Bonjour,

It might seem very early for me to start sending out a “miscellaneous” email. But France is a major country and many folks have been there. I like to look for differences from home in places I visit and it didn’t take very long for me to find some interesting things to consider in Nice.

1. I knew about all the cheese and wine in France, but I never heard about all the ice cream. It makes some sense that a country with all that cheese would probably also have lots of ice cream. At any rate, what was even more interesting than all the ice cream was the really interesting flavors of ice cream. Hopefully, you can read the flavor names, like thyme, rosemary, tomato basil, mojito, lavender, olive, violet, rose, etc.

2. I tend to poke fun at some of the interesting and odd vehicles in third world countries that we visit. But France had more than their share of these vehicles. In France, it seemed to be due to the narrow, crowded roads and lack of space. This interesting vehicle had three people with it. They had a microwave oven inside the back and they were handing out hot and fresh chocolate chip cookies...which were very good!

3. This person appeared to be homeless. I hesitated to take his photo – and didn’t until I was well past him and he wasn’t looking. What I found so interesting was that he was reading a novel that was about three inches thick. I don’t believe that I have seen a homeless person in our country reading a novel.

4. This shop was in Old Town Nice. An elderly lady owned the shop and she made many of the baskets. She was working on a wicker chair seat-covering when we were in the shop. She was very nice and we had a good long chat with her.

5. How fresh are the potatoes in markets in Nice? So fresh that they hadn’t even brushed off the moist dirt on some of the potatoes in this basket.

Voila,

Bill