Emz-the-geographically-variable

Yesterday was Saturday, and Gio and I took the opportunity since we are off school to get up bright and early, walk across Nice, and catch a bus into the mountains (this may have been my idea…). Except all of the schedules we found were different (on the net, given by the information lady, published in the station….), meaning that there wasn’t actually a bus at 8:30 as planned to our planned location. Instead, we changed plans and picked something a little closer that left at 9:30. In the interim, we found the old part of Nice and walked around, enjoying the delicate odours of the fish market.

 A side note on Nice: the municipality has a division known as the Ministry of Noise, which regulates its production at all times. If there is not enough produced by the vehicles and particularly motorcycles, there are work crews on hand to operate jackhammers and other heavy machinery. One unnaturally quiet morning we found a dedicated crew trimming trees at 08:00 with chainsaws in a residential district. (These men are models to be emulated!) Emergency squads are standing by to operate airplanes low over the city. Visitors to Nice, your minimum noise level maintenance is in good hands! If all else fails, a legal responsibility of citizenship in the city of Nice is to produce noise. There are numerous possibilities for the creative citizen to dispense their duties. The more obvious include honking one’s horn repetitively, preferably operating personal machinery such as lawn mowers (although there are few lawns…), and removing the mufflers from vehicles. Grocery shop keepers can also do their part indoors by having their employees polish the floors with electric floor-polishers during the busiest hours such as lunch breaks, to ensure that they customers are properly inundated with air vibrations. How could I not have seen the value of such policies? I am converted! Anyway, the bus ride of about an hour cost only 1.60 euro. This is about a ninety percent discount. We have not yet discovered the reason, but are not complaining! The journey was slightly scary since the road for a good portion is one lane wide and full of hairpin turns. At one point on the way the bus stopped at a fork in the road and an old man got off and hobbled across the road. The bus took the right fork, drove about 100 metres, did a three point turn, and returned to the fork. It picked up the old man and carried on up the third option. What!? Well, never mind.