June 9th, wait what?

Wait what?

 

     [I'm not going to bamboozle you and pretend I'm writing this June 9th. Right now it is definitely 6:05 on the 10th (Arizona time, 3:06am the 11th France time) and I was definitely too tired to write anything worth reading (I tried and gave up). I've decided to write and post every post a day late so I can tell you about the entire day from start to finish and also to give myself more flexibility of time to write. Though every post will be labeled as the day they are about, not the day they are posted. Either way you should have something new every day but if you don't it's because of the odd time differences and when I post. But there will be posts about every day! ]

Continuing June 8th post..

    I woke up frightened to a flight attendant tapping my shoulder with a tray that consisted of muffins, bread, yogurts, and a cup of coffee. I took off my complimentary sleep mask, brushed down my wild hair, and began to eat. It was delicious. I don't know why people complain about airplane food, you know, with all the TV shows showing trays of goop and slime. My meal was great even on a 7 hour flight where they probably couldn't prepare everything fresh. The flight attendant cleared my tray and the seatbelt sign went on and then it hit me, I'm in a different country, I'm really here. I looked over the window and was completely baffled. Everything was SO NEW! I immediately began to type down my first impressions in my notes. I'll elaborate on a few important ones.

 It was so odd, the clouds looked like they were painted like a French painting; in baby blues, off whites, and baby pinks. Flying over America, the buildings are all placed in a grid order. In contrast, flying over France all the buildings look as if they were built around the trees and mountains wherever was available, rather then tearing up grids of land to build. All of this results in showing the French culture, everyone is pleasing to look at and graceful like the clouds, and friendly but isolated like the buildings. Americas culture is shown from the sky also, the clouds ar epeefedtky white, looking cookiecutter and fake like how our we all pretend to be and all our property is separated into a grid showing our personal entitlement. Though I haven't lived in France, I'm sure my view would be more romanticized about America if I had just seen it for the first time also, so I'm biased. 

 We landed in an airport in Paris to catch our connecting flight to Nice (pronounced neece). We rushed through security and caught our connecting, with time to spare, at 12:30pm. We climbed onto the plane and I immediately fell right back to sleep. I've been thrown from time-zone to time-zone and my body was not having it. I knew I had to sleep on the plane because the goal for the day was to not go back to sleep until normal bedtime to regulate us to the time-zone. I am a big baby when it comes to sleep. I can stay awake for awhile, but when I need to sleep I need to sleep. I become such a zombie when I'm tired. Not only do I not understand anything, but my thoughts go completely blank too so I can barely speak in complete sentences (let alone try to comprehend another language).  I was a wreck. 

We get off the plane and it is go time. I was tired, befuzzled (yes I made that up), and not at all ready but very excited for my first real experience in Europe. We got in a cab at the airport with a man wearing all white and sunglasses with green reflective lenses you'd buy in 3rd grade at a gas station. He was awesome. The windows were down and American music was playing while we whipped through narrow windy roads surrounded by a mix of stone, brick, and drywall buildings in pastel pinks, whites, yellows, and blues. We arrived at our hotel, tipped the cab driver, then waved goodbye without getting a receipt. The hotel was very nice and all the workers spoke decent Franglish which was nice.

 

 I feel bad that I don't speak French, I wish I would've took the time and taught myself before I came. I don't want to be so much a tourist rather than a visitor. I feel out of place and almost disrespectful. I feel like it's much harder to experience the country and I'm just looking at things. For gosh sakes I can't even order for myself. Luckily everyone who has helped us so far spoke English but if I ever come again I will know French good enough for conversation you can count on that. 

We were led to our room and got settled when wait-I was missing something. I checked my pockets, backpack, and waistband and it wasn't there. Yup, I knew it. I had left my phone in the cab. I immediately lost all hope for the trip. This is it, I thought, I can't even hold myself together enough to keep track of my phone! This trip is going to be how the entire trip goes. I was smart enough to make my screensaver my name and emergency contact number incase things like this happened but it was in English, not French. I told my aunt and cousin of my misfortune and they were as calm as I was which helped. I was sad I lost my phone but it wasn't the end of the world. I have my iPad for imessaging and blogging and I have my camera for photos. It did suck though because I knew my parents wouldn't be too happy to have to buy a new phone and losing all the memories I have  on my phone wouldn't be a party either. Though there really wasn't too much I could do. Is messed up, that it. My cousin put a lost notification on my screensaver with our hotel and name in French using the very handy Find My IPhone app and all we could do was let it be. My cousin and I put on our bathing suit and went down to the pool for a smoothie and then down to the beach.

  I tried my hardest to stay awake, battling my eyelids by prying them open with my fingers, but soon I knew I'd beat myself. I layed on my back and began to rest my eyes then resulting in falling half asleep. I woke up to a tap on my shoulder (this has become a theme I guess) and there was my aunt standing over me and in her hand was, wait, in her hand was my phone! I got so excited and asked how she found it. I was still waking up so from my understanding the taxi driver just returned it to the front desk. This was a lot more miraculous then it sounded because our driver had picked us up from the airport which had no correlation to the hotel, so either he remembered or saw the screensaver I don't know. I guess you could say people in Nice live up to their name, they are very nice. All that matters is I have my phone back and can contact my family without Internet (and got back all my cool pictures and memes). 

   

 Later that night we walked back up to the hotel and showered and tried to wait for dinner which began at 7:30. All of our stomachs were growling like dogs but in Europe everyone eats meals at around the same time so just about every dinner restaurant would make us wait just as long. We waited in the lobby for dinner to start which was in our hotel and were soon seated at an outside table overlooking the Mediterranean. The view was stunning, the water was a vibrant electric blue and there were white yachts and sailboat scattered around the open shore. We were served bread and ham while we sipped on red wine (there is no drinking age for beer and wine, only hard alcohol). We ordered our entrees, my cousin and I ode red steak and my aunt order some bright looking fish I don't know the name of. I swear wine and steak should get married, they were a perfect pair: contradicting in all the right ways yet blended like cream and sugar. We finished our meal with a nice conversation on family and all sorts of things while we enjoyed sorbet and a sort of tart with wild berries. We headed back to the room and washed up for bed then every single one of us knocked out.

| Thankyou for reading my blog! 

For more posts: 

Follow my Instagram: @thegrooviest

Questions/concerns: 

Email me: cambrancontact@gmail.com