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After all of our months of planning, we’ve arrived in Nice! Despite the potential issues due to the whole government shutdown, it was a really unenventful flight. We flew Air France, directly from Phoenix to Paris. For so long there were no direct flights – but now there are 5 per week!

We took advantage of an amazing sale that was offered to Flying Blue members – super cheap economy premium seats. I have to say it was well worth the price to upgrade – the seats are wider, they recline more, there’s free champagne, and you’re in a much smaller section of the plane (only about 24 passengers). I can’t complain at all about the seating, the food, the entertainment, etc.

Something I haven’t seen before on the entertainment console – you can watch the view from the tail or from under the plane. On take-off and landing, you can see the landing gear go up/come down and the ground approach…theoretically.

I say theoretically, because when we landed, it was completely foggy in Paris – we couldn’t see anything but the wing of the plane, and we couldn’t even see the gateway until we were right there.

We got to Paris, went through security and immigration, and voilà…we were in France. I had been a bit worried about the new entry system, since I’d heard that it could be a bit of a wait. Well, it wasn’t even in use when we came in – just a bored border guy. I got my passport stamped, just like the old days. We waited for our flight to Nice – delayed for about 20 minutes because of the earlier fog – and arrived only about 15 minutes late.

The most wonderful thing happened at the Nice airport – our bags arrived, both of them! When we last came to France (2023) a breakdown of the baggage handling system in Amsterdam meant that nobody had checked baggage upon arrival. Zbyszek’s bag arrived and was delivered to us eventually (2 weeks into a 3-week trip) and mine didn’t arrive until 2 weeks after we returned home to Arizona! While this meant we got to go on a completely reimbursed shopping trip in France, it also meant that our entire trip was spent somewhat focused on where the bags were (easy answer – sitting at the Bordeaux airport, never moving) and when/if they were going to catch up to us at some point.

After a decent night’s sleep – in which we were able to sleep horizontally rather than trying to sleep in an awkward upright position – we woke up ready to take care of some of the things that needed to be done. On our last trip to France, we were moving from place to place every 2-3 days, so we didn’t really feel at home anywhere. Since we’ll be in the same place for a month, we took some time to get everything put away in a designated place. With the suitcases hidden away and the clothing in the closet, it makes things feel so much more like home!

With everything put away, we were better able to determine what we needed to make our lives easier. Our agenda for the day: take care of those things! Our to-do list was pretty short:

1. Purchase passes for the bus/tram

2. Get another adaptor for US electronics to the French outlets

3. Get a local eSim card

Getting passes for transportation was super easy and took us less than 5 minutes. There’s an app that sells monthly passes, for 45 Euros each, we got unlimited rides on the busses and trams. Now that we had our passes, it was time to put them to use! We have 2 different bus lines right outside our apartment, and one of them took us right to FNAC. With a simple question, we were able to get the adaptor. On to the eSim card…

Getting the eSim was pretty simple. Yes, I know you can get them online. But getting a local one is a lot cheaper with more data. We went to the free store (it’s not really “free” – but the name of the store/network is Free) and filled out the form on the kiosk. There was a little trouble when it asked for the address, since it wouldn’t take US addresses. No problem, the store employee put the address of the store in and within a few minutes, I had a new eSim card and a French phone number.

We stopped at Monoprix for a few things for meals – salad, salad dressing, pasta, etc. And some raisin rolls – which everyone else in the family hates.

The harder part was setting it up…for some reason, my phone was still locked to T-mobile. No problem! Just log in to the account and unlock it. Except…since I was logging in internationally, it needed me to jump through hoops – like putting in my account number. Well, I know my phone number, password and PIN – but I don’t know my ACCOUNT number because I never use it. And I can’t get it, because I can’t log in to the account without it.

I called the friendly T-Mobile help number and they were able to give me the account number – but even better, they unlocked the phone for me as well. A couple more minutes and I had my eSim set up and working. T-Mobile even called back a few minutes later to make sure it was working properly.

So, a very productive day. While accomplishing our errands, we did get to see a little bit of Nice. The city is putting up the holiday decorations and lots of stores already have holiday things set up. We rode two different busses and a tram. What’s up next? I got shipping confirmation on shipment of my gym passes for the local gym, so as soon as that comes in we will be heading down to activate them and “get ripped.” Yeah, I know it’s weird to go to the gym when you’re “on vacation.” But we’re not really on vacation – the whole point of this trip is to see what it’s like to live here for a more extended period of time. And since I go to the gym 4 times a week at home, I want to keep that routine going.

Anyway….the view from our apartment is amazing, and we have beautiful weather today. It’s going to be in the upper 60’s as a high, but with the sun it’s warm enough that wearing shorts isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

We went down to the Cours Saleya market to get some fresh fruit and see the Mediterranean for the first time. Zbyszek was born near the sea, and he loves being near the water – so I knew he’d love Nice. The beach isn’t sandy, but instead it’s a bunch of very smooth pebbles. He ran to the water and wanted to touch it, then he almost fell in.

There are some beautiful buildings in Nice – we plan to go back downtown another day to really explore the old town some more. There’s also a small scale model of the Statue of Liberty.

On our way back to our bus stop, we picked up some bread and pains au chocolat. The baguette was still warm, fresh out of the oven. This meant to a certain person eating about a third of the bread before we got back home.

After having lunch and a little time to chill at the apartment, we went to the Arenas just north of us. They were built between 70 and 90 AD and are the smallest Roman arenas in the country. Pretty cool to look at them and think about all of the people who were using them throughout the years.

Finally, we went to Monoprix to pick up the groceries we’ll need for the next couple of days. Grocery shopping is always fun, can you recognize any of the products?

It’s a little cooler today in Nice, with rain forecast for tonight and tomorrow. The rest of France is officially getting the first taste of winter, with lots of snow and colder temperatures. Of course, that’s all the news is talking about, getting opinions from the man on the street about how they feel about the cold.

We took a little ride to see the gym we’re going to be using for the rest of our stay in Nice, and it happens to be right across from Zbyszek’s favorite place to visit – the hypermarché. We were able to go grocery shopping and pick up some things that the local Monoprix doesn’t have, including some pastries that I assume will be yummy. On the way home, we ran into the hordes of school kids getting out for Wednesday afternoon. Z was able to restrain himself from educating the youth of France and we made it home without trouble.

After lunch and a bit of rest at home, we took a walk up to the monastery de Cimiez where we visited the gardens and the cemetery. It’s a very peaceful place to relax and there is a park filled with people exercising and playing pétanque.

The cemetery was not all that big, but still large enough to take an hour or so. The graves are from the 1800’s up to the present. We found some Polish graves mixed in among the French and Italian ones. There were quite a few tombs of soldiers fallen in World War 1.

And there was a cat living in the cemetery. It kept following us around, but didn’t seem to want to be pet.

Not the most exciting day today, but that’s fine – we don’t want to be tourists so much. We’re still waiting on our package to come from the local gym so we can start using it, but the post office is taking their time and sending conflicting messages about when/if it will be delivered. Anyway…

We headed down to Decathlon to get some gloves and look at jackets. It’s cold enough that a jacket is necessary, but it goes from warm enough to not warm enough multiple times per day. Z has certain stores that he really likes from our last trip here, and for some reason he’s fixated on Decathlon and any hypermarché he can find.

It’s pretty calm down in the old city center and along the Quai des Etats-Unis, so it makes for a nice walk.

We took a walk downtown today instead of taking the bus. My gym membership kit still hasn’t arrived, so we’re getting our exercise by walking around and using a resistance band back at the apartment. Getting a package in France seems to be very…compliqué. So we walked down the hill instead of taking the bus. It was a pretty nice walk – nothing is more than 2 miles from where we’re staying, other than the airport, but the area is pretty hilly so sometimes the bus makes more sense. It’s really nice weather today, a little cooler than yesterday but still no rain. Since the rest of France is having a real cold snap and Phoenix is dealing with rain, I guess we’re extra lucky.

We saw the cathedral from the outside, but since mass was being celebrated we didn’t go in. I’m sure we’ll go back and be able to see the inside some other time. It’s quite a bit smaller than the other cathedrals in France.

We went to the shopping mall and visited a few different stores. It’s kind of weird – the stores have all started their “Black Friday” sales, even though Thanksgiving (and hence, Black Friday) isn’t really a thing in France. They’ve adopted the sales concept, but they don’t wait until a Friday to start it. A lot of the stores do have good sales, and there are signs everywhere advertising not just Friday but “Black week.” We didn’t find anything we really wanted to buy.

After shopping we ended up back on the coast (again). We saw a building that had lots of famous people associated with it.

We also saw the big statue of Nike – Nice is named after the goddess. And just for fun, we went to McDonald’s for lunch. We generally don’t eat at McDonald’s whether at home or while travelling – but I was curious about what interesting things they had on the menu. We got a mediterranean wrap and it came with 4 veggie “chicken” nuggets. They weren’t bad! McDonald’s doesn’t use disposable containers for orders to be eaten at the restaurant, so we got the plastic cups and fry holders.

UPDATE: La Poste emailed me this afternoon that they had my package ready for pick-up. So I got to make another trip downtown to grab it. For as much trouble as I had actually getting them to “deliver” my package, picking it up was a super quick and painless experience – just show the bar code from the e-mail and a piece of identity and they had it for me in less than 2 minutes. So tomorrow, we go to the gym.

It looks like the rain has arrived, but not in our neighborhood (yet).

After my package arrived yesterday, we were now going to be able to use the gym. It’s a 9-minute bus ride down the hill or a 27-minute walk. Why walk on a treadmill when you can just walk to the gym? So we walked down this morning and activated our membership and used the gym. I didn’t really take many photos since there are people there just trying to work out and don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, but I will share my impressions of the gym.

People in France don’t seem to be into the whole “getting swole” thing the same was Americans do. Clothing tends to be smaller, people tend to be smaller, so having huge muscles is probably going to make your life more difficult. That said, there were plenty of people in the gym on a Saturday morning using the machines and lifting weights. The gym is pretty basic, with a floor for free weights, a floor for the strength training machines, and a floor for cardio. No pool, no group classes…but that’s OK since I wasn’t planning on doing either of those.

The strength machines were a different brand than I’m used to, but the machines themselves were similar. There were a couple that were kind of weird, but did the same thing as the usual machines, just in a different way. The locker room was SUPER basic – not nearly as fancy as the EOS one I go to. No sauna, only 2 toilets and 2 shower stalls. And a nice reminder to people not to take super long showers.

We stopped at Carrefour on the way home, conveniently located right next to the gym. They had a nice variety of tortillas, but no hard taco shells. We brought taco sauce and seasoning from home, so we’re having tacos tonight. To go with them, we picked up some “Mexican potatoes.” I’m honestly not sure what they are going to be like, but it seems like something that should go well with tacos. These are going to be closer to actual tacos than the French version of tacos – which are quite good, but not at all like what you get in AZ.

We’ve been in France for an entire week now and we’re starting to feel like we’re at home. We know the bus routes and the ways to get around, we’ve found all of the grocery stores and I’ve signed up for all of the cartes de fidelité – so I can get the very best prices. I went to the gym again this morning (no Z, he wanted a “rest day” after getting so ripped yesterday) and then we spent most of the afternoon reading and chilling in our apartment.

Tonight we did something that was familiar but also different – we went to a hockey game. The team is les Aigles de Nice, in the Magnus league – the top league in France. I would say that the skill level is decent college hockey, maybe just at or below AHL. There were some interesting things that we noticed about the game.

First of all, it takes place in a regular skating rink, similar to the ones Grace and I have played in. It was a good crowd, completely sold out. They have the same crappy ice that we are used to, so we felt right at home. Second, there was a female referee – which is really common in beer leagues in the US, but not so much in the professional leagues. Third, the music was very interesting – lots of familiar songs, but also a lot of old music from the 50’s and 60’s. Fourth, they had some interesting “contests” for the spectators during the breaks – using a drum to hit the beat at exactly the right time in the “I will always love you” song. I was disappointed that they didn’t play All the Small Things, it’s such a staple of hockey in the US Fifth, the “penalty box” wasn’t really a box at all – it was just a section right in front of the spectator section.

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But by far the most awful, horrible thing – the top scorer on each team wears an awful, gaudy gold metallic helmet – one was even GLITTERY and SPARKLY – and the back of their jersey is gold and says TOP SCORER on it. This is really a bad idea, since it’s so easy to make a pass to someone you caught just out of the corner of your eye, only to realize that it’s not your teammate!

The final score was 4-1 and Les Aigles won, so it was an enjoyable time for us. Plus, for the first time in my life since taking French 311 at ASU, I got to use my hidden talent of having La Marseillaise memorized!!! It was my final exam to sing the song back as an undergrad, so I knew all the words when they sang it at the beginning of the game.

We took it easy today, just going grocery shopping at the hypermarché. It’s only 1.8 km away, all downhill on the way there – but not downhill on the way back. So we decided to take a walk to get there and take the bus back. I had to spend some time today working on some of my escape games, since the software that runs them did an update last week that broke some things, so the afternoon was spent doing that.

We got: Biscoff cookie butter, pasta sauce, salad dressing, syrup for making drinks, laundry detergent, a small notebook, sausage, baguette, 2 croissants, 2 pains au chocolat, 2 mango tartes, bananas, oranges, grapes, apples, some tomme cheese, taboulleh salad, yogurt, 6 eggs, babybel cheese, and a ready-to cook tray of tartiflette (a potato, bacon and cheese meal). This will make at least 3 days worth of food for the two of us, so not bad at all.

We like to shop pretty much as we do at home, looking for what’s on sale and what will make a good second meal if we don’t finish. Last week we bought a little package of veggies to make soup and there was enough for us to make a second batch of soup tonight. Our tacos from Saturday made enough for us to have leftovers on Sunday. It can be very expensive to travel if you eat out at restaurants constantly, but cooking at home makes it quite manageable – I would say that we’re spending around $20-25 per day for the two of us. We’ve only eaten one meal away from home – the McDonald’s meal – and that was $16 or so.

I can’t complain, the ingredients are top notch and we’ve been able to have some amazing food. We had an omelet for lunch yesterday made with fresh eggs that had a little bit of dirt and a couple of feathers on them. It was delicious, but most importantly – we know exactly where the eggs came from! So thank you to farmer David in the southwest of France for raising the chickens that laid these eggs.

And I did manage to update most of my games this afternoon – one left to go, but I’m saving that for tomorrow.

We took our first train trip today, just a few miles away but an entire different country. Monaco is super tiny, but it is an independent principality. Everyone has heard of Monte Carlo and the casinos/grand prix, but my favorite thing to do there is the aquarium. There’s only one train station in the entire country, so it’s pretty easy to figure out where your stop is.

Now, on to the aquarium. It was amazing because we had the place almost to ourselves! You know how aquariums have those huge spaces where you can sit and watch the fish – but you can’t, because the benches are full and there are 572 small children in front of the glass? Well, we got to sit and enjoy the fish today.

We saw the kitchen where they prepare the food each day for the different animals. They had a neat poster explaining what the animals would eat and each day has a different menu.

Upstairs, there are a bunch of things to see from the first expeditions from Monaco. There are many neat old-timey things on display.

Sorry, but this is still known as the Gulf of Mexico in more sane parts of the world.

And finally, the coolest part of the exhibit! They’ve taken an entire wing of the museum and turned it into a “submersible” – with the view of the windows showing what you would see as you go down into the Mediterranean. It’s perfectly designed and really amazing to watch. And hanging above your head are a bunch of whale skeletons, including a blue whale.