Nice - Cote d'Azur: May 2006

Beachlife

Today, Cristina and me went to the beach. After a couple of weeks with temperatures of around 25° C the water is now very comfortable for swimming. It still feels pretty amazing to live just one block away from here !

This beach is a pebble beach, as you can see in the picture. This is a little less comfortable than your average sandy beach, but then again, you're not full of sand everywhere when going home.

Another feature of the beach here is the exceptional colour of the water. Near shore it is really, very blue. Azure coast, aha. What could cause this colour? It's not only near shore; in waters further out, the trail of a boat has this colour, as we'd seen going to Corsica. A possible explanation is that it is phytoplankton blooming, as in this satellite picture of the Bay of Biscay:

However it seems those phytoplankton do not bloom all the time, and judging from the picture above, they do not particularly stick to the shores. Maybe it is silt from the bottom, as explains the NASA Oceanography site:

In coastal areas, runoff from rivers, resuspension of sand and silt from the bottom by tides, waves and storms and a number of other substances can change the color of the near-shore waters.

The sea here is very salty indeed, more so anyway than the Atlantic ocean at the coast of Maranhão, where Cristina comes from. I'll go for the silt explanation; if you know better please let me know !

And here are some more of today's pictures:

Right-wing extremists t-shirts

I stumbled upon this site, that sells incredible t-shirts. Some Americans seem to be actually proud of their ignorance ! That site's FAQ page is interesting as well, as they explain how they prefer to buy their shirts from Mexican suppliers rather than US ones ("we stand by our capitalist, union-busting apparel"). Here are some examples of fantastic shirt designs. I do *not* recommend anyone buying from businesses like this, though !

Font size buggy buttons

Yesterday, Anonymous said:

sympa ton blog, mais les caractères sont trop petits !!! c'est fatiguant à lire !

To accommodate readers who wish to view this blog in a different font size but do not like to change their browser's view settings, I've added these buttons to the top of the page.

However, they do not work correctly ! At least not on my office XP/Firefox. When clicking for a smaller font, at the first click it actually gets larger instead! This javascript was copied from http://dhtmlnirvana.com/content/dhtml/fontsize/fontsize1.html. As I'm lazy I think it's good enough; if you have a clean solution, please tell me;

Cristina fala da sua escola de francês

Meus amigos adoráveis da Alliança Francesa em Nice, França.

Uma japonesa, uma thailandesa, tres suecos e uma brasileira, Silvia, do Bélem do Para.

Eu, a minha professora, e minha amiga mexicana Lorena.

A hora do lanche !

Pictures from Corsica

It has been awhile, but here are some pictures of our trip to Corsica :

The ferry from Nice to Bastia

About to board

Cristina on the ferry

Cristina in the ferry

Shuffling cards in the ferry

Brass hall inside

Cristina playing cards

Beignets in Bastia

Bastia

Bastia, view of the citadel

Bastia

Port of Bastia

Train from Bastia to Casamozza

Near Corte

Ajaccio at night

Near Ajaccio

Between Ajaccio and Corte

Train to Calvi

Port of Calvi

Jellyfish in Calvi

Citadel in Calvi

Ferry from Calvi to Nice

Nightlife

Saturday night me and Cristina went to La Havane, a restaurant turning dance club after dinner hours. Showing up at around 23:00 the bouncer first informed me in English that the place was full but we could wait a bit outside (tables and chairs provided on the sidewalk) but when I translated this to Cristina in Portuguese, a broad smile appeared on his face and after mumbling some Spanish, we were let in. This place is very nice, it has a live band and lots of people dancing, and an upstairs from where you can look down at the band and the dance floor. At this hour, the last patrons who were there for dinner were still finishing it. We met our neighbour (or rather, her cousin, or something like that) who is Baiano there as well. I find this the best place to go out I've seen so far; the ambience is more relaxed than in a place called Cubana at the promenade (although they also have live music, and a very good band at that) and definitely much nicer than the Antillian disco at the edge of the Old town, that's horrendously expensive and has a rather high-strung feel about it. And, the Havana is only a few minutes walk from our appartment !

Cannes 2006

Today we went to Cannes, where the film festival is taking place. The train from Nice takes about half an hour and passes mostly directly by the sea, which makes for a nice ride. In Cannes the streets were full of journalists and other people wearing badges - they can go in places where we couldn't. One marked difference to Nice was the weather, a quite cold wind blowing in your face. We did try to take some shots of the famous, paperazzi-style. Caught Charlie Sheen and Willem Dafoe, among others. See the pictures below. Do you see who's a celebrity, and who isn't ?

Internet @home !

Yes ! Finally my internet connection at home is functioning. Some 8M download, free telephone to many countries and cheap to other ones, and over 100 TV channels to go with it as well. The diabolical nature of this service may be deduced from the appearance of the ADSL modem, 'freebox' ..

Commute

Ever since losing confidence in bus #230 I have been taking the car to work. In the mornings this is usually quite fast, although I do miss my extra waking-up time I used to have during the bus ride. The highway levies a toll that is exactly equal to the bus fare, but somehow the payments never show up on my bank account. Maybe they take it once a month or so?

Here too, they use radar to check your speed. A helpful colleague sent around this link, where you can check the currently active speed checks in this area.

Holland

There is no limit to the bizarre in Holland.. when living in Amsterdam I often wondered what on earth might have happened to people's heads, seeing the debates and opinions on immigration -- not only in the media, but also in conversations with actual people. And now this.. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the heroine of hate until recently so loved by the hating masses, has become a victim herself. Two-thirds of the population think she must lose her nationality, thus turning her into a stateless non-citizen. What disgrace.

Trip to Corsica

Our trip to Corsica was short but nice. I still haven't prepared any photos to put here, but I'll do that soon. We left town Saturday afternoon, on the first day that was completely cloudy since I've arrived in France. The ferry to Bastia is enormous and takes 5 hours. On board they serve Pietro, a Corsican "chestnut" beer that is quite tasty, even though "chestnut" does not seem to refer to the ingredients.

Having arrived and checked in to our hotel we went for food and drinks. The best part was excellent goat cheese with a fig compote. In a small bar we met a famous local singer whose band's music is a bit similar to slow Irish ballads; he said their music is "anti-france" and shouted, "independencia". Otherwise the town is rather quiet; O'Donnels pub has a live band, but that's about it. I remember telling my colleague Kevin, who was raised in Corsica, how I found life so slow in Nice (long queues in shops, very relaxed attendance in restaurants, ever-lasting coffee breaks at work, etc.), and he replied that he thought the opposite when he moved here from Bastia.

The next day we strolled around Bastia, which has an old citadel and there was a fleemarket. The train to Ajaccio left at 17:00, but after twenty minutes it stopped in Casamozza and everybody was transferred to a bus, due to maintenance works on the tracks (supposedly ready by the end of June). The bus route sticks as close as possible to the railtracks and passes amazing mountains, wide views and mountain villages built on steep slopes. The mountains are covered in thick forests at times, and in snow at other times. The air around here is amazingly fresh, compared to that in Nice. Via Porte Lecchia and Corte we finally arrived in Ajaccio, Napoleon's birth place. This city seems like a nice place, more lively than Bastia, although we don't get to see very much of it as we head for bed early -- the bus to Calvi leaves very early the next morning.

Sunshine having returned we spend some time in the port of Calvi, sleeping in the port surrounded by small boats. Calvi also has a citadel. This town is a tourist dump with shops selling expensive useless junk everywhere - although it is still out of season and there are not many tourists (or anyone else) on the streets. The boat back to Nice takes 3 hours from here, and we arrive after midnight. The streets are wet, it had been raining. The next time we'll take a couple of days longer to explore Corsica and probably stay in a hotel in the mountains.

Food

Favourites among the food here include pissaladière (pizza with onions, anchovies and olives), casseroles of white beans, croissants, and lamb. The famous socca (chickpea flour pancake) I have yet to try. What is less attractive in food terms is the lack of easy-to-find Asian ingredients that are so abundant in Amsterdam; I still did not manage to find soba noodles, for example. I'm also missing my pots of bo lay tea .. I know what to bring back when I visit Holland next month.

pissaladière

Corsica

Another 3 days weekend coming up, as May 8th is Victory-in-Europe Day. Me and Cristina are going to Corsica! The itinerary plan is Nice-Bastia-Corte-Ajaccio-Calvi-Nice, by ferry and trains. Although there is some confusion as to whether there really is a train between Corte and Ajaccio. Soon I'll show pictures on this blog !

Strikes

Less than one month in France, and encountered the first strike.. ever since Labour Day, no bus #230 showed up. After waiting for almost 2 hours (time flies when you're basking in the sun at the sea side) I took the #200 to Antibes and from there a local bus to Sophia Antipolis. All in all 4 hours commuting to work ! Luckily nobody minds. The people I've met in this area and on my work are quite easy-going. Having subscribed to the bus company email service, I now know that ".. il y a toujours un risque de grève pour demain". Yes !