C'est Nice

I’m hoping that whatever’s going on with Blogger will stop so that I can publish my FIRST LIVE POST. I know, not nearly as exciting as it sounds. I’m sitting here on the Promenade des Anglais, outside Florida Beach (where the Internet connection has failed me hugely) stealing bandwidth from someone, I believe, across the street. I know, it’s bad, but the connection is just so fast! I’m Dling the last episode of Lost ~100k! Wow! I’m such a dork! Anyway… It’s a very nice evening. The last few days have been kind of shit weather-wise. I know I last stopped with Tuesday, but to save myself the trouble of trying to remember what exactly I Tuesday and Wednesday, I’m just going to say that I did errands (opened a French bank account! Whooo!) did some bullshit for the government (including a medical exam which involved a chest X-ray… I’ll have to get a pic of it up here) and loafed a bit. So there.

Thursday was the first day of classes for me. I wasn’t supposed to teach or anything, although there were several Q & A sessions which had an uncomfortable amount of silence. Good Ol’ High school! Anyway, the teachers I’ve worked with so far have been very nice, and the kids seem at least semi-interested, so that’s something. I can give you a rundown of all the different peeps later.

Thursday night, dinner was mangered by myself, Charlotte, Annapaola and another Italian assistant, Annalisa. Yes, it’s true, all of those Italians name their girls Anna-something. Why? Who knows? They’re Italian. I got chastised by Annapaola today for eating pasta out of a bowl. Go figure. We ate at the Transvestite restaurant, for those of you Nice-savvy folks. There weren’t any transvestites there (or, at least, I didn’t notice any), it’s more of a theme of the restaurant. Then we went to Place Rosetti, and the Italians almost fell over laughing at the name Fenocchio. Apparently the word Finocchio is another name for a gay dude. I guess I should have made some outing remark, but I didn’t. I’ve been pretty conflicted about my varying degrees of outness here. I’ve mentioned ye olde ex to Joy, but she’s a safe bet, coming from Long Island and all. I doubt Charlotte will care either, and can’t really see Annapaola saying anything. Magd I have no clue, although I don’t see my sexuality coming up in any conversation I’m going to have with him any time soon. I can’t remember the specific position of Islam on the ‘mos, but I think it’s pretty much not cool. Not that I care. I just hate awkwardness in all its many forms. Ugh.

Anyway, last night a whole group of us went out, and I somehow managed to drink much more than I thought I had. I was pretty loopy all the way home, and this morning, I pretty much wanted to die. And, hey! I totally flunched; first time as a result of the sauce. I don’t know where that falls in terms of milestones, but it’s gotta be somewhere. I spent most of the day in bed, contemplating whether or not I might be able to remove my stomach for an hour or so while it straightened itself out. I did have to actually get up and go out to pick up my Birth Certificate, newly translated into French. I somehow managed not to die on the journey, but it was a tricky feat.

And that brings us to here. The sun set pretty majestically, and now a nice crescentish moon is doing it’s thing over the water. I may hang here a little longer, see how much I can squeeze out of this connection. There’s a special circle of hell for me, I know.