Sundays in France are pretty relaxed – most people have the day off, many stores are closed, and it’s a time to spend with family and friends. I started off the day with a trip to the gym (no Z – he only goes 3 times a week) and saw a very French thing:
Yes, it’s a wine bottle in the window outside of the weight room. I stopped by the boulangerie on the way home then took the bus up to the Monoprix by our apartment. I’ve never seen it so packed! The lines were long because they didn’t have the self-check open. Eventually they did open it. The people in front of me were buying a bunch of glass Christmas ornaments, which the cashier wrapped individually. So it took a while…no big deal, Sunday is supposed to be a day of relaxation, not stress.
We took a walk this afternoon – first to the dog park. Z finished reading his Tom Clancy novel and we wanted to leave it in the little free library. That particular location has books in several languages, and the English ones seem to get snagged so that’s a great place for it. It’s crazy – I’ve been in Nice for only 3 weeks and I know where 3 different free libraries are. I hung out with one of the dogs in the dog park for a few minutes and then we headed to the arenas park.
The Matisse museum is right next to the park. The building is painted with trompe l’oeil around the windows.
The park has a Jazz music theme, with the different alleys named after musicians and a few busts of American greats.
There are always people playing pétanque at the park. Anywhere there is a flat surface suitable for a game, they will start playing. We sat and watched for a little while.
The park has some beautiful vegetation. The olive trees are over a thousand years old, and there are many flowers and other trees.
We visited a second little free library. No books for me today, but maybe next time…The library had that wonderful smell of old books, but it’s different from the smell of books in the US. It just smelled older, I guess?
And we said goodbye to the arenas, we’ll see them again soon since we pass by them most days. It’s really cool to see them each day.
