First, before telling you about Monday, I will finish with Sunday. And I’ve included a couple of photos from Sunday evening. After finishing my blog post on Sunday around 4 p.m. I went wandering and now I’m not even sure where I went. Part of the time I was in the old city and that needs several more visits, I think. Short, narrow streets and alleys, winding and turning and full of shops and restaurants and packed with people. No photos this time, I was concentrating on getting oriented. But I will take photos the next time I go back. I didn’t use my map, I just kept walking and walking and walking. The weather, which began overcast in the morning, then went to sun and clouds in the middle of day, went back to overcast and even sprinkled a little rain in the evening. But everyone was still out and no one had umbrellas. This gave me confidence that there was a good chance it wouldn’t rain, so, at the end of my wandering for the day, I walked longer on the Promenade Des Anglais than I had before and I was compelled to take a few photos of the sun shining through the clouds. I’ll show you two.   Now, Monday: in the morning I took my time getting up and around in my tiny apartment. I did wake up pretty early, 6:15, and I made my own coffee and had a breakfast of pears, strawberries and yogurt. My laundry was finally dry, so I hung it all up in the closet. After closing up my bed and doing my dishes, I went off to the pharmacy to buy toothpaste and sunscreen and such. The pharmacies here are so so so different than at home. The help really helps – the employees are very knowledgeable and give such excellent and sensitive service. It’s actually hard for me to get used to telling someone all the little things I want to buy and having them talk to me about all the choices. The woman who waited on me spoke English as well as I do. Perhaps it’s unfortunate since it doesn’t push me to practice my French, but I’m finding that most people do speak English very well here in Nice. It’s almost 11 a.m. on Monday and I am having an espresso and croissant at my usual cafe – which, by the way, is called La Lorraine. The Caffee Excelsior must be a brand of coffee. Duh! I’m going to try doing this post bit by bit throughout the day and see where else I can get wifi. A pause here while the rest of the day unfolds. Well, the day took all sorts of unexpected turns! It’s now almost 5 p.m. on Monday and I am sitting in a Haagen-Dazs – actually outside on their patio in a noisy crowd – eating an apple tart that I don’t really want just so I can use their wifi. But this blog site is bogged down and I am not able to do the photos, so I’m trying to see if I can at least write the post, then do the photos someplace else another time. I need to hunt down some more wifi spots. After my espresso, croissant, and blogging session at La Lorraine this morning, I went back to my apartment for a little while, then headed out again. I had received an email from Nicky. When I left Bormes Les Mimosas I accidentally took the keys with me. She needs them immediately, so she asked me to put them in the mail to her – express. I headed off to find a post office. Luckily, I stopped in a pharmacy and asked a young woman and she gave me directions straight to it. Once there, one of the men working at the post office held my hand and walked me through getting the keys in the correct envelope, the correct info written, and everything sent off properly. It cost me a bit, but hopefully the keys will be in their owner’s hands tomorrow. Once again, I am lucky that all those people spoke English as my French would be too limited for such transactions. After my post office business was completed, I was going to walk to the Promenade Des Anglais and head for Castle Hill (Colline du Chateau). But, as I walked, I ended up finding a bunch of art supply stores in a neighborhood I hadn’t walked in before. Most of them were the old fashioned type: small and crowded, but with limited offerings that were mostly traditional art supplies. But I finally found a brand new, big, well-stocked art supply store!! It’s called Le Geant des Beaux-Arts and its at 20 rue Gubernatis. I took a few photos until someone came over and told me they didn’t want me to do that. I’ll post them here. The store carries Golden acrylic products and Caran d’Ache. So this is where I will take the students to when they arrive here in Nice for our workshop. I am very, very pleased. I bought small containers of Golden matte medium, heavy gel matte, heavy body zinc white, plus a small brush. Along the way, while I was checking out art supply stores, I stopped at a small boulangerie (I was off the tourist track and this was a neighborhood place) and I bought a petit pan bagnat (sort of a salade nicoise on a roll) and some other kind of cookie like thing but that wasn’t sweet that I can’t remember the name of. Then I needed a place to eat it. It took me awhile to find my way out of that neighborhood and onto the Promenade Des Anglais, but I did it and I went down on the beach and sat on a concrete platform and watched the waves as I dined. I took a couple of photos of my surroundings and I will include them here. Revived by my lovely lunch, I headed down the Promenade Des Anglais all the way to Castle Hill. Here is what the guide book says about it: “The site of the first town founded by the ancient Greeks, then the first mediaeval town, today’s Castle Hill has preserved only a few foundations and fragments of walls; but this park and botanical garden offers unique vistas over Nice and its surroundings, a surprising artificial waterfall, remains of the former 11th-century cathedral and walkways paved with colorful 20th-century mosaics.” I didn’t see the waterfall. I read this after I visited Castle Hill. I simply climbed up to it and walked all around, not knowing the layout or what was there. I took photos and will include them here. This will be a good place to take the workshop group and to do some art. Please note: for those who don’t want to climb up and up and up all those stairs, there is an elevator. While climbing up those stairs myself, I met a lovely couple, Greg and Rochelle. They took photos of me and I took photos of them. They are also American, but I am embarrassed to say that I didn’t ask them where they are from. They also mentioned that they write a food blog, but I neglected to get the blog address!! Rochelle and Greg, if you are reading this, please send me a comment with your blog info. I looked for you up there at the top, but couldn’t find you again. It was so great to meet you both. After visiting Castle Hill I wandered through the antiques market on Cours Saleya and took a couple of photos of that. Nope, I didn’t buy anything. Another pause – overnight. It’s now Tuesday morning at 11 a.m. and I have found what I hope will be a good wifi spot: Nice Etoile, a shopping mall that offers free wifi throughout the entire place. I also happen to be in a Starbucks, the first I’ve found in Nice. It’s busy and loud, but it is still much more comfortable than the Haagen-Dazs. I finally had to leave the Haagen-Dazs patio without completing this post – babies were screaming and it started to rain and I was sitting between awnings and was getting wet. I couldn’t believe the din in that place – and it was outside! Frustrating all around, especially since this blog site kept hanging up. Well, I dashed through the rain back to my apartment, buying a piece of pizza (fresh tomatoes, anchovies and olives) for my supper, which I heated in the microwave – it was excellent! Then I set up a space and worked on some art. I coated book pages with matte medium, so there are no new photos of that, since that only changes the finish and can’t really be detected by photos. I decided to start some new separate pieces while waiting for the medium to dry on the book pages and I looked for the watercolor paper I had bought earlier in my trip, but I couldn’t find it. Then I remembered, I gave it to Cathy to take home, thinking I would only be working on my book. So, I found a couple of outdated tourist guides in the apartment and glued the thin pages together and started to collage, including some of the aluminum foil that I was using to protect the table, which was picking up bits of ink and paper from the pages I was gluing together. I have no idea where these pieces are going, so stay tuned. There is always more to write than I have time for, and more photos to show you than I am able to, so I am going to stop writing now and add some photos, then get myself off to the Contemporary Art Museum and some other places – which I will hopefully tell you about in a blog tomorrow. I hope this blog site doesn’t hang up again!