Cedric's BLog for his trips to France and Madagascar
Index to dates and events
15 September, 2003: Day of my departure
16 September, 2003: Through Munich to Nice
17-19 September, 2003: Three days in Antibes
19-23 September, 2003: Five days in Marseille
23-25 September, 2003: In Paris
15 September, 2003: Day of my departure
This is the day of my departure. I hurriedly pack the last of my gear, interview a potential housemate (a woman who has, coincidentally, just arrived from France to teach French at Stanford), and my friend and housemate Peter Drekmeier drives me to the airport. After a long check-in line, I learn that I will have a middle seat, instead of an isle seat as I had requested when making my reservation. In the waiting area I notice a woman who looks a lot like my friend Jeno Sokoloski, so when I find myself waiting behind her in the boarding line, I ask her if by chance she has any family named Sokoloski. She says no, but says it is a Polish name, and that, though she is from Israel, her family is originally Polish. As we board the plane, she walks down the first isle and I down the second, so I figure I won't see her again. I get to my seat, put my stuff away, and sit down, in the right middle seat of the four-seat middle section of the big plane. Then I hear the man sitting to my left talking with a woman standing in the isle, and it appears they are trying to find someone to switch seats with, so they can sit together. Being a nice guy, and thinking I might upgrade to an isle or window, I volunteer to switch. But I should have waited to see what would happen, because, as I'm gathering up my things again, I notice that the person in the left aisle seat is the Pollish/Israeli woman, with whom I have already established a rapport... Oh well. As I walk by her, moving farther to the back of the plane, I give her a rueful smile and wish her a nice flight, after which I never see her again. Alas, my new seat is not an upgrade at all, but yet another middle seat. The rest of the flight is uneventful, except that my vegetarian meal includes a bowl of Jello, which is made from Gelatin, which is made from animal parts like skin, bones, qnd tendons, and, as such, is not vegetarian (some discussion of gelatin includes a gelatin industry perspective, and a kosher consumer perspective, the later of which is more descriptive and lists products made from gelatin, like marshmellows and even some wines).
16 September, 2003: Through Munich to Nice
Because the flight is long and Eastwards towards later timezones, night, and dawn, I arive in Europe the next day, transfering in Munich for Nice. I go through a mild passport checkpoint, and see an older French women having trouble with a German border guard who speaks English but not French. I briefly lend my interpretive services and learn that the woman had mistakenly followed the wrong group of people through a set of "one-way" doors and had come back into the restricted area, which "was a problem" according to the guard. Looking at my watch it seemed I only had a short time to make my connection, so I left them when more members of the woman's group arrived. I rushed to my gate and found it empty! was I too late, with everyone through the gate and onto the shuttle bus to the plane? I looked at my watch again and again, and tried the glass doors, through which I saw a new shuttle bus pull up, but they were locked. I asked a man nearby if I was supposed to have a steward take my boarding pass here, and he said yes, assuring me that I had an hour. After a bit I looked at my PDA's clock which I had set to Europe's 24-hour time, and finally realized that in my stressed out state I had confused 5pm with 18 o'clock, and thus 6pm. I did indeed have an hour to kill, and went in search of a recycle bin for the plastic juice bottles I was lugging around. Instead I found a free internet cafe, and received my first introduction to wierd European keyboards on which some of the character locations are swapped around. I started to compose my birthday e-vite description, but I think it timed me out while I was typing the text, because, when I clicked on the "save until later" button, it went to the internet cafe's start page instead of a "your e-vite has been saved" page. Now I had indeed killed my excess time, and, true to form, was almost late to the gate and was one of the last people to board the shuttle... (I think I may specify in my will that I should arrive late to my own funeral--one last parting joke by a chronically late joker.)
Arriving in Nice, I was just in time to see the bus to Antibes pulling out of the station: I hesitated about stopping the bus, given that I had no ticket and no Euros, and then it was gone. I thought it was the last bus--more 24-hour time and stress confusions--and that I would need to walk farther and take the train. My ATM card allowed me to extract Euros straight from my account--I'm still not sure whether I'm subjected to an exchange fee or not. After learning from the Info office that there was one more bus, I bought my ticket and took the Cannes bus to Antibes. In Antibes I followed my conveniently printed out MapQuest map of the "vielle" (old) Antibes to my grandfather's house, where my grandfather, Julien, and his wife, Odile, were waiting for me with some dinner thoughtfully prepared.
17-19 September, 2003: Three days in Antibes
I spent the next few days with my aging and now forgetful grandfather, and his wife, Odile. I'm a bit forgetful myself, so I can't break my activites down to a day-by-day account, so I'm lumping them together. Antibes was beautiful, as always, and I walked around the city alone and pushing my grandfather in his wheelchair (around the house he uses a walker). I showed him my Palm PDA and the internet, both of which he found fascinating, and he showed me an interesting wave-like feature in old mortar which the familly calls the Martelly Effect, because he, my grandpa, Julien Martelly, is the first of our knowledge to have written an article about it. It seems that mortar dries unevenly, and creates wave-like undulations that ripple away from the rocks. Normally you don't see it because it is in the wall, but I guess the outer layers of mortar eventually flake off and you can see it. I told him I would keep my eye out for it in the US. I also visited the Fort Carre, which is a fort built by Vauban to protect the city of Antibes from the Italiens to the East. Alas, I did not make it to the Picasso museum.
19-23 September, 2003: Five days in Marseille
After Antibes, I went to Marseille for the weekend to see my cousin Aurelie. The first night we went to a party of a friend of a friend: the police came to warn us to turn the music down, and as the pollice waited behind the closed door, perhaps talking with the host, people rushed some pot plants into the back! I saw a jar of buds on the table, and brought it to them. I don't normally touch the stuff, of course, but there's no sense in getting us all busted! The next day we went to a beach of chalk cliffs plunging into the water, and walked along them to a secluded cove with shade from the beating sun, and swam in the water with my mask and snorkel, and talked in the shade afterward. That night, we went to a big neighborhood party (all the Marseille neighborhoods have them once a year, around this time), with lots of music everywhere. I was a bit rigid at first, but we finally came to a DJ spinning Raggae at the mement, and I got my groove on, which lasted through the remaining music types. The next day was another beach, not as nice or warm, but with lots of fish again, and that night we went to an outside bar with some more of her friends and their friends, and they taught me a new dice game which I will teach you sometime. The next day I went with Aurelie to Aix-en-Provence, where she teaches some art classes, and I visited the old city looking for creperies and an open hardware store. Unfortunately, many stores were closed for Monday, including the hardware stores, where I hoped to buy a plug adapter to charge my PDA. (I have a French/American adapter, but its French prongs don't extend far enough out to handle the fact that many french plugs are recessed into the depths of a cylinder!) I also compared prices for internet cafes, and the cheapest were at 3€/hour, or about $3. I also bought some postcards and a tiny notebook, and got the radius reduced of the band of the watch which my mother gave me. The last day I visited Marseile with a friend of hers and his mom.
23-25 September, 2003: In Paris
This is to be developed more later.
On the 23rd I took my first weekly Malaria vaccination pill, and developed the "flu-like" side-effects predicted by the doctor, including a sore throat, runny nose, fatigue and a bout of diziness, all of which sucks, but it's not too bad, and seems to be clearing up today. I hope I don't get these effects every time I take my weekly pill! I'm staying with my brother Larry and his wife, Francoise, and kids, Claire and Julien (old photos can be found at a site I made for them a few years ago when Julien was born I'm sure Francoise would like all to know that she looks better when she hasn't just delivered a baby). Last night I went out on the town with my cousin Marie: we had crepes together for dinner, then went to a couple of bars, finishing out the evening with a couple games of billiards, played with orange and red balls, and one black ball, in addition to the white queue ball.