NICE is so nice!

Our next city was Nice. It's the hometown of our bassist, so I got the tour of his complete childhood while there. I went to the beach the first day with 4 other folks. Our guitarist got a Korean massage on the beach which bordered on indecent - this lady was jumping up and down on his back and butt with her knees.

The whole beach was watching and 2 teenage boys were laughing their heads off. Judith got one too, minus some of the violence. I didn't that day, but needed one a couple days later but never caught up with beach massage lady. Tant pis.

Anyhow, the whole city is SO fabulous, from the old town area to the beach. Nice is in Provence, the southern region of France, and it's everything you expect France to be. The same way that dating Mark made me do revisionist history and downgrade all the previous boyfriends, visiting Nice has made me sort of poo-poo most of the cities I've seen before it. Some still hold some allure, but really, the south of France is happening.

The food is WAY better - none of those boring steak, steak, shrimp, steak menus we had before. There are several nicoise specialties, including Pan Bagnat which you'll see in the picture below.

We were taken in by a nice lady with serious connections, who had a house in the french equivalent to the Hollywood Hills. Infinity pool, jacuzzi, steam Hammam house, petanque yard, kitchen with refrigerated drawers, refrigerated counter top for rolling pasta, a refrigerator ROOM for larger items, a tub with big shutters that open to a view of the roof overlooking the infinity pool which changs shades slowly if you look at it for a minute or two. Really lifestyles of the rich and famous, except better thought out. (I really hope you people aren't sitting there judging my rules of capitalization and grammar when you read this thing - I'm trying to be conversation and I swear if I have to breakout my Strunk and White, proofread and spellcheck this thing, I'd NEVER get a post done - Stuart especially.)

Anyhow, this lady got the bandleader an interview with the Mayor and photo shoot and an interview for France 3, one of their 3 public tv stations. She also drove us around for the rest of our stay, which 5 of us opted to make longer voluntarily. They were going to put us in Marseille for 5 days - sort of long for a town with a fisherman's wharf and not too much else. Not even downing Marseilles, Nice was just a more attractive option due to the great hotel, proximity to the beach and a chauffeur with connections who said yes to our every whim. Judith and I consolidated and shared a room for 2 nights (total slumber party - big lack of sleep) and Bunny and Tony kept their original rooms. Virgil stayed too, but he didn't hang out with us, so I don't know exactly what he did. What WE did was to rent bicycles and ride around town like a bunch of 12 year olds for a day. I learned to take drive-by photos on my bike with one hand while driving with the other to avoid being left by the others and still get my shots!



Then Nadine took us to these swank resorts at St. Jean Cap Ferrat and Villefrance. This, folks, was living. I'm not a fan of the high-life always, but this stuff was so top drawer. Very nice, Nice is. I've been collecting some really nice people along the way too. Nadine and her famiy are the nicest folks and just humble and happy for what they have.

Here we are at Eze, a medieval village and castle. Here's more info at this link: http://www.beyond.fr/villages/eze.html

The train to Marseilles was cheap, 28euros, and we got back in good time for the show later that night. So basically I bought myself a 2 day vacation for $150. Totally worth it. When we're working, we REALLY work, and it's not often that we get great accomodatons or cities, so I'm really taking advantage of my time in France. Who knows when I'll get a chance to come back, although I'm working on that, so I am just going to make the most of it. When we come back in August to Monaco, Nice is a 20 minute train ride away, and Nadine's going to throw us another dinner party, so I'll be seeing Nice again for sure.