Being the last day we all took it pretty easy. Orion wanted to stay out of the sun so he and Rebecca mostly hung out at the apartment. Steve and I went out to the bank, but it was still closed for the May 17 holiday РLa Ascencion. After that we headed to these castle ruins overlooking Nice, Ruines Le Ch̢teau. There were many, many steps leading up, but they were well worth the spectacular view from up top. This was by far the hottest day of our trip, so we got a drink and rested before heading back down.

I wanted to buy a shirt or something so I shopped around Old Nice while Steve headed back to the apartment. In most of the stores it was one size fits all. So many of the things I liked weren’t even close to fitting. In one of the shops there was an old lady trying on dresses meant for 20-somethings. As I tried things on she kept babbling to me in French and didn’t notice or didn’t care that I didn’t understand or respond. It was quite amusing. I finally found a couple of shirts and then headed back to the apartment.

Before coming to France many people gave us this advice: when you enter a shop or restaurant say “bonjour!” (or “bonsoir!” if it’s after 5h) and attempt to speak French for as long as possible. This is the best advice we’d gotten. It seemed to work very well in most of the places we went. The French here are happy to see you try and happy to help you in English when they see you struggling. Hopefully this will also be the case in Paris.

That night Orion made some wonderful sea food stew. And we all just relaxed and prepared for our trip to Paris the next day.