Dear Diary,
It is the long Easter weekend and because Monday is a holiday we are missing one day of school. In a way I’m disappointed and in a way I’m glad. Maurice is here and we have been doing a little exploring. My apartment is between what they call the lower cornishe and the medium cornishe-coast roads. This area is very hilly and there are roads cut into the sides of the mountain. There is even the high cornishe. It was on one of these in this area that Grace Kelly lost her life in a car crash.

We climbed up to the moyenne (medium) corniche and caught a bus into Nice on Sunday to see a movie and to also visit Maurice’s cousin and his wife. I have met them before and they are both very nice. I thought I would get a chance to use my French-what little I have-but, although I could understand most of what they were saying, I hardly got a word in in any language. The cousin is very funny and very talkative. I guess his wife would never get a word in if she didn’t start talking over him. So there I was, trying to listen to the cousin when his wife would also start talking. The cousin continued on talking to me-I wasn’t sure if I should look at him or her, sort of awkward-while his wife talked and then Maurice and she carried on a conversation. Yes, Dear Diary, three French speakers all talking at once. I think maybe I said three sentences in all and a few words scattered here and there. Luckily we had to catch a bus to get back up to Villefranche. I guess I got thrown into the deep end of the French swimming pool. I managed to float but not do any swimming, really.

They were discussing the world financial situation-especially the cousin-and American politics. Maurice and I had just seen the movie, Frost/Nixon, and I heard-some-of what they thought about American politics. I thought it was a great movie. I remember living through those days and being sort of ticked that Nixon never really said, “I’m so sorry America”. I think he was more sad that he got caught and couldn’t be the top man in America anymore. Anyway, I enjoyed how the movie was set up and seeing what the insiders were doing and thinking. Looking back on it, it was amazing that an English talk show host and entertainer was able to snare Nixon for those talks.

I’d like to go back to Nice on Monday to see the brochante. At least there is usually one on every Monday. There will either be just a few booths selling their wares or it will be packed by vendors hoping to make some money on the holiday weekend.

All photos taken from my apartment window in Villefranche.