We woke up late. Our dodo bird GPS got us lost in the Alps. We had arranged to meet up with our friends from Stella Peel in Nice for dinner. They were going to leave work early to accommodate this. We were not going to make it in time. Drag.
Reid and Mike drove through big chocolate Switzerland and warm oily Italy. Somewhere near Livorno or Bologna or Spagettios we found the one Italian rest stop that had nothing decent to offer. It was called On The Run. Hungry and existing, we settled for greasy slices of pizza served with a hint of condescending impatience. When we reconvened in the van Greg was wearing an On The Run uniform, complete with a faux-corduroy cap! His most impressive dumpster find yet.
It was 10 to 10 when we met Sylvain in Nice. We had 10 minutes to catch a French dinner in the neighborhood before all the restaurants closed. We rushed into a spot that specialized in regional southwestern French cuisine. Sylvain’s wife Stephanie and their tiny, energetic pup joined us for confit, foi gras, carpaccio, and assorted hardcore sausages. My duck was dark hedonistic decadence, with enough buttery bites to constitute a walk along the beach and contemplate a dip in the sea.
“I wish I had an illness,” Reid pontificated. “This would be a good place to die.”
“Maybe in the morning it would be better,” Sylvain advised. After all, he had to get up in six hours.
I would like to be sincere for one moment without any snark or smart ass garbage. The people we have encountered on this tour and the last tour of Europe have been some of the kindest possible humans to such an oafish lot of stained American clowns. They have fed us, they have put us up in their homes, they have trusted alone in their homes while they slept elsewhere, they have rearranged their schedules and their lives to ensure that we are taken care of, and then they have payed us. My sincerest gratitude for this is hard to describe in words, but let me try: It’s like Santa Claus asked you to marry him, and he acts like the Fonz, but instead his jukebox plays delicious food and funny looking money.
In Nice, most people leave their cars in neutral. This is so they can be moved in order to accommodate a potential spot for someone else. We inched back a compact Peugeot so our Ford Transit could nestle for the night.
After we arrived three hours late and almost missed dinner, Sylvain and Stephanie still offered their apartment in downtown Nice for us to stay the night, while they crashed elsewhere nearby but not so nearby really.
We relaxed with port wine, a massage chair that soothed you with Miami bass, and France’s strangely arranged computer keypads. Like fairytale gnomes, fell asleep one by one until only the littlest insomniac was left to sawing sounds of group snoring.
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