22nd June

Last night I fell in love with Nice.

As I said in an earlier post – I have been having a great time here but last night was something else all together. Alex and I had been hearing a whisper all day of the ‘night of music’, that was going to be happening that night and that it might be ‘fun’ to wander around town. Fun doesn’t cover it. It was Magical.

I’m presuming that, even in the south where the sun seems to come out to play a lot, the start of summer is a fairly big deal. Or so it would seem after last night because the whole night was in order to celebrate the first night of summer. Imagine, if you will, a street party where not only does everyone on the street come out but also a few others from the next block. Then imagine the whole city coming out. I missed being in Sydney for the Olympics – but from what I’ve heard maybe that’s the best comparison (only in my mind it’s actually probably better).

We started wandering at around six to head up to the old Château site (but Alex can tell you more about that) and get a great view of the city in the hours that happen before sunset (you know when all the colours seem to come out so much more vividly?). Making our way back down to the centre of town it was easy to see that the people were settling in for a big night with rows of night markets along the beach that were staying open until midnight and more and more live music popping up everywhere. After dinner (where Alex and I both had our first encounter with Escargot and she introduced me to Monaco beer which looks and tastes a little like creaming soda) we set off to see what else the town had in store.

It got better. And better. And better. And better… More bands kept cropping up ranging from grunge groups, middle age men and their families kicking back in a quite corner playing bongos and a couple of guitars, Brazilian street performers to an African drummer making a storm with a swirl of girls just spontaneously dancing around him. We saw one street of people dancing away outside a Lebanese restaurant and then another square of people next to yet another band. I listened to a Frenchman do a pretty great job of covering ‘Mr Jones’ and an average Frenchwoman covering (badly) Californication…

Two things that struck me on the night as well. Firstly how many young kids were out on their own without parents but just in their own little groups and secondly that we didn’t see -any drunk people. I mean not a single one over the course of six hours of wandering around. In Australia, especially by midnight, you’d see groups of D&D people all over the place, but not here. It was kind of bizarre but just really great seeing a whole city out and having a great time enjoying and celebrating. It felt innocent, easy and joyful. The start of summer if definitely the time to be here.

24th June

The time to saying goodbye to France is getting closer. I’m now in Alex’s hometown of Reims and it’s such a nice place! Apparently it used to be the capital of France and it now most know for it’s Cathedral where most of Frances Kings where crowned and where Joan of Arc came with the rescued Dauphin (I forget which one) to make sure he was crowned. The Cathedral itself is pretty breathtaking (just look at all the detail!) and you can see it from most places in the town area.

It’s nice to be here just to see where Alex lives and get to meet some of here friends from here over dinner last night (and yes Tim, you are being picky so just for you, perhaps more so for me, desert last night was lavender crème brule mmmmm). This afternoon we’re off to the Mumm Champagne house (Reims is also known for being the Champagne capital because of the region we’re in) and then sometime later I’ll be hopping back on a train to get back to Bethan's and Paris for one more day. Then in two days time (Thursday) I’ll be heading over to the Middle East until the end of July.

It’s all come around so incredibly fast!