The last time I saw Paris

Light filtered in through the window at our balcony this morning and the cool breeze belied the heat of the day to come. Our little home in Nice will be a memory tomorrow in Paris. I opened the window and pulled the last things in which I had hung out from the laundry yesterday. Our balcony looks out onto a courtyard. The building opposite is partly renovated --with some apartments clearly occupied and with some which have windows broken out and clearly untouched. Our balcony leads to a fire escape (a comforting thought) which most people use to smoke -- it appears from the number of butts!

As we prepare to leave Nice I am thinking that people of kindness are everywhere -- the little differences that flavor culture are just that --- herbs de provance. It is this difference that makes a place interesting to visit. It is not the physical beauty of a place like the Cote d' Azur (though that is clearly there) it is the people and their customs that make it so wonderful...like the woman at the cafe. or the people who lifted Kathy from the train, or Constanza who wanted us to wait for her to find her friend for a good dinner recommendation for us.....people make places special.

I picked up the Kite Runner in Frankfurt (difficult to find English Books here) and had a difficult time putting it done. It certainly illustrates the point. Its people, though the culture was totally foreign to us, were so universal in nature that you could have placed them in Chicago and the story would have been believable. The novel was intense and so real that I am anxious to read the sequel.

The little street tram that took us everywhere for a euro one way also took us to within three blocks of the train station -- For all its wonderful features, Nice does not have a good train station for mobility impaired people. So we checked in and asked what we would do if our train were not going to be on platform one -- (any other platform would required crossing tracks! We were told to wait until the platform was posted (20 minutes prior to departure) Then we would need to get help if we found the train to be on any platform other than A.
We promptly sat down and began eating our lunch --- baguette with ham and cheese and chips. I had bought a coke as we left the hotel and we had just met an American couple from Huntsville Alabama, the Fortenberrys. They have been coming here for years apparently and have their purchased their own apartment on the Promenade (an efficiency). Suddenly from nowhere two men appeared and started to take Kathy away --- I barely got her luggage with her before they disappeared. I shouted where do I go (they would not let me accompany her) the platform still was not posted and I could not understand their French directions --- I was standing there with half of our lunch and my bags wondering what to do next ---I gave my lunch to the birds who were quite happy with it and went back to find the young woman I had spoken with.

Apparently these gentlemen just look for people -- they do not wait to be called -- (another example of the many ways to handle things) The young woman found that they had taken Kathy to platform E--- I ditched my coke and carried my luggage down the stairs --- then found the stairs leading to platform E and trudged back up.....The french trains look sleek -- but they do not post the car number on the exterior of the car. It appears in a digital display once you pus the button and open the door -- it is at the top just inside. I found the correct car and peered in --- there was the wheel chair --- and further down the car sat Kathy. I would have been up the proverbial creek with no paddle --- if we had been separated since I did not have the name of the hotel in Paris with me! Luckily I had my ticket for the train --- I will not let that happen again!

The train was nice and clean --- it was not however very cool -- and there was nothing to be done about that. The countryside flew by at an amazing rate. Beautiful fields divided by poplar trees -- fields of lavender and rape --- fields of hay interspersed with views to the mountains in the distance and scruffy trees that look a bit like pinon now and then. The further we journeyed the more like central California this looked with the spine of mountains running to the East. The sky grew darker and we pass through several downpours. This must have left the farmers rejoicing.
The French train is also very quiet. The people spoke in hushed tones to one another. Most did crosswords or read. There was a family in the seats ahead of us. The young girl had black fingernails and one of those wooden skull piercings in one ear as well as two in her mouth. She read a graphic novel of some kind. The boy was playing computer games -- which I was treated to a view of through the seats. They are war games --- that feature lots of gore. Most of the others are older folks with the exception of the young man next to me who probably was on holiday in Antibe ---

We have left the clouds behind for a time but as we neared our destination the sky once again filled with cumulus clouds. We passed many French villages that looked as they might have hundreds of years ago -- with little village churches which appear to be the center of each village. We have also passed a nuclear power facility with four cooling towers all appearing to be in operation.
We were supposed to arrive at 7:20, but the time we spent on the tracks waiting for the stones to be cleared made us late. We took a little tour of Paris again to get to our hotel and Kathy had to defend all tourists interests with the cabby who was so deeply offended that he almost didn't take her money!!! (grinning)
We had a delightful dinner near the restaurant --- again --- you can't have a bad meal in Europe.....and retired for the night.