Sorry for the title this week. Living in a place called Nice, it’s just too easy to make puns in English. “How’s Nice? It’s nice.” Eyes-a-rolling. The truth is that Nice is much better than nice, it’s everything we remembered from our month in December and January and only improving as we figure out all the great things that are within a short walk, and we begin meeting our neighbors and the local shopkeepers. The paramount thing that hasn’t changed, for me at least, is the color of the sky, which has become my new favorite color. I call it impossible because it’s an impenetrable shade of medium blue. I just bought my first pair of shorts in years, and they are impossible blue. Let me tell you, they look amazing against my fair, redheaded, white-boy legs. Chien-hui says she could never pull that off, but I’m not sure if she meant that I am not either.

Impossible is a word getting thrown around a lot this week. It seems impossible that we live here now and it’s impossible to have this much sunshine and clarity, and that constant little bit of breeze that calms the soul. “Can you believe this outdoor market with all these impossible colors and flavors?” The few meals we’ve eaten outside elicit similar words, “This food tastes impossibly good. Look at the pastry in the window there. Impossible!”

However, don’t think for an instant that I am not up to speed on what’s happening in the world. While my first days living in Nice have been impossibly perfect (I mean that literally), I’m simultaneously nauseous and fear emanates from my gut at almost all times. For our first week in Nice, the timing couldn’t have been worse given the news out of the USA. I’m suddenly a lot poorer than I was a week ago. I suppose I can be thankful that I am here and not in the USA right now, but the world is global, so that no matter where I am, I feel like we’re all in serious trouble. You’re not here to read about that, I know. You get plenty of it in your own day-to-day. Is this really happening? Apparently, not impossible.

The first few minutes of our life in Nice

Back to Nice. We showed up at the door to our building with our suitcases and waited patiently to get the keys. We were soon welcomed by our agent and as we took in the apartment for the very first time with our own eyes, I was overwhelmed with relief. It was thankfully as nice in person as the videos and Facetime walkthrough. It’s big and bright with a quiet courtyard view of the numerous textures of charming Niçoise architecture surrounding us.

But as our eyes adjusted and we began opening cabinets and drawers, things became a little more real. The apartment had never been cleaned since construction was completed. Every surface was filthy with a thick layer of dust. One of the workers left us a little present in the toilet room. The yellow kind only, thankfully. Who knows how long that had been there. The floor was gritty and sandy. Chien-hui was losing her mind. We all have our neurosis, and hers is dirt, specifically dirty floors. I could see her skin crawling. We discovered leaky drains under sinks. None of the water had been turned on at the main handles in our apartment. Some of the breakers were off but it took us a while to figure this out. It’s kind of funny now, but not so much at the time. We were told apartments don’t really come cleaned up in France. I get told things like this a lot in France—you need a new French email, you need a new French phone, we can’t fix this, it must be the installer to the repairs, or your warranty will be voided—and I never know whether I am being fed a line or if it’s true. The net there is that we cleaned the apartment right away.

There are four apartments in this building of twenty owned by the same landlord and rented through the same agency. Our agent pinged these neighbors on WhatsApp and two of three neighbors came over to welcome us. Facial expressions told us that they all had similar experiences over the past month when they moved in. We are lucky, as we can tell our neighbors are great. They told us all the places to go nearby to get the things we needed. They also warned us that it’s France and time moves differently here. It would take a while to get things fixed. This has proven true.

Pedi-cab home from the store with my new trash can

Setting up our new apartment this week has been very fun. It came furnished and the things that our mysteriously absent landlord put in are much appreciated, but hardly enough to sustain us. We still need so many things. For those that follow along you’ll be relieved to know that both the couch and the bed are spectacular, and the Nespresso machine is getting abused. But we had no sheets and towels, no soap or toilet paper. Obviously, no food. And clearly, the most important thing we had to have immediately was a Swiffer. Our neighbor told us about a great store selling nice quality home products which didn’t break the bank and we’ve been there four times already. Once to buy sheets and once to buy the right sized sheets. Sigh, yeah. Another time we went to get a trash- and recycling-can combo which I really liked, but it was too big and heavy to walk home with, so we jumped into a pedi-cab with a very friendly kid who got us home in minutes. We’ve been to get new French phone numbers. Hmmm.

We were also pointed to a store called Maxi-Bazar (In French, Crazy Big) which is sort of like a cross between a Bed Bath & Beyond and an Ace Hardware. It’s in an old building that rambles below the earth’s surface with Escheresque stairs randomly placed between the floors. It’s full of clutter and confusion, but it has literally all the things we want and need and it’s only a few blocks away. We feel authentically French now that we can hang our laundry on the new drying rack we bought there. As I look out from my balcony I see at least five other balconies with laundry, too. C’est magnifique.

On Thursday afternoon I discovered a cheese shop call La From. (As in la fromage, The Cheese) a block from the apartment. Oh no, no no. This is not good. They also sell wine and fresh eggs.

Yesterday morning, we walked the 15 minutes up to Le Marché Libération (The Liberation Market) which is a massive outdoor fruit and veg market centered in the large plaza of a former train station, but also it spills down at least three surrounding streets. I mean, holy cow. It’s heaven. Anything in season is for sale and most of it still has the dirt on it from when they pulled it out of the ground or plucked it from the tree the day before. Lemons from Menton. Oranges from Spain and Portugal. Apples from Normandy. Tomatoes and leeks from Provence. And as my friend from Provence told me recently, it’s strawberry season. We bought some and they were from Carpentras, right in her backyard. Candy! There was also local honey and olive oil. And one of the largest displays of seafood I’ve ever seen. We rolled through with our new chariot de courses (rolling shopping buggy also from Maxi-Bazar. Also, How French!) and loaded up. We took a massive haul back to our apartment for roughly €60. This included wild caught Atlantic seabream which was dinner last night. I made a Niçoise sauce for it that included olives, artichoke hearts, fennel, garlic, shallots, and olive oil. I paired it with fresh asparagus and Thai rice. It was a great first meal in our new place. The food here, it gives off a different kind of energy. I don’t know how to explain it, nor do I think it’s my imagination. My asparagus-pee has been going for at least 12 hours now, so that must mean something, right? At home it’s only once.

Two blocks from our apartment there is an Italian market called il Rigoletto, which after unloading the chariot, was our next stop. There I found cannellini beans, pasta, olive oil from Puglia, risotto, Lacryma Christi bianca (Christ’s Tear, a type of wine from outside of Naples), and peach jam. The man who works there, obviously Italian, asked us. “How-a can-a, I-uh, a-help a-you-a?” The real deal. I also wanted Italian sausage, which is hard to find in Nice at the regular grocery stores. He told me to go down another few blocks towards the beach to Rue de France, a major commercial street, and seek out a boucher, or butcher, there near the Hotel Negresso. Of course, I immediately did. Sure enough, they had it, so with said sausage, some beef, and a whole roasted chicken, we headed back home. While there I ordered in French and the man winced and said, “You can speak English.” One more stop at the Intermarché for dishwashing pods, milk, rice, boullion, and a few other things that we couldn’t obtain from the earlier stops and our day was complete. This may sound like a lot of stops, but I did this each Saturday back in Seattle, just the same. Here for this, there for that. I love it. The difference being that here I can do it on my own two feet all within blocks of my apartment, instead of driving. I can put in four miles walking, see all the stores along the way, and make eye contact with shop owners and produce-vendors who I will see again soon.

The café on the corner is called Cali Café and it is run by a California-born husband and his French wife, Karen. We’ve been there a few times this week as we were setting up the apartment and still hadn’t shopped for food yet. Karen speaks very good English, and she has been amazingly friendly to us. She also makes the best scrambled eggs and the most delicious apple cinnamon cake I’ve ever tasted. She’s also the person who told us about Maxi-Bazar. I practice my French with her, and she has offered to be added to any calls I have with the imaginary workers who will come to fix my plumbing, so she can translate for me. So, yes, you can tell how good my French is coming along. Cali Café has already become our chez soi loin de chez soi, although I suppose that our apartment is our home away from home and the café is our home away from home away from home.

Friday night we went to a rooftop hotel bar only two blocks from the apartment where the agency we rented through was hosting a social. All our neighbors were there as well as another thirty or so clients who have all been assisted in finding their piece of Nice by Adrian Leeds Group. We hit it off with the neighbors who live just below us, originally from Chicago. At least I think we did. It was so nice to just relax, have a glass of rosé, and unwind after a week of “work.” The view from the rooftop didn’t hurt.

As I said, we are settling in Nice-ly.

Settling into our new home Nice-ly

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Settling into our new home Nice-ly

Au revoir, États-Unis, jusqu’à ce qu’on se revoie

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