Nice, very nice

British filmmaker Adrian Lyne once said, "I think you get better at staring into space. Especially living in the South of France." Certainly a skill I'm always willing to work on.

My home for a month was an apartment (below) three blocks north of the port in Nice. It was an ideal location for walking, getting a bus or hanging out in the old part of Nice.

Probably too small to see my key to the illustration below, but a few highlights:

1. "Le Pomme," the Mac. I swear to never again travel outside the US without computer access: the Google maps, tripadvisor.com (and qype.fr) restaurant reviews, Ligne d'Azur bus schedules, weather reports (as in Seattle, mostly useless but still riveting), and Google translation tool.
2. CD player/radio - it's little antenna pulled in one station really well: Italian opera!
3. Fan. hahahahahahahha
4. Space heater: for the first two weeks I mostly hugged it.
5. Ever-present cup of tea, with French tea bag still in the mug to try to infuse some flavor
6. TV. Why do the French debunk American culture when 80% of their programming is from the US???
7. Map of Antibes on the sofa, plus pages from Lonely Planet and Rick Steves guidebooks, plotting out tomorrow's trip.

Also:

     10. Clock - The use of a 24h clock on bus schedules is almost as bad as centigrade in weather reports. Just can't get used to it.

     11. Microonde (microwave). - OK, so I may be nuking some meals from Monoprix's refrigerated section, but they're made by Joel Robuchon!

     12. As at home, the dining table is covered by art supplies and unusable to actually eat on.