Aujourd'hui, Chagall est gratuit!

dimanche le 3 juillet

This morning I didn't get to sleep in as I had planned to meet Camille at 10 to go to the Chagall Museum.  We met at the mall and headed up a great big hill toward the Chagall Museum.  There are signs all over for the museum, but I still had to ask directions.  I find that the road signs in France are angled in such a way that makes their actual direction ambiguous.  They are left- or right-arrow signs angled to make it easier for cars to see them, but the angling in actuality makes it so that the sign could be pointing straight ahead or to the side.  In the United States, to go straight, a sign would have an arrow pointing up.  But here, they just have arrows that point to the sides, which just confuses me. 

Anyway, after asking for directions and thinking we were quite lost, we found the Chagall Museum at the top of a very steep hill.  Entry to the museum was free today, so it was actually quite busy.  But the paintings were beautiful.  This museum occupied only one floor of a building and was quite a bit smaller than the Matisse museum, which had artwork showcased on 3 or 4 floors.  But the colors of Chagall's paintings were just incredible. 

Can you guess what this is a painting of?

They were huge - 10 feet tall, and equally wide if not wider.  And the subjects were almost always from the Bible.  And even better, the museum had little placards with descriptions of the artist's work in english.  Now, I know I'm learning French, but it's just so much easier to understand the descriptions in English.  At other museums without an English option, I always try to read the French descriptions.  But I think a lot still gets lost in the translation since I'm not yet fluent.  So I was very thanful for the English descriptions.

Chagall Museum, Nice, France

This museum also had two smaller rooms, situated to the left and right of the main hall with Chagall's work, which were dedicated to Nouveau d'Art, or modern art.  And I find that I'm not that much a fan of modern art.  Perhaps I just don't know enough about it, but I prefer classic art styles which have a more obvious message.

After the museum, we stopped for a quick lunch at a café where I had the worst slice of pizza in my life for 2.50€.  Biggest waste of money since I've been in France, only exacerbated by the fact that there were flies flying all over the place.  Defintely won't be going back to that café.  And I would have thought that, being so close to Italy, pizza here would be amazing.  I guess good pizza costs more.  Call me crazy and anti-environmentalist, but I love how cheap and delicious food can be in the U.S.  Though I suppose we pay in other non-monetary ways.  Though I think the high price of .... well, everything here in Europe is due to the high taxes on gas which causes transportation and shipping costs to skyrocket.  The price of 1 gallon here is around $9... that's enough to make me live in a city and not have a car at all.

After the worst lunch of my life, we headed back to my apartment to see if the new student who was arriving today wanted to walk around the city with us.  I think for some reason I expected her to be jet-lagged and tired from traveling, but really that's only the reality for those of us who must cross an ocean to get to France.  No, Vienna is only a 1.5 hour plane ride away, so the student, Veronica, came out with us to get acquainted with the city.  She speaks English quite well after having studied it in school for many years, and is also quite competent in French.  She is only 17 though, and actually called me old when she asked my age.  That hurt.  I think that's the first time someone's actually called me old.  Oh well - best get used to it.  Though it is nice to know that my sisters will always be older than me! :-)

We spent a few hours shopping, wandering around the biggest north-south road in Nice, Avenue Jean-Medecin.  Everything here is just so expensive that shopping ends up being a pointless activity.  In the US, it's always possible to find a sale in almost every store in the mall.  But in Europe, sales work differently.  Everything is at full price until the sales (aka les soldes), which occur once in the summer and once in the winter.  They can be anywhere from 1 week to 4 weeks of mark-downs, and all the stores participate.  The sales had started in Bordeaux one week before I left, but I still couldn't afford anything.  I think the sales start this Wednesday here in Nice, though I'm not sure if the sales here will really make anything more affordable.  But there really isn't any bargain store here with "brand names for less," like Marshalls.. Again, missing the U.S. and my consumer culture. 

I find that the consumer culture is just as strong here as it is elsewhere.  The stores are always busy, even though that sales have not yet started.  And I see more women here with Louis Vuitton bags and expensive silk scarves than I see in NY (which may be an indicator that I live in the Bronx, not Manhattan...).  Anyway, I think the U.S. has a reputation to be extremely consumer-driven, but I honestly get the same feeling here.  I'm not sure that there's actually a difference between the commercial lives that we lead and the commercial-driven ambitions that the French have.  Alors, je ne sais pas.

After a few hours of walking around, Veronica from Vienna and I walked Camille to the train station and bid her adieu as she had to return to Lille.  She says Lille is not very exciting, and she was sad to go.  Though the tickets are so expensive that I doubt she'll come back to Nice for a weekend.  I hope that I'll get a chance to venture out into Provence, though I'll have to see the price of the tickets before I really make any plans.  The train system may be efficient, but it sure isn't cheap.

Tomorrow I want to go to the antiquities market.  All the travel websites I checked out before I got here marked the Marché aux Fleurs as one of the must-see attractions in Nice.  It's a great big outdoor market in the old village amidst restaurants with outdoor seating.  Every day, people come and set up shop to sell flowers (fresh or silk), spices, cheese, vegetables and/or fruits.  But Mondays, the market changes to an antiquities market.  I'm excited to see what cheap things I might be able to find there for my family, since I can't afford anything in a store around here! 

I'll have to tell you all about it tomorrow.
À demain!