Archive for October 6th, 2009

Today was one great adventure after another, but I will type briefly because it’s 1 a.m. and I have to be on a 6:39 a.m. train to Avignon. This morning, Sarah and I made the trip out to Saint Paul de Vence, as recommended by my co-worker, and it was a 1 Euro, one-hour ride from Nice on the public bus. Saint Paul was such a beautiful little medieval village, with steep cobblestone twists and turns everywhere, and little glaceries mingled with pricey restaurants, galleries and a New York-themed diner (of course, what else do you expect from a medieval French village?). While there, we also saw the Maught Foundation’s Joan Miro exhibit, with some really beautiful paintings and – most notably to me – a huge sculpture that resembles Disney’s Wall-E, but with a penis. I somehow imagine that Miro’s sculpture came before Disney’s Wall-E, even though Wall-E is one of the most adorable Disney characters of all time in my personal opinion (well, he does have a close run-in with Chip and Flounder).

After our visit, yours truly got about 8 mosquito bites waiting for the return bus, and then slept the entire ride back to Nice. I think Sarah had trouble waking me up. When we got back to the hostel/hotel room, we met our newest addition to the four-person suite, Kristy, from Australia. I took a short run along the boardwalk just before sunset, and then the three of us headed out for a nice dinner at a brasserie. Amazing European pizza, white wine (okay, so I had only two sips, but whatever) and an adorable Tunisian-French waiter (Chaker) – what more could we ask for? We must have sat at that restaurant for like three hours, but they certainly enjoyed our company there.

Some refreshing gelato followed, and then we stumbled upon the most amazing bookshop in all of Nice, where I found some Jewish-French books, as well as a book vendor with an AWESOME story. I hope my editors like it. He’s 76, and during World War II, he lived on the French-Swiss border, where his father – a Lutheran pastor – led the local resistance army. His mother and father saved so many Jews before the occupation by hiding them in their basement and then shuttling them over the border in the very early hours of the morning. Perhaps even more interestingly, one group of people who his parents saved were family members of Ben Gurion – the Israeli prime minister!!! And just two or three years after the State of Israel was established, Ben Gurion sent his parents on a fully-paid vacation in the Middle East out of thanks for saving his family. UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE. Wow. Oh yeah, and he’s mailing me the book I bought.

I’ll post more pics tomorrow or the next day on Facebook, but the Internet connection is pretty slow here. So goodnight for now! Our fourth roommate (male), who just got in from Hong Kong, smells like smoke and snores. Tomorrow is half the day in Avignon, half the day in Carcassonne…and then an overnight train to…PARIS!!!