Hiking in the French Alps

There's nothing quite like a hike on Saturday morning to put a downer on Friday night festivities. Not that I'm normally one to stay out at amazingly late hours of the night - but I was having quite a bit of fun at the beach when I realised it was 12am and I had to be awake in 7 hours to go on a 5 hour hike through the French Alps.

On the other hand, there's nothing quite like someone who didn't realise that, ended up staying up until 2:30am and consequently woke up with the world's biggest hangover. I have quite a few entertaining photos of this man with a barf bag trying to survive a 2 hour drive to the French alps, but for the sake of his decency I will refrain from making them public (today, at least).

A map of where we drove:

A - Cannes, where I live and B - Castelino, in the French Alps

The drive, rather surprisingly, took us through Italy - where sadly I understood the signs quite a bit better than I understand French signs (I'm working on the language thing. It's hard when everyone seems to be determined to practice their English with me).

We parked the car at Castelino and started on the hike. There's not much to say other than the views are pretty damn breathtaking. And also I'm a bit of a tool for forgetting to put a memory card in my camera - so my phone photos will have to suffice:

At the start

This picture does not do justice to how steep the hike got

Peaks

More Peaks

Dry icky lake

I was quite tired at this point and didn't fancy how those stairs looked

Panorama

I think you can see Italy from here

There's nothing quite like hearing cowbells for an hour and then suddenly coming across a field of cows in the middle of the mountainside

Incidentally - Castelino is home to a couple of resorts that seem to attract the rich types with Monaco branded number plates. And so quad-biking is a thing. Sadly not that I took any part in.

Herd of quadbikes

Sorry for the delay. I've been planning my holiday for next week - Italy! To Firenze and Roma.

And no, I'm not stupid enough to try to parkour across all the rooftops, as much as I want to be Ezio.

Nice, Water Parks and Destroying my trunks

There are some things that don't change no matter which country you go to. Those things are KFC, Macdonalds, guitar-shop dudes, and, apparently, 1am Kebab shops and theme parks named Luna Park.

Guitar-store. There is little joy that is greater than finding one having left 3 behind in Australia

The above joy was only topped by the disappoint at seeing this...

and then the confusion at seeing this. Wtf - French Luna Park.

FYI - French Luna Park is worse than Sydney in that it's in Frejus - the French Riviera equivalent of nowhere (think fields and goats, despite their being rather beautiful fields and beautiful goats). But it's better in that it actually opens at night (and is closed during the day, strangely).

So first - Nice. Awesome place. Lots of shopping. More beaches, awesome views, clear water. I ended up climbing the Colline du Chataeu after having walked around the entire town (and incidentally visiting 4 guitar stores). This particular experience destroyed my legs, but the views were worth it:

The top of the hill is my destination

First set of stairs

First view

And at the top.

And a waterfall also.

Also, went to a water park. Which is... more or less the same fun you can have in Australia, except they yell at you in French. 

Aqualand Frejus

Unfortunately I have no photos from the inside of the park due to the fact that I love my possessions and don't fancy them getting destroyed. Which - incidentally is what happened to my swimming trunks:

If they give you a rubber ring to sit in, use it to keep your behind from rubbing  on the plastic as you go down. If you don't, bad things happen.

Work and Fireworks

Engineering here is an entirely different experience. I apologise if I'm a bit vague in describing my work - it's intentional. I'm trodding a fine line between being informative and getting thrown out of the country for revealing military level secrets.

For one, the work here requires strong academia on an entirely different level. Normally, designing electronics and mechanical systems requires a great deal of practical know-how. In the past I've mainly relied on general knowledge, organisational skills and an uncanny ability to bullshit my way out of most difficult situations. 

Here? Let's just say I'm so amazingly glad that I've got a few 3rd year Maths courses under my belt.

I remember when I went to an Engineering information session in high school, someone described Engineering to me as the bridge between Science and effecting the world. The true meaning of that never really hit me until my supervisor at Thales sat me down, handed me 4 semesters worth of lecture notes of by a very specific German researcher and told me to learn it. Again, without studying Maths for a while, I'd be fairly stuffed. (Incidentally, I am fairly stuffed, not having been at Uni for about 9 months now). 

Also, 1.5 hour lunch breaks at the beach. Here are some photos.

Everyday I sit on the pier...

...eating French bread... 

...enjoying the view. Ladies and Gentlemen, mon travail - Thales, Cannes.

In other news - Cannes holds a fireworks festival every year around this time. Mondays and Saturdays there are fireworks to a set of orchestral pieces with the Firework-launchers competing to see who can set off the best display to suit the music. Sitting on the beach in the French Riviera at 10pm watching fireworks and listening to orchestral music is not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all.

Cannes

You see Cannes in pictures. Then you get here, and you get confused.

Let me try to summarise Cannes in one sentence: it's like someone mashed together the clichéd image of a French Village with Bondi and sprinkled tropical flora over the top. 

The weather, the feel and the way people dress reminds me quite a lot of home (as is expected from a beachy town, I suppose). There are a fair few people going to and from the beach around town and therefore generally not wearing very much at all. Also it's Sydney hot here right now. And not like the cruddy summer Sydney just went through, I'm talking early 2000s Sydney when El Niño was in full swing.

The architecture, fashion and sheer amount of shops and restaurants are so amazingly French, though. See the above picture. It's 9:30pm, so it's not quite as crowded as during peak shopping time - but that kind of architecture you associate with the cute-but-awesome terraced houses around Paddington, Newtown and Surry Hills. Except each one of those ground floor rooms are shops, not domiciles. Name brand shops. Think Gucci, Polo Ralph Lauren, Chanel et al. I've grown used to associating shopping malls with modern architecture but all this stuff in old European buildings is another experience entirely.

Oh and there's palm trees. Not something I previously associated with France.

Shopping strip in my new hood

Quick personal update: I'm doing ok. I was so pre-occupied with trying to find a good place to live and making sure that my budget and my travel and worrying about my French that I forgot to take time to relax and settle down. As of about 3 hours ago, I did just that and was a pleasantly lackadaisical tourist for a while. I need to do more of this. It feels good.

Incidentally - I have found a Sushi bar in Cannes. I will try this... after getting a proper taste of French food though...

 

- ovenfoot

Nice people, terrible food, good book, no luggage

I am in Nice after 25 hours of sitting down. Normally I would be appalled at the person who decides that the first thing he does after 25 hours of not doing any exercise and being stuck in a cabin is to sit and write a blog post on his laptop. However I've not got any luggage and am subsequently stuck in the Airport - but I'll get to that.

A few things I noticed on my flight over:

1. When faced with a choice between noodles/rice and 'western style' food - always go western style. Apparently no one knows how to serve rice on an airplane, but mash potatoes always comes out a winner
2. On a good plane (say an A380) choose the most interesting/alternative movie to watch first. You know, the kind of movies that aren't big blockbusters but have had accolades coming out the wazoo. The reason I say this is because I missed out on my chance to watch The Artist, choosing instead to watch The Hunger Games, and finding that The Artist was too alternative to be screened on my next flights.
3. Food will always come when you want it. Don't worry. Dinner served at 2:30am by your own biological clock is a godsend. (Unless it's sweet and sour chicken with rice, in which case it's terribad).
4. Don't go for connections that leave you less than an hour to get your shit sorted. Because
1. Some airports are freaking huge and will take you that long to get to
2. Some security stations are that annoying and will take that long to get through and
3. Apparently baggage handlers all work in turtle mode and need ample amount of time to get your bag from one flight to the other. You end up the other side having to wait for the next flight for your baggage to come to you, which is what I am currently doing. (Personally I blame the travel agent)

 I've been lucky so far. Met a string of very nice and talkative travelers to pass the time, including an older Englishwoman who told me about her sons' wanderlusts, a very young and touchy feely Italian couple who gave me their Wi-Fi password in my hour of need and some quite welcoming cleaning ladies at Nice Airport who accepted my broken French.

Also, I read The Fault In Our Stars by John Green - very, very good book. About young love and cancer, but not in a self consciously sappy or depressed way. Just quite real and touching. I'll blog about it and John Green in general on Red Underpants soon.

-ovenfoot

Late night beginnings

It's 2am, the morning of Tuesday the 10th of July, 2012. Those of you who know my usual sleeping patterns can possibly deduce the nature of the energy going through my brain at the moment.

For those of you who don't know the situation, it's quite simple: I'm going abroad, to a country whose language I can't (really) speak, to do work that I'm woefully unqualified for, with no friends and family in sight, doing a job that I've dreamt of doing since I was 8 years old.

The purpose of this particular blog is to keep the important people in my life in the know about what's going on. I apologise if it takes me some time to start writing personal emails and postcards to you - it's going to take me a bit to get into some sort of regular rhythm, but I promise I'm thinking of you all.

As of 2:10am Tuesday morning, I am 90 percent packed and ready to go. My flights are booked, as is the express coach that will take me to the town centre of my new home. I've still got a uni assignment due, and a visa that will only last me until October... but I'll address that all in due time.

I know a smattering of French but not overly much. I'm hoping that 6 years of studying ancient languages in high school wasn't a complete waste of time and will help me pick up the language quickly enough not to get laughed at by French people all the time. I know enough to say "Have mercy, I'm Australian and my French isn't good". I suspect I'm going to be engaging in a fair bit of pointing and nodding for the next month or so.

And so off I go. To Cannes. To build Satellites. I won't be coming back until at least the end of February. If any of you are in the vicinity of France or Europe in the next 7-8 months, drop me a line, leave a comment or send me an email. 

To the guys at BLUEsat - you're the best engineers I know. Hold together, help each other and believe in your own ability to achieve stuff. I expect to see a hunk of metal and fibreglass in the sky when I come back.

Next post will be from France!

-ovenfoot

PS: In a fit of shameless self promotion - check out my other blog, Red Underpants for posts about movies, music, books and technology. I know it's been more than a week since the last post but I promise I'll get back to it once things settle down.