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| Nice Carnaval |
Right before I left for the states, I spent the weekend in Nice, because it was the start of Carnaval, the two-week festival ending with Mardi Gras. I guess I sort of have a thing now, for collecting festivals.
The theme was La Mer Méditerranée, or the Mediterranean Sea. So the floats were mermaids, fish, and then representations of different countries. My favorite was called “The King of Greek Debts” and it was Odysseus-themed. Traditionally, a King and a Queen open the parade, and at the end of Carnaval they put the king on a raft, send him to sea, and set the raft on fire. But don’t worry, the king is a gigantic doll on a float—I was confused too when I first heard. There’s also the tradition of the batailles de fleurs, or a battle in the streets where everyone throws flowers at each other. The atmosphere of Carnaval was just fantastic. It wasn’t like you’d imagine Mardi Gras in New Orleans. There were a bunch of kids out, and they felt totally entitled to spray you with silly string if you walked close enough. Kids manned the floats too, and you could tell the whole town had a lot of pride in this celebration. People were in full out costumes, because you could get in free that way.
I also had another great CouchSurfing host, who taught me how to make this Australian dish she picked up while living there, and gave me some medicine for my fever (yup I got something like the flu again that weekend, and was sick my entire 12 hour flight home yaaayy). She also hosted a few other surfers from Marseille, and they showed me how to make aioli, a typiquement Marseillais dish, which was basically homemade mayonnaise whipped from an egg yolk plus lots of garlic. I met a bunch of other people but the most memorable was probably the girl from Dijon who had moved around, living in different cities and many different countries every six months since age five, because her parents wanted her to experience a lot of different cultures. She learned a bunch of languages and skills and didn’t go to school, but passed the bac on her own. Now she’s planning on taking three years or more to make a zero-carbon-footprint trip around the world with her boyfriend, biking and kayaking or taking sail-powered ships to cross bodies of water. I love that I get to hear about things like that! Or the guy from Ashland, Oregon who told me that I should go into the pizzeria industry, because it’s quite lucrative. Your wages are low so you don’t pay much tax but you can make a lot of tips doing catering and deliveries. Would I have ever gotten that advice in my normal life? No. This is great.
Sunday I had enough energy to go see the Museum of Modern Art in the morning. There was one installation that was clearly made my someone who can’t throw anything away, like me, so I liked it. And I discovered this wonderful niçoise artist named Niki de Saint Phalle, who at least during one phase made beautiful brightly colored drawings and sculptures, and now I’ve stolen her style to make some signs of my own. They’re motivational post-its and valentine cards.
