I thought it was appropriate to begin with lyrics from The Sound of Music since another song from that musical, Climb Every Mountain, spent an inordinate amount of time running through my head during this vacation. I now hate that song.
I was going to show pictures of me and David while waiting at SFO for our flight. We were still in good spirits, having not yet met the extremely small space we would be spending the next 12 hours of our lives. But those pictures were on my camera which I lost three days into our trip, continuing a long and illustrious Sedivy family tradition of either forgetting to bring a camera or forgetting to use one you've brought. I just put a new twist on this familial institution, that of using it, then losing it. Luckily, I had the backup of David and his camera (which he in his wisdom rarely let me touch). Otherwise you'd be getting stick figure drawings of my impressions of our trip.
Here's our plane. It continually astounds me that a behemoth like that can get off the ground.
I wasn't actually going to spend time talking about our flight over the pond. What is there to say really? Small space, bad food, long time in air. But the quality of entertainment provided by British Airways proved such that some things needed to be shared.
Act One involved three big, young British fellows traveling together, sitting in the seats behind us. I was afraid at first that I would spend the flight suffering from knee-itis. I was not thrilled at the prospect of having the person behind me constantly banging into my seat. I needn't have worried, however. Having my seat prodded and poked would have required these young gentlemen to actually stay in their seats. They opted instead to spend a good portion of the flight in the aisle, heartily availing themselves of the free drinks on international flights. Good-natured, but becoming increasingly louder as the flight went by, they were even able to penetrate the haze of my Dramamine-induced stupor.
Act Two consisted of the reading light above me switching on and off, on and off, on and off. Apparently, in the recent past some ergonomics genius at the airline decided that the best place to put all the buttons to control lights, volume, channel changer, etc., was on TOP of the arm rest. The gentleman seated next to me, not realizing his arm rest was not to be used for actually resting his arm, did exactly that. It took me a while, due to the aforementioned stupor, to realize that it was not gremlins tampering with my light, but an elbow.
Act Three was on our second flight from London to Nice. Three young ladies who looked like real-life Barbie dolls seated themselves in front of us. They asked very prettily if the flight attendant would take their picture and proceeded to chatter quite loudly about how tiresome it was for boys to expect them to answer every single post on their Facebook wall. They, too, imbibed quite freely. Then, one of them declared she "must have moisturizer right this second," and proceeded to hike her dress up all the way to "there" so she could slather on her lotion. Her thighs must have been especially dry as she gave them particular attention. I told David he could have had entirely different scenery had he not chosen the window seat.
We finally landed in Nice, and we figured out we could get most of the way to our hotel via bus, so I hesitantly purchased tickets in French. We found our hotel, and emboldened by my success in buying bus tickets in a language not my own, I launched into French at the hotel, too. Nous avons une reservation.
Whoops. This released a torrent of French that left me dumbfounded. I caught enough words to vaguely understand the receptionist was asking for our name, credit card, and passports. She then mentioned something about breakfast. I got that it started at 7 a.m. but not when it ended, or how much it cost. I heard the number 14, but didn't know what it referred to. Obviously not the time breakfast ended.
And it was at this point that what little French I knew deserted me completely. I couldn't even remember how to say, "I don't understand," or, "Please speak more slowly." No, I just stood there staring like an idiot. For all I know, there might have been drool on my face left over from what little sleep I did get on the plane. I stood there staring helplessly while David made helpful little comments like, "What was that? What's she saying? Why are you drooling?"
The receptionist took pity on me and asked, in very good English, "Did you understand?" Galvanized by hearing my own language, I rushed to my own defense and repeated what I did know. She then filled me in on what I had missed. Turns out 14 was our room number.
We went up to our room. It was utterly lovely with floor-to-ceiling windows, a charming balcony with seating for two and a view overlooking the famous Promenade des Anglais. I guess those hours I spent ruining my eyesight reading review after review on Trip Advisor weren't wasted after all. After that, I vaguely remember venturing out to find a small restaurant somewhere to eat dinner, and then falling into bed and sleeping for more hours at one stretch than I have in months.
Here are pictures of our hotel and the view from our balcony.
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