Day 4 – Yay…Tourist Buses!!!

We started the day very late. That’s because P and I stayed up to watch the last Presidential debate. It started at approximately 2am Nice time. Ugh.

By the time either of us went to sleep it was about 4am (P slept at 5:30). We did manage to make it onto one of the tour buses by 4pm and had a good 2 hours to take a drive around the whole city. We wandered the streets for a few hours until we decided to take a breather back at the hotel before a late dinner. Our hotel (yes still a pit) is conveniently located in the epicenter of Nice so everything was walking distance which was a darn good thing because wedging our rental into those small parking spaces was most certainly a hair raising.

P was in the mood for some Indian food. Well there’s mental crickets. Indian food? Where? So we head in one direction hoping that we would see at least something that resembles Indian. All of the sudden, through the darkness of the night I hear:

Say shavah shavah, mahiya….

I look around, across the street lo and behold I spot a big sign: Bollywood!

Happily P and I cross the street to see a television blaring bad Bollywood songs and underneath? Rows and rows of Hindi movies, good ones may I add. The proprietor didn’t speak a lick of English but was from Pakistan hence spoke Hindi. Good thing I did otherwise we’d have been babbling at each other and making ridiculous hand gestures. P, of course, doesn’t speak Hindi so he was of absolutely no use to me while I happily chattered on with my Paki brother. Eventually we bought a movie, asked the dude where the nearest desi food place was and with directions in hand we set off for what we hoped would be a little taste of home. I’m sure it would have been if we had ever found the damn place. Retracing our steps we settled on French cuisine (steak and creamy potatoes…very French). We also stopped off at a patisserie which had a dazzling display of mouthwatering decadence goodness. Naturally we had to sample so we asked a ‘to-go’ box.

Just to backtrack for a moment. When we were sitting at the restaurant enjoying the beautiful spring-like weather and smoking up a storm (seems like everyone in Europe smoke) and the best place to indulge in food and smoking? Why sitting outside in one of the hundreds of outdoor dining areas. But it was when we were ready to leave that the waitress, a pretty little thing with a big smile, wonderful broken English and a sweet temperament was saying ‘au revoir’ to us when she paused and gushed over how nice she thought we were and that the other American’s that she had met were not as…polished or sophisticated as my darling P and I clearly seemed to be.

Need I say that I was delighted if not a bit disturbed? Naturally P and I had an hour discussion regarding this as we headed back to the hotel where I expressed to him my distress at the very thought that a rash of my own countrymen were wandering the globe making bad impressions of us everywhere the stopped. How distressing was this thought to me I cannot tell you readers because the fact is (and as P was adamant to point out to me over and over again) American’s are perfectly wonderful people if not a tad boisterous, a bit loud and rather arrogant. Now I’m not stupid enough to be generalizing here, not everyone is all things I just mentioned but most certainly to some extent the truth is the truth and regardless of how much we (you and I) may hate to admit it, our brothern can at times embarrass the national flag right out of our proud little hands.

I must admit that it did please me a whole heap when she called me suave and sophisticated. Yes dears, those were her exact words. Me! Suave and sophisticated. Heck yes I am!

Back at the hotel we settled in for desert in bed and a good movie watching. What P and I hadn’t expected when coming to Europe was that the only channel which had anything sounding remotely English was either CNN, FOX or BBC and it’s good to be up to date on the politics and the state of the world surely but overkill was overkill. 24 hour news I did not need, in particular after the last several weeks of nothing but watching the presidential election hupplah. That’s why we were super relieved to see at least something that was familiar, even if it was a street vendor hawking Hindi DVD’s (which were excellent quality by the way).

P of course fell asleep immediately bringing to end our first full day in Nice. Lovely city may I say with glorious miles of beaches and water and stunning architecture and an impressive amount of history.