Beer time and Persian tomatoes

Some obligatory beach pictures to start things off. The beaches in Nice are pebbled, not sandy, so you need to bring a blanket if you want to lie down.

So I started shadowing in the hospital yesterday--the first hour in the neurology department was a tad intimidating, since no one seemed to know who I was. It was also hard to explain what “year” I was in, since the French education system is so different from the American one. Luckily, there’s another girl in the program who has the same rotation as me, so we stuck together and cooperatively translated our way through the day.

I don’t have pictures of the hospital yet, unfortunately, and I’m not sure if there are regulations that prohibit taking them (although the French seem much less stringent about such things). My impression, though, is that the hospitals seem a lot less steel-gray and sterile—not sure if that’s a reflection of the French healthcare system in general or of the ocean breezes and Mediterranean glow that drift in through the windows of all the patients’ rooms.

We had a seminar in one of the medicine buildings, and someone had written a little message on one of the chalkboards just outside the classrooms.

Later in the afternoon, I hopped on a bus going in the wrong direction and ended up in some unknown corner of Nice. Fortunately, the bus stop for the other direction was nearby. I took a picture of the location; maybe I’ll come back to explore some other time.

Incidentally, I learned something curious about giving directions in French. The French usually don’t use cardinal directions (e.g., “New Haven is north of New York” or “this boulevard is farther east than that one”) and prefer to use left/right and up/down instead.

For dinner, I helped my host mother make tomates farcies (which I at first misinterpreted as a Persian ("Farsi") dish but is apparently distinctly French). They’re tomatoes stuffed with rice and meat, then crusted with breadcrumbs and olive oil.

We made them with onions, too—cute little things.

We also started a ratatouille, which is somewhat less glamorous than the Pixar film would have you think. Still, it’s a hearty, traditional dish native to Nice, and with all the vegetables that go into making it, it’s bound to be good for you.

I’d forgotten how onions make my eyes tear up and how the odor clings to my fingers no matter how vigorously I wash them. Reminds me of Dumpling Night, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale.