Backdated Post: Nice, France!

Ok. Yesterday was spent entirely in transit so I'll give you a picture of me and my passport, a picture taken out of the airplane window, and a picture of me stuck in Heathrow to symbolize the journey:

Me and my passport.

Sunrise from the airplane.

Me stuck in Heathrow.

My first flight took a while for liftoff because they had to de-ice the plane. For whatever reason, my seat on this flight was intensely uncomfortable. I wasn't able to sleep at all, so I finished reading all of the books I'd brought with me. Whoops!

I got to my connection in Heathrow late because of the de-icing so I missed my second flight and had a very long layover as a result. This would have annoyed me if I wasn't such an avid fan of people watching. Instead, I indulged myself in making up stories about everyone in the airport.

When I finally caught the plane and arrived in Nice I took a bus along the Promenade des Anglais (so named because an English man widened the road at his own expense). The water was SO BLUE. Unfortunately my phone had died by that point so you'll just have to imagine it. I managed to get to the air bnb despite being unable to access the directions on my phone, so I was minorly impressed with myself.

The air bnb is adorable. Here are some pictures I took of it when I finally had a charged phone:

Walking in the door.

Toilet and shower rooms.

Entering the place.

Kitchen.

View from the kitchen.

My room.

Once I'd settled in a bit, I went with my friends Ferris and Le Grand Monsieur to explore the city and grab some dinner.

We walked through Place Masséna where we saw Jaume Plensa's Conversation à Nice, an art installation of seven color-changing men on poles that is supposed to represent the seven continents and communication between countries. Honestly, I thought it was cool until I read about it and learned that it was supposed to represent the continents and then I was annoyed that all of the continents were being represented by identical-looking white men. Um... why?


We also saw a GIANT ferris wheel, at which point I decided on a blog name for Ferris. Although Ferris isn't her last name, apparently one of her ancestors on invented the ferris wheel! How cool is that?!

Art installation.

Art installation and ferris wheel.

One more photograph of the ferris wheel with its reflection in the large wading and fountain pool nearby. 

We walked along the green through Giuseppe Garibaldi Square and I didn't take pictures but you should look him up - he did a TON of stuff. Anyway, we wound up eating at Pipo's which is a small place on a side street that was full of locals. We ordered wine and sacco, which is a regional dish that looks like a sort of chickpea pancake. It's what everyone else was ordering so we figured it was probably good (it was). That was followed up by dessert, in which we again copied the locals and wound up with citrus mousse and Le Mystère (look it up - you won't be disappointed).

Us and our desserts.

We walked back to the air bnb along the shore where we saw the Monument Aux Morts a WWI memorial by Alfred Janiot. It was all lit up and Ferris dubbed it the R2D2 Memorial since that's what it looked like. No pictures of this either, sorry!