Five photos: Pisa

Five photos: Florence

Blackcurrant and nighttime shenanigans

In Villefranche-sur-Mer, we found a little restaurant not far from the train station. For 16 euros, we had a simple but delicious meal of salade niçoise, perch, and lemon-blackcurrant sorbet. The fish was especially tender, and the lemon and blackcurrant eaten together made for quite a refreshing dessert. Blackcurrant isn't really a common flavor in America, but it seems to be quite popular over here, so it was nice to get a taste.

In the evening, we returned to Nice, and that night we went out to search for Joy, Lorenzo's friend from Yale, who was staying at a hostel. Incidentally, Nice is a city for old people, and most of the public transportation shuts off at 9 pm, so we we spent the better part of an hour at the bus stop hiding from the rain (yeah, it was one of those nights).

We didn't find Joy, unfortunately, but we did look through a dozen rooms and awkwardly meet the man in charge of making beds at the hostel. At least the lights in the streets at night are pretty.

Five photos: Villefranche-sur-Mer

Just to the east of Nice, in the commune of Villefranche-sur-Mer, the bustle of the metropolis dissolves into a relaxed village atmosphere and the soft pebbles on the beach crumble into fine gravel. Many boats are docked here, where the bay is among the deepest along the Mediterranean; where the water is shallower, sunbathers tan and swimmers frolic. Farther inland, narrow streets lined with small but good restaurants wind away from the sea and toward sunbaked buildings tucked into the sides of hills.

Phantasmagoric

We spent an hour at the Musée Matisse, a museum dedicated to the life and work of the artist. I was reluctant to go at first because I had already visited previously, but our tour guide was really engaging and informative. Unfortunately, photographs were banned, so I have none to show of the artwork, but as a consolation prize, I do have a picture of the somewhat less interesting exterior of the building.

We then visited the Musée Chagall afterward. I personally find Chagall's artwork more interesting, with their phantasmagoric (my host mom actually used that word in everyday conversation) explosions of color, and was anticipating the visit.

Unfortunately, our tour guide was one of those cloyingly sweet, regrettably well-intentioned old ladies too absorbed in her work to notice the grumblings of 26 unhappy Americans. She talked at such. a. slow. pace., as if someone had taken her internal metronome marking and divided it by two, and every so often she would uncoil her hands toward the sky and bulge out her eyes and gesticulate like a failed interpretive dancer.

A representative picture of our guide:

Best of all, the incredibly chic director of our program, Madame Winn, started laughing uncontrollably when she noticed the pointed shoes the tour guide was wearing. Her comment: "we've found our own elf!" She started again when a horde of Asian tourists passed by and cried, "These are my people! France is becoming China!"

I took a few pictures of some of the paintings in the museum. Unfortunately, I had long ago stopped listening to the tour guide, so I can't contribute any artistic or historical context, but I really think they're interesting enough to look at on their own.

When it rains...

...it pours. But in sunny, Mediterranean Nice, the rain's not that bad...

...except we happened to have an obligatory visit to an open-air market planned in the morning. To be fair, I've walked through a lot worse in Chicago and New Haven, but prying a group of college students out of bed at 8 in the morning and shepherding them through a wet world is just asking for a grumblefest.

Naturally, hardly anyone else was at the market when we arrived, so we were at least able to meander between the stalls without much trouble. Among our discoveries were dried fish that look like dried tomatoes and dried tomatoes that look like dried fish,

plain ol' fresh fish,

and a specialty variety of tomato called coeur de boeuf, or "cow's heart," which has a bizarre surface pattern of bumps and ridges that resemble... well, a cow's heart, I guess.

We also saw a variety of colorful salts from around the world.

Near the market was this apartment with a bas-relief of what I assume to be Adam and Eve. It's funny that an average residential building in France can have such intricate artwork etched into the sides.

While walking from one place to the next, I saw this sign, which I found amusing. It translates to "This place was cleaned for your pleasure; it was not destined to receive 'canine dejections.' "

Because everything I do revolves around food...

The other day we went to a boulangerie to watch bakers make baguettes. Everything's fresh, so no dyes or preservatives--and the place smells heavenly.

They use some sort of strong olive oil and liquid yeast mixture, which tasted kind of meh to me, but the bakers were kind enough to let us sample some of their pastries, which were delicious. I ate four... I'm such a pig.

Afterward, we each got to carry home our very own baguette, which we had vented (is that the word for making the slits across the top?) and put into the oven. The bread was really good as a mid-afternoon snack, since everyone in France eats so late, but because we were all nomming on bread in the middle of the street, we looked like a group of awkward Americans--as usual.

I finally had one of these cantaloupes I've been seeing everywhere. They're significantly smaller than the ones we see in America (which may or may not be an indication of the overly genetically modified nature of our produce), but they taste so incredibly sweet.

While making fried rice with the leftover rice from our dinner, I discovered how incredibly incompetent I am at describing cooking terminology in French (how do you say "stir-fry"? "mince"? "scallion"?). One grain of rice managed to jump out of the cooking pan and land on my thumb, which left a surprisingly painful burn, but the food was yummy, and my host mom liked it, so it's all good.

I also accidentally managed to offer to cook dinner for my host family one day. It's like TAS Flavors of Formosa all over again...