Before mum comes.

I have learnt and accomplished a number of things over the last few days.

1. Never trust the Bordeaux weather forecast. It is never accurate. For the last five days, I have been planning on going to Lacanau Ocean for a celebratory day of bike riding as I've just submitted my final UTS assignment for semester one. Lacanua is surf central in this neck of the woods, a few big surf comps happen there annually. Every time I had planned on going (with the forecast indicating it would be clear and warm) it has ended up raining. And every day it was supposed to storm, it has been lovely weather. Well, relatively lovely. Despite it being almost summer here, I'm still wearing jeans and jackets outside. Today I wore shorts just to be defiant, and regretted that decision dearly.

2. Bike riding is fun. I've been putting off bike riding here for a long time, almost five months to be exact. You have to ride on the road here, which kind of puts me off, and I haven't ridden a bike in a long time, so I thought I'd be really shaky and fall off and get run over. But, it was surprisingly a lot easier than I thought. I picked it back up straight away and just stayed off main roads. Most of the streets around my house are one way as well, which made it easier to keep track of where cars were. Plus, it was only one euro for 24 hours!

My bike with basket and everything!

3. Once you get the ball rolling with social security in France, things kind of snow ball. For the last two months, I've been trying to sort out my application for the CAF, including paying into a French insurance company to get a social security number, just to write that number on my application which will hopefully be successfully processed and I should start receiving money back from the French government. Win! After a slow beginning, all in one week, I've had my birth certificate translated, got my social security number and sent off my application forms. I should have a response by the time I get home from travelling with Mum.

4. International movies are kind of cool. I saw my first Chinese martial arts movie a few days ago, The Grandmaster. It was all in Chinese, with French subtitles, and was awesome in both story line and cinematography. I also discovered that one of the actresses in the movie I had actually seen at the Cannes Film Festival.

5. Making a room completely dust free is exhausting. I'm currently in the process of cleaning my room for Mum's arrival in two days/less than 24 hours now. Not that it was incredibly messy to begin with, but mums a clean/neat freak when it comes to stuff like any sign of dust. Once she gets here, I'll give her the grand tour of Bordeaux for the weekend, and then we're heading off on our big adventure of Eastern Europe!

6. I've picked crocheting back up again. After finishing the back and front of the jumper I'm knitting, I got sick of the pattern, so for a while, I'm crocheting random things. Like food.

Front and back of jumper

Crocheted beanie

The cat trying to get in on some dinner action. I

patted it for the first time the other day!

Crocheted doughnut

My new beanie.

Cats.

I used to have dreams of owning a cat once my dog died (he has now lived beyond anyone's expectations. Go Nipper!). Cats always seemed to be the more lax version of dogs; lazing, sun bathing, cuddly fur balls. I had visions of my cat, Moose, as it would be named, and I, sitting on my bed under the warmth of the sun while I drew fantastic fashion illustrations. I would teach Moose to fetch the paper, and we would sit and read it together as I drank ice tea. I would come home on rainy days from uni and find Moose curled up on the end of my bed, and we would sit and watch High School Musical and sing along to all of the songs together.

Not anymore. Today I realised, I don't want to be a fashion illustrator. I don't like ice tea. And cats can't sing. 

One week ago, one of my housemates friends went on exchange for three months until September, and left two cats in Bordeaux. After checking with us that it was fine (I was more than excited), our home became theres and we became first cat home owners. The very next morning, I awoke to awful scratching on my bedroom door. I knew what to do. I thought if I lay there, it would take the hint and go away (like Nipper). Unfortunately, cats don't. This cat kept going, until my housemate with the room next to mine, got up and told it to go away. Nb, the door scratching hasn't happened again. The cats and I were already off to a bad start. The next day, I went to use the toilet and noticed cat hair on the inside of the bowl. Now I'm afraid to touch them knowing that they've been in the toilet. We also keep the lid down at all times now. 

That afternoon, I walked into the living room to find one of them sitting on the kitchen bench. Toilet cat where I prepare my food! If anything, that experience has made me pedantic about food preparation to the point where today I was putting my dinner onto the plate and ended up putting my cutlery into my pockets so I didn't forget to not put it on the bench. 

But, the worst experience by far way this morning. I was the first to awake and, upon entering the kitchen, I found one of the cats had been terrorising the fish during the night and knocked the fish food flakes onto the floor which had smashed the container and gone everywhere. Said cat had then proceeded to run several times through the flakes, trailing them all around the living room. 

This has turned me off cats for a while. Probably forever. While mi casa es su casa, mi casa es no catsa. 

This all being said, and me teetering on the scale between dislike and contempt for cats, these ones are pretty chill when it comes to every other experience besides those mentioned in this post. One of them hides all the time (which makes it easier to deduce which cat has been up to no good), and the other sleeps in a chair all day when it's not wreaking havoc on household items. 

I'm totally fine with cats as animals. But once these guys are gone, I could never own another cat. They're welcome to stay for the next few months, but my dreams of owning the Julie Andrews of cats have now been shattered. I'll probably just stick to dogs, or ferrets.

P.S. I probably don't actually hate cats. This post was most likely fuelled by this mornings events.

P.P.S. At least I'm now guaranteed of not becoming the crazy cat lady!

In other news, my habit of walking the streets at night has now become a nightly occurrence. Because it gets dark so late here (about 10pm), it's hard to keep sitting inside once it gets to about 8pm. I go out during the day, and arrive home for dinner. But a few hours later, I need to go out again. With 5 of the Bordeaux 7 off travelling the world already, I can't just walk around to Jason's house and annoy him. So, I do more walking. I've discovered heaps of stuff about the streets around the back of my house, never walking the same route twice, which is surprisingly very easy. It's also French dinner time when I'm out, so I can pretend the world naturally smells like fresh baked bread and meat stews.

Discovered this on an evening walk

OH! And, checkout what I purchased yesterday!

The Great Gatsby.

I haven't got any recent photos to share or anything particularly exciting to talk about. But last night, I went and saw my first French dubbed film!
I saw the Great Gatsby, and at the last moment, switched which theatre I was going to as it was raining. The previous one had been screening it in English, like most of the others in Bordeaux, so I assumed this one would be too. I usually go to Utopia, which, for those of you playing along at home, is like Glenbrook cinema, except with hand painted patterned walls inside and cheaper (6 euros a ticket). You can't get there any other way except to walk, but it's relatively close to my house. The cinema I ended up going to is the Gaumont Pathé one which is the equivalent of Hoyts, except things work a bit differently, the seats and theatres are impeccably clean, and it's also cheap (6,30 euros a ticket).
The English trailers before the movie began were all subtitled, not dubbed, so I was off to a good start. And then the movie started, and the first thing I heard was French narration! Haha, it had been dubbed.
As it turns out, this was a fantastic movie as an entrée into the film dubbing world. It took about ten minutes to get used to everyone's mouth moving with the words being different, and learning everyone's new voice so you could identify them off camera, but once I got the hang of it, it was fine. The storyline is quite easy to follow (I'd never read/seen it before, and didn't know the storyline), so even though I couldn't understand everything that was being said, I still had a general idea of what was happening), and Baz Luhrmann's movie making style is usually over the top and incredibly obvious, it was easy to follow actors expressions for emotions. All in all, a good first dubbing experience.
And the movie was pretty good too. I'm going to re-watch it in English later, but for now, I give it a 7.5/10.

Wayne's Bar.

As today was my last day in Nice, we headed out to the markets, with the intention of going to Wayne's for lunch. Fruit salad at the markets got the better of me, and we ended at Wayne's with just drinks. As we were chatting, we heard another middle aged Australian in our midst, but didn't say anything to him. He heard our accents and came over later. He introduced himself and sat with us, buying us ciders haha, for a few hours. Over these hours, we talked of many things, mainly him living in many different countries, especially Japan for 6 years, and the business that he is CEO of. He then invited us to Monaco for the Grand Prix on board one of his clients super yachts for a Friday night cocktail party and Saturday chill times. I did waaaayyyy better at playing it cool this time. No screaming. We then went home and lost our cool. Haha what an afternoon.

Heaps and heaps of flowers at the markets

Painted map of Old Nice

The flight home was also one of the best yet. I flew Hop airlines which is the new LCC of Air France. The plane was super thin, only two seats on either side, no middle seating. The flight was smooth and cheap! Woohoo!

Goodbye Nice!

Rainy day.

It's been raining all day today. We weren't really sure of what to do until we started talking about all of the things we miss about Australia. Thai food coming in at number one (I'm making satay as soon as I get back to Bordeaux) and lamingtons, lollies, pies, and rocky road coming in a close second (also making rocky road when I get home). As the rain didn't look like easing up and the weather forecast saying it was only going to get heavier, we ducked out to the shopping centre to grab some lunch and stuff to make lamingtons! YUM!

While they were baking, I took a nap and then it was snack/dinner time. We had a very Australian dinner of baguette with vegemite, tim tams and lamingtons. The best yet!

And good news, I'm not sick in any way from eating raw meat yesterday! 

Fresh baked

The first one!

Dinner!

A day in Italy.

Liz had uni and exams all day today, so I took a little adventure to Italy. Just across the border, about 45 minutes by train from Nice, is Ventimiglia. And they have markets on Fridays. DOUBLE WIN!

I caught the 10:30am train to Ventimiglia and got off right in the middle of a bustling town. It's only a small village, but being on the coast, it's absolutely beautiful, and so was the weather. The markets were a lot bigger than I expected too, covering pretty much half of the town. I bought some local delicacy biscuits and started to explore. First purchase: silk printed harem pants. WOOH! They feel so comfortable on! I bought some other small things, but nothing too big. After the markets, I went into the old Medieval town at Ventimiglia. It was so cool! Like a more traditional Italian village. But with an amazing view!

Such a weird landscape

On the train

View of Monte Carlo on the train

Arriving in Ventimiglia

Walking to the markets

Fresh food markets

So much good food!

The markets

The markets with the medieval village behind. Old

Ventimiglia

Old Ventimiglia

At the markets

Me!

The I found the sewing market stall...

Ventimiglia park

In the park

Town square

So much pasta!

Old medieval town behind

Crossing the bridge

New Ventimiglia

Entering Old Ventimiglia

Bought pants at the markets

360: http://360.io/arcsZA

I'd heard of another town about 20 minutes by train away called Sanremo. I thought it was the home of Sanremo pasta, so I decided to save lunch for there in the hope of getting some amazing ravioli or something. I hopped a local train there (it is such a good feeling when you can navigate your own way around a country's local transport system, especially when they don't speak any of the same languages as you. This was actually my first time speaking/being spoken too in Italian) and arrived at about 2:30pm. The town was not what I had expected. It was pretty much just a normal town, again with a really nice view, but nothing special about it. And no pasta-ey looking restaurants. I headed down to the marina in search of anything and came across one with a bit of a view. Not being a massive seafood fan, I opted for the beef beats. I was heaps excited. Beef beats served on a bed of lettuce and toasted bread! Then it came out, and it was raw haha. France has their own version of this dish, but there's comes out looking like a volcano with the raw mince around the outside and a cracked raw egg in the middle and spices and herbs around the outside. You then mix it yourself into a kind of raw beef patty, and that's how you eat it. I haven't tried it yet for fear of getting sick as I'm a well done kind of girl, and it's never sounded that appetising before. But this must have been the Italian version and was just raw mince beef on a bed of rocket leaves, toasted bread and balsamic vinegar. Being a little shocked, I wondered about the most polite way to send it back and ask for it to be cooked haha. But I'm only in Italy for the day, and I've been eating rarer and rarer meats since I've been in France, so I decided to just go with it. It wasn't as bad as I thought. I took it slow, so to not get sick. But the taste was alright. And I knew the meat would be fine as I was in a good restaurant. When I was finishing, it started to pour. So, rather than sitting around in Sanremo looking for pasta, I hopped a train back to Ventimiglia. Unfortunately, I didn't know that you can't just buy a train ticket, you have to validate it as well in Italy. So when the ticket man came around, I was fined 5 euros for not having a validated ticket. My first ever fine! And in Italy. What a baddie!

Lunch!

At the restaurant

Sanremo marina

View from the restaurant

My fine for not validating my ticket!

I pulled back into Ventimiglia with enough time to buy a ticket to Nice and make that train. But got stuck in the line behind a lady who had bought tickets and missed her train by 3 hours, so was arguing the point of why she should have them exchanged. I missed that train. The next one was half an hour, so I walked back into the fruit markets and picked up some apples for the ride home.

Train ride home

House for sale...

Arriving back in Nice, the weather was still nice, so I made my way up to the famous lookout where all of the view photos of Nice are taken from. The view was incredible, and there was also a small park with multiple lookouts at the top including of the other side of Nice. I met a group of people up there who originally thought I was taking photos of them, but was actually using my 360 panoram app. They gave me their email addresses and asked me to send them the link to it. I also got hit on by a sweet Irishman whose dog kept coming over to me to throw his stick. There's a lovely waterfall at the top as well which was refreshing in the heat and after the climb.

Nice cathedral

Town square during the day

Towards the lookout

Waterfall at the lookout

Archeological site at the lookout

Park at the top

From the lookout

Here's some more 360's: http://360.io/Qs98qk
http://360.io/q6tBDW

I headed back down at about 7pm, with Liz finishing her exam at 7:30pm. On my way back, I got stuck talking to an old lady who was selling beautiful watercolours of Nice that her husband was painting. I would have bought one if I could get it home, but I can't :(

We went to a club/pub later that night and went to bed at about 1:30am.