Finally, I've arrived!

You know things are not off to a good start when you find out your overseas flight has been delayed and its new predicted arrival tine more or less coincides with your next connect flight.  Ugh!  Getting to Vancouver was easy; however from there on in, things got a bit complicated.  My Frankfurt flight left 1 1/2 hours late and that was about the time I had to connect with my flight to Nice.  So, needless to say after waiting longer in Vancouver when I got to Frankfurt at 8:20 a.m. I found out I was going to have to wait until 12:30 for my new flight to Nice.  There is no part about hanging around airports when you've just come off an overnight flight that is fun.  However, my eyes, so to speak, were kept on the prize - and that was the Cote d'Azur.  The couple sitting beside me on the flight to Nice was from Ottawa and we commented on how there are only a few destinations where, as you approach the airport, you can feel a buzz in the cabin with the excitement building.  Hawaii is certainly one of those destinations and so is Nice.  The gal across the aisle from me ordered bubbly as did I and we toasted our anticipated good times.  She was from Norway and there were 8 friends coming to play in Nice for the weekend.  Not sure that city will ever be the same!

We landed about 2:20 and by 3 I was in a taxi headed for Villefranche.  We made it in record time and very quickly my frustration and fatigue from the last 24 hours ebbed - while the Mediterranean tide was doing the opposite - and I happily started to settle into my apartment.  It is in the same building where I stayed two years ago but one floor higher.  You cannot fault the views even though the building is getting a bit "tired". 

 

After a short nap and connecting with my sister and some friends, I headed out for dinner.  It was a bit too cool at 6:30 to contemplate dinner, or even a drink, at the water's edge so I headed up some stairs to Rue Poilu which runs parallel to the quay.  There are tons of restaurants there but I only found one offering lamb.  It is called Les Garcons and three years ago, Kerry and I had a fabulous lunch there and loved it.  It was a no brainer when I found there were two lamb dishes on the menu.  The service, like the last time, was friendly and the servers were more than happy to accommodate my "stumbled" French - and they even understood it!  It was a perfect end to what had been a frustrating and tiring couple of days (I did leave Wednesday morning, after all, and didn't arrive here until mid-afternoon Thursday).  My lamb was superb and the dessert, marshmallows broiled and served on a chocolate would be easy to replicate - although I think I would use caramel or dark chocolate sauce as the base rather than milk chocolate.  It was all very yummy,

Friday, after a great sleep, I woke up to sunshine.  Yippee!  I plan to spend today getting acclimatized and am hoping the boat tours are still operating.  Every other time I've been here, the season has ended which has been disappointing.  However, I am pretty sure I saw one in the harbour yesterday so I am hopeful.  Then Saturday, I will meet up with Nawal and our adventures in this perfect part of France will begin.