Thursday, Sep 3: I woke up to loud street noises at 6:00 AM, then fell back asleep until 9:45 AM, still working through some jet lag. Kathleen went for a run, Amy had an appointment, then the two of them went grocery shopping while I walked around Nice’s Old Town, established during the Middle Ages. Amy had another meeting in the afternoon, so Kathleen and I ate lunch outside around the corner at Restaurant La Claire Fontaine, across a small square from the Cathedral Sainte-Reparte de Nice.
We met Amy in the evening at La Tresorerie near the Nice-Ville train station. Amy and four of her classmates, nicknamed “The Grandmas,” for their low-key leisure habits, arranged a happy hour in a private room for the graduates and their families to meet before tomorrow’s official ceremony. We had a marvelous time, socializing with the international group of students and relatives: Mathilda from Sweden, Lena from Switzerland, Laura from Germany and Gabriella from Columbia. The air was abuzz with English, German, Swedish, Spanish and French, with most everyone fluent in more than one language. Later, Kathleeen and Amy went for a sunset swim in the Mediterranean Sea, meeting several of Amy’s classmates at the beach. Map link: Nice, France
Bonus Question: True or False? The hidden object book Where’s Waldo? was once banned. (answer at end of post)
Friday, Sep 4: We spent another lazy morning, then went for a swim in the Mediterranean, followed by shopping in the Cours Saleya outdoor market, which sells flowers and produce in the morning and transforms into a clothing, jewelry, crafts and souvenirs market at night. We ate lunch at our Airbnb—a third-floor walkup apartment right in the heart of Old Town—then Amy left to get ready for her graduation ceremony.
Later, Kathleen and I dressed up and took the local tram to the Centre Universitaire Mediterraneen (CUM) on the waterfront, where the 34 graduates of the MARRES program at the Universite Cote de Azur would receive their master’s degrees. Graduation ceremonies with lots of pageantry are uncommon in Europe, and it was delightful to see the French version of this important milestone. After the official ceremony (in English, as were Amy’s classes), we celebrated with a glass of champagne before reconvening for an entertaining, student-run program. This was followed by a short walk to Blue Beach, an oceanfront restaurant, where a delicious buffet, unlimited wine and dancing awaited us. Kathleen and I left around 11:00 PM with the party in full swing, and we walked back to our lodgings along the busy promenade on a lovely evening.
Bonus Question Answer: True. The original 1987 book Where’s Waldo? was banned in 1997 in certain New York school districts. One of the search puzzles is a beach scene in which a woman appears topless, and complaints from parents led to the book being banned from school libraries. See below.
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