Day 7, on the train to Nice.

I'm trying something here. My phone has been in airplane mode since our arrival. In the evenings when we've returned from our days adventures, we've had wifi in every place. Because of this, I've only gotten on to journal when I've had internet access, but am now realizing I can do it whenever, save it and post it in the evening. Or, better yet, add to it at the end of the day. Voilà!

We've just boarded our train to the Mediterranean coast, for Nice. There was a nice breeze in Avignon this morning, and we had our croissants and café au lait in the same place as yesterday.

I'm excited to see the water, so is Tj. Despite the fact that I woke up with the herp this morning and my lip is swelling slightly and is in pain, being where we are makes it hard to focus on such trivial things as a herpes simplex. I'll let it go. This time.

The French southern country is beautiful. Rolling hills, tiled roofs, laundry hanging on lines three stories up from shuttered windows. And I have a new hobby: figuring out how to prepare French food.
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Part Deux

Ahhhhh. I know why movie stars like it here. It feels like southern California, but it's in a different country that is in my reality WAY cooler than southern Cal.

We arrived at the station, and this time I lead us straight to our hotel! Hooray! Even so, we were drenched with sweat once again. This place is warm. Not the 88 degree temps we had yesterday in Avignon, but a close second. Our relief was unloading our belongings, obtaining a map from Carolina our hotel lady and finding our way down to the sea. WOW! It was amazeballs to say the least. I'm impressed with the amount of ground we've covered and the terrain we've seen in 7 days. We are a superb traveling team.

We decided to eat dinner on the super tourist drag about a block inland from the coast line. I wanted to splurge for the paella royale (and that doesn't mean the dish comes with cheese!) and naturally wanted to try my favorite salad from the city it was named for, Salade Niçoise! Both were superior, especially the paella...lobster, massive shrimp with eyeballs still in tact, mussels up the ying and creamy rice that tasted like the god Zeus caroling from on high. I realized too late that I wanted to take a photo of our meal...see below plates of eaten food.

We wrapped it up with some fancy dessert Mr. T picked out, and naturally ordered a coffee, our new European dinner ritual ;)
Mine came as ordered, café au lait, and Tj once again received an espresso in the world's tiniest cup. It was certainly a petite cup, feminine sip!

So, now we sit in our tiny studio, smaller than the tv room at home, Tj researching how much to tip in France and the top ten things to see in Nice No working air conditioning, hence our wide open windows and the sound of French yellings in the street. It's different yet again, but still I love it.

Quick note: the fountain and the church were mere attractions on our walk from dinner back to the hotel. If you haven't been here, go.

And ps- thanks for clothes line, Aubtie Deb! Somebody's gonna have fresh pants in the Riviera!