Nice Nice

Hello people of the internets.

First up, my holiday to Europe was pretty awesome. Thank you so much to Pish Posh, Forever Conflicted, and Michael D’Agostino for looking after my blog while I was away. If you haven’t checked them out yet please do so. 

• The Pen Licence - Pish Posh
• Gigs and jokes - Forever Conflicted
• Getting to know me - Michael D'Agostino

During my absence I ran a competition for the best comments on each post to win a copy of my new book, as an added incentive to go back and check out the blog-sitters, I will extend the competition deadline. Check out the three guest posts and my favourite comment on each post will win a copy of “Tales from the Sleepy Dragon” containing a short story written by me.

The GF and I stopped over in Nice on our way to Italy. Nice is one of the larger cities in France, has a population well over 7 and lives on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It has busy shopping districts full of big brands, counterfeit big brands, and a fusion style cuisine influenced by it being a gateway to every country the Mediterranean Sea touches. Nice has sister cities all over the world, that it displays proudly on its chest, namely Edinburgh in Scotland, Huston in Texas, Miami in Florida and Cape Town in South Africa. If any of these sister cities has daughter cities let Nice know because they would like a nice niece city of Nice.

Not an attraction of Nice

Have you ever ventured to a location expecting awesome but met with mediocrity? Then Welcome to Nice. It is a beautiful city, full of old buildings and history, but this is Europe where every city is full of old buildings and history. To stand out, you are going to have to take it up a notch. Nice has a reputation of being warm, beachy, social, drunk, and a biscuit.

It is home to a stretch of beach full of men and women wearing fewer clothes than their age agrees with, and if this was Australia all of them would have died from skin cancer. Our sun doesn't mess around. It punches through the ozone here.

But that is where the problems started. Australia has nothing but coastline, and it is not unusual in the country to find a truly deserted beach where you are the only people within cooee (yes that’s a thing). You are however statistically unlikely to see a topless sun bather on our beaches, but you are likely to have sand. And I think sand is important in a beach scenario and would be one of the top two ingredients.

The concierge at the hotel recommended the beach, so both the GF and I had high expectations. We walked the intoxicating streets of Nice towards the coast. Days of travelling and trains was starting to get to us, and a dip in the ocean was on the cards.

All right, let’s get started on that sand castle

Alas, the people of Nice need to raise their expectations of what constitutes a "nice beach". I like to have sand to lie on. The only sand on the main beach of Nice, was formed into tight, hard groups millions of years ago, something I think all geologist would agree, are known as rocks. The only sand about the place was in a patch near a bar, and you needed to rent it, and there is no way I can justify renting sand. The world is full of it for crying out loud! Why would you pay for something that is free everywhere else?

Sand castles are just going to have to wait, I guess I'm going to have to look at all these real castles.



What's something someone has tried to sell you that is generally free?

Listening is very country

I have a friend who is dating a girl from the country, really country, not the kind of country connected to the city public transport, which is essentially a suburb not yet overrun by urban sprawl. It is Greyhound bus trip or better kind of country. And recently I almost offended her.

She is from a remote island off the coast of Australia, and that part of the coast nearest to the island is three hours away from anything resembling civilisation and/or decent coffee. There is not even a bridge onto this island and only a couple 100 people live there. It is a beautiful place frequently visited by whales, seals (and the weirdos who like to watch them) and where the Koalas have STIs (true story).

My mate is not from the island and they met through working together in the past. They have been together for a while, have just gone halves in buying a house and therefore she has a permanent place within this particular group of friends.

We all got together recently and I was catching up with her on what she had been up to with my mate and how the house is going. We were having a good chat and laughing at many things, and then something came up about her home town island in the middle of nowhere and I asked, "What do your parents think of you dating outside the family?"

She said, "They were worried at first, but now they're cool with it". She did not hear me properly over the restaurant noise and she thought I was talking about the house. I laughed. She asked why, I told her and she laughed herself into a blushing red.

She pointed out that I grew up in a country town where teenage pregnancy was so bad at one stage that the average age was bucking the trend of the nation and getting younger. The surrounding towns thought it was the water that made you pregnant, but realistically it is the beer and lack of decent television. She asked me where my kids were trying to get me back.

I said “it would be irresponsible to bring my kids into a boozy environment such as this, and that’s why they’re still in the car”. Tongue and cheek.

It was not until after I realised that the situation could have gone horribly wrong from my initial comment. If so I would have spent the rest of the evening apologising as much as possible, because she is really awesome and makes my mate very happy. The last thing I want to do is offend her and ruin everyone's evening by saying a dumb joke.

It would not have been the first time that my mouth would open the way to trouble, and most likely not the last. It was the conversation before that saved me and brought it into context of the night, but it was the first time that I had a one on one conversation with her. It still makes me uneasy about how bad it could have gone. It is also what happens here Down Under; you are not true friends unless you start calling each other a dickhead.

How long do you wait before you playfully start hanging shit on new friends or new partners of friends?