The view from the balcony at the Hotel Suisse. When Don and Elaine visited us in France in 2005, they also stayed here in a deluxe view room and absolutely loved it.
But we'll certainly never forget the time Jim got his first teaching gig in France in 2002. We were exhausted from our flight from Victoria...that extra flight Victoria to Vancouver makes quite a difference when you're doing a transatlantic haul. It was just after 9/11 and there was a lot of security at the Victoria Airport and also in Vancouver. Frankfurt was completely different and pretty laid back for security. Smoking was still allowed in the airport and hordes of people were having their fix. Not what you wanted after a long flight. The flight from Frankfurt to Nice was only about an hour but they managed to get three rounds of drinks served and this was in the morning!. It was like old home week and many people seemed to know each other on the flight. The cockpit door was open and passengers were going in and out the whole flight.
We picked up our rental car from the airport and somehow managed to fit four large bags and four carry ons into a rather tiny car, managed to drive to the hotel, then had to find a parking garage since it didn't have parking. We needed all this luggage for Jim's teaching and current research.
We thought we'd just drop into bed but it was warm at the end of January in Nice and it was so amazing to be there! We cracked open some Champagne from the mini bar then later went to a local market to get wine, cheese, bread and fruit and had our dinner on the balcony....then we collapsed into bed.
Driving from Nice to Toulon the next day we didn't know what these amazing forests of yellow trees were. We learned the mimosas were in full bloom. And then our adventure began.
