I'm so glad I did! On my stroll I found an internet shop where I was able check my email for €1 per half hour which is totally a bargain as opposed to calling home! My first discovery at the internet shop was that the French keyboards are COMPLETELY different than those in the US... surely this is due to all the accents that need to be accomodated for, but it's proven to make my typing considerably slower. Here is an illunstration of the changes, I will type the same sentence twice, the first as I'm used to typing in the US, the second after making the changes necessary to accomodate the new keyboard. Hello ,y nq,e is Zendi qnd I love Nice; Frqnce1 vs. Hello my name is Wendi and I love Nice, France! Crazy huh! Nevertheless, my posts are going to take more time to create and may not include pics for a while, but hopefully will still be worth reading :)
So I'm staying with Madame Celine Tremblay and she is such a great woman! We sat and ate breakfast this morning communicating mostly in French, except for things I really needed to be sure I was understanding fully such as bus schedules and procedures. She is a professional concert Violinist originally from Canada but who has traveled and toured all over the world. She's lived in Nice for 28 years. She was married for 16 years but recently divorced although she is still very good friends with her ex. His name is Jean-Jaques and I met him yesterday when I arrived. He greeted me and showed me around since Celine was at work practicing for her concert that is tonight. I'm so excited because she is going to take me with her to the concert. It's in Old Nice and I can hardly wait!
But first, today I'm going to take the touristy double-decker bus tour to get more familiar with the city. Celine recommeded that I bring a swimsuit with me where ever I go because you never know when you're going to want to just relax on the beach... Sounds good to me! Caio for now!
I wrote this amazing long and witty response and when I went to POST, I forgot my google account name. So I had to re-set my password...blah, blah, blah.... long story short, I lost my previous post. Let's try this again:
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw your update on facebook I was on my iPhone, and right away I wanted to read it. So I clicked on the link, started loading it, but then it automatically diverted to my map app for some reason and the app zoned in on France. I don't know if you connected some sort of link or not, but it was actually kind of neat because I located Nice on the map before reading your post.
Anyway, that is interesting about the keyboards. Never would have crossed my mind, but it makes sense. The key boards in China were exactly like ours. So the Chinese have to know PinYin very well in order to type, and then the computer has to be set to Chinese and it will make the character appear if they type the PinYin correctly. Same with cell phones there. So texting and typing in China was the same as here. Pardon me, I digress...
Your hostess sounds very interesting, and perfectly plucked out of a French novel. Educated, worldly, modern, talented and simply delightful. Your first night and already your off to to enjoy the fine arts. I love it.
And of course their names are Celine and Jean-Jaques.... because anything else would not fit well in this fairy tale, right?
I can't wait to see pictures and read about your experiences. DO NOT leave out any of the small details. I am going to run down to the store and pick up some croissants and tea as my side dish when reading your stories.
Oh, and as a result of all this, if you decide to throw caution to the wind and abandon the modern world's expectations of you to become a vagabond exploring all the hidden wonders of Europe.... CALL ME, I can be there in approximately 12 hours.
I love you Kate! You are so awesome! I need to figure out how to post pics soon so my blogs can be accompanied by amazing photos instead of just words. But in the meantime, thanks for reading!!! Feel free to drop everything and fly over here to travel with me :) My door is open!
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