Weekend 1: Roquesteron

is where Roger (Row-Jay)’s family came from. His grandparents were farmers there. Roger is an ingenieur-comptrôleur (inspector) for buildings and construction projects like the train station of Monoco. He also oversaw the pyramid-like structures on the beach of Baie des Anges, a part of the Nice beachfront. Anyhow, Roquesteron is where I went with my French mom and dad the first weekend.

An hour away from Nice by car, Roquesteron is located at the valley of the ___ mountains, at the foot of which is the Var River. To get to it, we drove through hairpin turns meandering up the mountain. The narrowness of the road and how fast people were driving definitely reminded me of Sichuan, a province in the south of China, where there are no shortages of cars falling off the mountain roads. But of course, we made it through the passes, thus I am here to tell the story : )

Roger and Mireille’s house in Roquesteron is three storied with vines of climbing roses trailing from the second story. Mireille’s “baby” brother, Jean-Michel, and his wife, Marie-Élise (recent grandparents) joined us at the house. Having lived in big cities all my life, I really appreciated my weekend at Roquesteron. As soon as we arrived, all the neighbors seemed to know. Mireille and Roger’s friends came over for dinner, caught up on the latest gossip, and everyone told jokes about the Swisse, the Belge, and the Canadians. French humor is really something else.

The next day, I had my first Pan Bagnat, Niçois for “pain baigné,” bread (bowl) bathed (in olive oil, tuna, tomato, eggs, turnips, onions, and lemon juice). Mireille, Roger, and I hiked down to the Estéron River at the bottom of the valley and ate. It was absolutely delicious with a bottle of wine.

Lipo-sculpture and Changing Room

Friday, 5/26/2005
Saw a lipo-sculpture of the left breast. The patient was a victim of cancer. Also saw an articular remodeling of the right thumb. This patient suffered from arthritic inflammation, for which the surgeon, Mme Le Breton this time, removed a tendon from the thumb and re-implanted it, wrapping it around another. Hand surgeries are her specialty. In my sterile blue scrubs, I can be anywhere in the operating room except within 2 feet of the operating table or any of the surgeons and any gowned “internes” (residents) and nurses. My scrubs consist of blue short-sleeve shirt and pants, OR-only rubber shoes or shoe covers over my own shoes, a cap, and a mask. The changing room is Ally McBeal-ish—male and female in the same room, with lockers and hooks, blue scrubs, rubber shoes, caps, masks, mirrors, a sink, and disposal bins. Attached to this unisex changing area is a 15-m corridor and then an eating area with a microwave, where surgeons, internes, and nurses talk and smoke. Past this area is a door and a small room to wash hands before going out the final door to the Bloc Amulatoire, where outpatient surgeries are performed under local and regional anesthesia. Being in the Bloc Ambulatoire works out really nicely for me because since the patient is awake, I can observe surgery (really hard to come by in the US unless you know somebody) as well as observe patient-physician interaction. Also because the patient is awake, the surgeons are talking too much, which gives me ample time to digest the things they do say and ask questions. Fan-tastic.

Return to Vieux Nice and The Beach...

Le Centre Ville (downtown), is the quartier of Nice with museums, pubs, and restaurants. Next to Vieux Nice, is the beach. Just in front of the Palais de Justice (court house) there is a square with a glacier (ice cream shop) and restaurants and shops. A pianist from the local conservatory rolls his piano into the square everyday and plays for free. Yesterday I caught the end of Rachmninoff's 2nd concerto in c minor for piano.

Striking a cord at the Palais du Justice

This first week at Nice I've gone to the Opera Plage (beach) several times. It's breathtaking. But watch out for cigarette butts, broken glass, and topless tanners. I pick a spot against the stone wall to lounge and read. Boy was I white. I stood out, all right. With my Chinese + North American palour and SPF 45+ sunscreen I positively SHINED.

Opera Plage, Nice with Kate, Nicole, Tim, and Ellie

On the way home, I walk by the docks, and look at the sailboats, which come from South Hampton, New Zealand, and Liverpool.

Quai Cassini 1 of 4 - the smallest boats


Quai Cassini 2 of 4 -smallish boats


Quai Cassini 3 of 4 - getting bigger


Quai Cassini 4 of 4 - titans (70-80m) in the distance

I live at Villa Alba, 5 avenue de la Réserve. The beach is just a block away and down a flight of stairs.

Avenue de la Reserve



the view opposite Ave de la Reserve


From Alba, one can still see a slice of the Mediterrean.

Plastic Surgery and Sun-bus

First day of “Stage” (internship) at Hôpital St Roch in plastic surgery unit.
Asked 3 people before finding my supervisor, Prof./ (Dr.) Mme Le BRETON, a petite, round woman who smoked like a chimney despite all the non-smoking signs and anti-smoking public service ads posted in her own unit. Her office reeked of cigarette smoke, As I entered, she was just stubbing one out while pulling out another. She took me and another student assigned to her unit to the 5th (top) floor, where we met the 4 “internes” (equivalent to US residents). We had the choice of either watching consultations or operations. Since we didn’t really know how to choose, one of the interns, Charles, took me with him to surgery, and had the other student follow another intern to consultations. Today, the surgeons did an extemporané (quick histological exam to determine whether a tumeur is benigne or maligne during the operation) on a 70-80 year old man who had lesions and tumors all over his scalp. Later a piece of skin was grafted from above his collar bone to fit on top of the scalpal incision. We chatted a bit, and it turns out that he used to be a doctor. When I saw him two weeks later, I found out that fortunately his tumeurs were benignes.

Also first day on Nice’s “Sun-bus” system.
The bus ride was 30 minutes long, but the bus was air-conditioned (climatisé) and full of velvet lined seats. But 30 minutes is nothing compared to the 2 hour bus ride I had every Wednesday to Northwestern from IMSA junior and senior years. So in all respects, wasn’t bad at all.

Musée de Terra Amata

Prehistoric joint with lots of displays of cavemen and artifacts discussed in Human Ev. and Archaeology at Wash U. It was a good thing that I took those classes, because it certainly boosted my confidence to understand and know about the things that our guide/professor was explaining in French. Go academia!

Vieux Nice

Lunch in Vieux Nice with Mireille. Pâtes niçoises in a café next to the MAMAC (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) and Library Nucéra, the big head in a book.

At Pub Giofredo on Rue Giofredo was the first meeting with the students and professors of the program. It was a little strange to have wine at 2pm, but on a full stomach, it went down quite well:) After passing out the books, working out logistics, and signing a contract to speak only French while in the program, we trudged off, twenty strong, for a tour of Vieux Nice, the cultural and municipal center of Nice. Among the sights were:

-Pub Giofredo (wine at 2pm)
-Church and Fenochio’s Glacier (famous ice cream shop in Nice with 74 flavors, including the likes of Honey, Pistachio, Grand Marnier, Bailey’s, Beer, Pizza, Anchovies, Olive Paste, and Tomato)
-Palais du Justice
-La Mairie
-Street Market
-Opera of Nice
-Place Massena (same last name as my host family but distantly related)

First day

I arrived at noon to find a welcoming party with my French (host) mom and professors of the program. My luggage was lost AGAIN—the first time being from STL to Chicago ORD. Apparently I wasn’t the only one. Another American student did not find his suitcase after all the bags had gone through. We chatted and waited at the conveyor belt a few more minutes. He was in Nice for a 5 week program too and he was quite handsome. The only thing was that he dressed a little too hole-ly for my taste. We wished each other luck and went our separate ways to filled out claim papers for lost luggage. Mine would be delivered at my host house in Nice that afternoon at 2pm.

My French mom Mireille drove us from the airport along the beachfront to her house on the other side of town. I had never seen so many palm trees and so much balmy, blue sky at once. Cote Azur is truly appropriate for the area. My other trips to palm tree infested areas—Corpus Christi, Los Angeles, Orlando—were either overcast or winter-y.

The house on the other side of town is called Villa Alba, “dawn” in Niçois, the old language of Nice.

Villa Alba


Villa Alba 2

Roger (Row-Jay), my French (host) dad greets us at the door. This house is impeccable. Everything was spotless and in the right place. Mireille shows me my “apartement” in the basement, private room and bath next to the well-stocked “Cave du vin”—ho-ho!

Later, Mireille, Roger, and I watched the Monoco Grand Prix together on TV. Apparently that was something that Roger always attended live with his company. Wow. I got into auto-racing (Indy 500 and carte racing) a bit while in middle school because my favorite driver at the time (Dario Franchetti, husband of Ashley Judd) was doing very well, but wow, to attend the Monoco Grand Prix, that’s pretty darn cool. So we watched the race and I had my first coffee in France. Life was good.

That afternoon, Mireille proposed to show me around Nice and the mansion of Ephrusie Rothchild at Beaulieu, a nearby town on the way to Monoco. We took a tour of the mansion, which was PINK! (“La maison rose,” like the president’s house in Argentina) and walked in the immense gardens, and had a drink together. We then saw the middle school Roger attended, the school where Mireille used to teach, the hospital where I would work, the med school where I’d take classes, the music conservatory of Nice, several opulent mansions that rich Italians had built long ago, the ancient castle on the hill, and another hill where Roger likes to go running on the weekends. The coffee that I had earlier must have been decaffeinated—all the while that Mireille was telling me about Nice, my eyelids wavered and threatened to close. Must not fall asleep on host mom. On first day. Must not. Fall asleep. Uh-oh, I was really falling asleep. I made the mistake of not sleeping on the plane. I had always done so for my trips to China to correct for the time difference, and upon arrival, everyone would be jetlagged but me. But it didn’t work so well this time. Maybe the flight wasn’t long enough. Maybe I’m getting too old for staying up so long. When we got out of the car at 6pm, I shuffled to my room to unpack, but instead (WHOOSH) fell into the bed into a comatose sleep until 8am the next morning. I missed dinner and breakfast.

Dreaming of Genie

I'm in Nice!
The flight was amazing. Really fabulous. I started out in Chicago on 5 hours of sleep due to last minute packing. Filled out AMCAS stuff on the plane to London. Talked to my seat mate whose name was Genie. She is a ~60 y/o white single woman off to London and then Nairobi, Kenya to run a Safari company! Yeah, no joke. She,s well traveled too, as she's been to Scandanavia, Russia, Western Europe, Qfrica, Australia, China, Japan, blah blah blah.

Our plane arrived at London Heathrow half an hour late, cutting way deep into my one hour for transferring from London to Nice. Not only that, Heathrow just had to be the biggest airport imaginable and my flight had to deplane at the furthest point from the connection. So I did something of a 5k waddle (with my 8-lb laptop and hiking backpack) through security checkpoints, visa checkpoints, and ENDLESSSSSSSSSSSS... corridors.

Well, the good news is that the Europeans are not known for being punctual.
I made my 8:05AM flight at 8:15AM with 20 minutes to spare. After finally getting settled on the British Airways flight to Nice, I realized something else- how vocal the British are. There was a baby crying almost the entire flight, and several Brits around me started cursing. I honestly don't remember this on any U.S. flight I've been on.

But it gets better. Really. After two hours of flying over clouds that shrouded unrecognizable mountains, I saw land! There was Nice all laid out on the Cote D'Azur. I was so mesmerized that I didn't dig through my overhead luggage for my digital camera. Picture of Nice beachfront scanned below.

And THEN, as we approached airport, I couldn't stop smiling for 2 whole minutes. Nice and I will get along just fine.


Pretty as a picture

Guess where?

Seems to be the question of the day.
Where am I? Chicago
Where was I? St. Louis
Where was my luggage? A mystery

I took ___ Airlines. I refrain from using the airline's full name (in writing, at least) to avoid further mysterious happenings, accidental or otherwise. But to be clear, this was my worst flying experience. I don't recommend ___ Airlines. At all.

On 5/20, I was on flight 1054, scheduled to depart from STL at 5:10pm and arrive ORD (O'Hare International at Chicago) at 6:17pm. All went smoothly until arrival at ORD, when the plane sat on the tarmac for 40 minutes, waiting for a gate to open. I just pulled out some work to pass the time. When us passengers finally deplaned, we scurried off to baggage claim. This was where my speed walking abilities came into good use : )

My dad and I found each other at baggage claim 5, where the flight-1054 luggage rolled out one piece after another. But my overstuffed navy and beige suitcase was nowhere to be found!Finally at 7:20pm, the carousel stopped moving. Uh-oh. With a sinking feeling, I got into line at the lost luggage counter, guessing where mine could be.

After commiserating with my fellow lost-luggagers for half an hour, I finally got to the front of the line, only to be directed to another carousel. After a few brisk walks from baggage claim 1 through 10, we finally found my bag at 8:07pm, nearly two hours after the scheduled arrival time. It was at a different carousel than what was listed on the flight status monitor or the one relayed to us by the ___ Airlines personnel. Grrr... what a waste of time.

As an aside, being in the lost luggage line revealed how insensible some people can be. A guy in front of me was yelling at a customer service representative, "I don't care about your lunch break, I care about MY LUGGAGE!" There were just so many things wrong with this, not the least of which is yelling at someone trying to HELP him. I wish them both luck.

Anyhow, my biggest wish now is not having any mysterious luggage problems in France. Gosh, dealing with "Guess where?" in English is trouble enough. In French? O mon dieu...

Please lend me whatever luck you can spare as I leave this afternoon at 5:06pm from ORD.

Where will I be? Nice, France.

Think warm thoughts: Au revoir mes amis!

Guess where this coast is...

Take the plunge into

Summer. One word and so many possibilites. After many weeks of contemplating being in Nice, the prospect is merely two days away! This is my first trip to Europe. Much of the time, I will be shadowing doctors, taking classes on French history and medicine, and exploring the city of Nice. (Pre-Med in Nice program descriptions and other useful links at right). I might even "get lost" on the riviera. Although, I have heard that the beach is rocky, not sandy. Oh well. Hopefully, all of the time I will be speaking French. Thus, writing to you will keep you updated on me AND my English in practice.

I depart from Chicago 5/21, transfer in London, and arrive in Nice on 5/22 at 11am local time. All told, 16h35m of travel and 7 hours lost due to the time difference between Chicago and Nice! Wonder how long jet-lag will affect me...

Since this is my first trip to Europe, I've been researching transportation for weekend trips. My top choices are Paris and Rome. If you have any advice regarding sites to see and things to do, please let me know!