A brief visit at Riga

So after just a couple of hours of sleep, it was time to catch my flight to Paris. One thing I'd noticed though, was that I had a 6 hours stop-over in Riga. So since I've never been to Riga, I figured I might as well take the opportunity to pay the capital of Latvia a short visit...

It wasn't an easy decision to take, as the weather was rather poor, with rain pouring down. And I did have a bit of a headache as well, after last night's adventures and the rather inadequate amount of sleep I'd had... But, after some quick deliberation, I took my decision and jumped on the bus into town!

In spite of the poor weather, I rather liked my walk around the old town. Riga reminds me a bit of Tallinn, perhaps a bit less picturesque, but also less touristy. The lack of tourists could of course be down to the poor weather ;-). Unfortunately, pretty much everything was shut, even visiting the churches was a bit tricky since mess seemed to be on just when I wanted to visit. But anyways, I had a rather nice couple of hours walking around the cobble-stoned streets of the old town.

I ended my brief visit of Riga with a nice little lunch at an eatery serving traditional Latvian food - I had a rather tasty steak with truffles sauce. Yummie! By the time I finished my lunch, it was time to jump on the bus back to the airport. A short but sweet visit, as they say!

Christmas in Finland

This year, me and Mathilde were unfortunately spending Christmas apart, as I was heading over to Finland, while Mathilde was spending it with her dad and Francoise in Angers. After a not-very eventful flight, I arrived safely in Helsinki.

Celebrations kicked off a bit prematurely with my mum's birthday, which is on the 23rd of December. It was a nice and intimate affair, with Janne & Katja joining me, mum and dad for a nice dinner and just chilling out. A great occasion to catch up with everybody...

We started Christmas eve with a nice dinner at my parents place (Janne & Katja joined us again) - all the traditional Finnish specialities were on the table, with the foie gras I'd brought along from France adding a bit of a French touch to the proceedings. Our stomachs filled, we headed off to my other brother Tomi's place in Espoo for the distribution of pressies! (not before eating a bit more, of course!). It was a great occasion to meet Theo & Jimi (Nanna's and Jesse's young sons) as well. As for the pressies ? Well, let's just say I'll be pretty busy reading over the next few weeks - which is just fine by me ;-)

We finished off a great Christmas eve playing board games back at mum and dad's place! (Ticket to Ride: European edition as well as the latest version of Trivial Pursuit). I really liked Ticket to Ride, but wasn't too impressed with the latest respin of Trivial Pursuit (if you ask me, they should've just stuck to the original rules...). As tradition has it, we went to bed at something like 4 in the morning....

On Thursday, I made my way out to

Sundsberg, Kirkkonummi, for a sauna session at Aki's place. And of course I got to meet Aki's and Maija's young son Eetu as well! To finish off a great sauna session, Aki poured us each a nice glass of 21-year old Balvenie - now that's what I call class! From Sundsberg, I then jumped on the train and headed over to Kauniainen, to catch up with my good mates Jani and Jocke. After drinking a couple of cold ones at Jocke's place, we jumped on the train and headed off to Helsinki town centre to finish off the night - in Molly Malone's where else? (Jonas joined us over there). Good intensive day of catching up!

On Friday, it was board game time again, this time at Katja and Janne's place (our cousin Rasmus joined us as well). And quite a marathon it turned out to be - about 12 hours of non-stop board gaming (well, we did interrupt the session to eat some fajitas). We went through quite a few classics: Twilight Struggle, Puerto Rico, 7 Wonders, Dominion and Caylus. Quite a nice little nerdy session, I have to say, brought back nice memories from my days of long-gone youth... ;-)



Saturday was my last day in Finland, sadly. Well, not sadly, I was rather looking forward to be reunited with Mathilde! :-) Anyways, for the last night in Helsinki, my cousin Maikki had organized tickets for a pretty cool event, "Vain Elämää" (only life). Vain Elämää was a reality show that united a bunch of famous Finnish musicians - and this concert reunited them, basically. it's a 2 hour show where they basically sing each others songs. For me, it was a pretty cool nostalgia trip (since Ilkka Alanko and Pauli Hanhiniemi were amongst the artists - rather legendary figures of my youth), and also exposed me to the some of the more contemporary stars. But most importantly, the event was kind of a meetup between cousins from my dad's side of the famliy - Mikko, Maikki, Eeva, Jukkis were all there as well as Janne (with partners) - and Maikki had even organised a nice VIP booth for us with a buffet dinner and drinks. Fantastic job, Maikki! We finished off a superb night out in Zetor (where else?).

Just a few hours after hitting the bed, it was time for me to catch my Paris-bound flight (with a stopover in Riga)! It had been a very nice week indeed - thanks for mum and dad for putting me up, and great to see everybody!

Christmas is almost here

Christmas is approaching! Which means plenty of Christmas meals, and other Christmas-related activities!

Things kicked off on Wednesday night at my Italian class, with the traditional Tombolata from Naples. It's normally played by Italian families from Christmas eve to Epiphany - we decided to spice up the game by giving the winners Christmas pressies (the tombolata itself is most assuredly very traditionally Napoletan, dating back to 1734). The Tombolata is a bit like an Italian version of bingo, except that the various numbers have themes/stories from Naples associated with them (which means that the playing board has some nice piccies on it). It was all rather good fun - and to boot I won some nice noughat to bring home as well!

The next day, we had our team Christmas meal. We went to the usual team meal restaurant, that is to say the Provencal Golf, which is just down the road from the office. It's a nice enough place for a meal, although nothing to write home about. I do like their desert buffet ;) Nice to have a bit of a get-together before heading off on holidays though - and sadly an occasion to say bye to some of the sub-contractors who won't be coming back in 2014... (cost-cutting, that's the name of the day these days...).

In the evening, I was quite looking forward to seeing Romeo & Juliet at the new theatre in Antibes. Was quite looking forward to seeing Julie and Aurelien as well. Things started off promisingly enough with an aperitif and light meal at the theatre restaurant. The play however, was what could be referred to as a disaster. I'm a big fan of Shakespeare, and while I don't mind modern versions of his plays (I quite liked the Baz Luhrman adaptation of this very same play, for example), but when it's modernized like this, no thanks... I think Shakespeare is of course best enjoyed in English, but translating the bard's text into French slang is not a good idea, if you ask me... Not only that, but we actually found the actors poor as well. So to cut a long story short, we made the unanimous decision to bugger off before the end of the play. That's a first one for me. What shocked us was that the play actually had pretty good (if mixed) reviews on the internet. Am I becoming an old fart ? That's something to ponder over the Christmas holidays...

Sushi time in Nice!

If you're one of the luck few regular readers of this blog, you may have noticed me and Mathilde have developed a bit of a passion (or perhaps even obsession?) with Japan. We've even started to study Japanese! So, this particular Saturday, we decided to head into Nice and try out what is supposedly the best Sushi bar in Nice (or, according to some, in all of France!).

We started off, though, by checking out La Coulée verte, a rather big urban project that involved transforming a rather uninspiring part of Nice (located next to the old town) into a 12 hectar zone of greenlands and water, reaching from the modern art museum down to the sea. In spite of the unsurprising delays, the end result is rather pleasing, I must say! (and judging from the number of people walking around the Coulee Verte, quite a few people seem to agree).

And now, to the essentials, meaning Yuzu sushi bar. The place itself is rather unassuming, with a rather simple decor (which is quite appropriate for a Japanese restaurant). The famous sushi magician, Keiji Sakaguchi, prepares the sushi behind the bar. Apparently Mr. Sakaguchi is quite a famous chef - he worked at the first "real" Japanese restaurant in France, apparently, already in the 70's.

So how was it ? I would say the sushi were just as good as anything I've had in Japan, which is about as much praise as one can give, I suppose. A bit pricier over here in France, though... But no complaints about that, we absolutely loved this place. I highly recommend this place over the plentiful rather non-Japanese  sushi bars that are popping up around Nice...

Hike around Cap-Ferrat

Winter on the Cote d'Azur is some
thing altogether different from what a Finn like me is used to... It's during those winter months that you really reflect on how good life can be on the Cote d'Azur. One of the nicest ways to spend a nice, sunny winter day on the Cote d'Azur is one of the plenty coastal hikes that dot the coastline (it's surprising, how good the hiking is, considering how much of the coastline is built up).

Those coastal hikes really let you appreciate that bright, clear wintery sky, lit up by the Mediterranean sun (the sky gets a bit hazy in the summer, typically...). And of course there is the beautiful Mediterranean itself, in it's azure splendour! We've not been doing that many hikes this year (we must be getting old or something?) but this Saturday, we decided to give it a go!

We picked on of our favourite coastal walks, that we've not done for a while; the one around Cap Ferrat. All the three Caps on the Riviera (Cap-Ferrat, Cap d'Antibes and Cap-Martin) are great to walk around, but Cap-Ferrat is our favourite, I reckon. The walk up to the cap itself, along the Baie de Villefranche, is fantastic in its own right, with splendid views whichever way you look. And Cap-Ferrat itself is perhaps the least built-up of the Caps (but you do get a glimpse of the magnificent villas behind the high fences here and there...).

We walked all the way from Villefranche-sur-Mer train station, around Cap-Ferrat, all the way to Beaulieu-sur-Mer train station. Quite a fabulous way to spend a Saturday afternoon, I must say!

Cabaret Burlesque

One good thing about working in France is that you get pretty good perks aside from the salary. My current employer, STMicroelectronics, is quite a traditional French company (or rather, Franco-Italian), and so the perks are particularly good, with plenty of activities available. And there is the Christmas party!

We did the one for adults, obviously (there is one for kids too) - which involved a meal, some semi-nude ladies dancing for us, a magician and a stand-up comedian/voice imitator. Sounds good, eh? (the name of the place - Cabaret Burlesque, sounded rather promising too!)

Things didn't start out too promisingly - the place was hidden away off the beaten path in Saint-Laurent-du-Var, near the motorway exit, the welcome cocktail seemed rather woefully short of alcohol, and the meal was probably heated up in a microwave oven. However, as we had a few glasses of wine, and the show started, we got kind of pulled in by it.

Yes, the voice over comedian guy's jokes were well tacky - but we were pretty impressed with his selection of voice imitations (80's seems to be his speciality). And of course, no complaints from me about lovely young ladies dressing up as nurses  and dancing for us. The magician was pretty good too - mixing humour with some genuinely impressive tricks! And then there was, strangely, a huge lion's head in the car park - no idea who had the idea to put that there!?

We didn't stick around for the dancing, which apparently lasted until 2:30 in the morning - but walked away rather positively surprised and happy!

A busy weekend on the Cote d'Azur

We kicked off our weekend with a visit to one of our favourite Japanese restaurants on the Cote d'Azur, and currently our local favourite in Cagnes-sur-Mer, Yoko. We just love this place - it's authentically Japanese, reasonably priced (for a Japanese restaurant, that is...), and the food is absolutely delicious. And the waitress-chef is just lovely as well. As always, we really enjoyed our meal here this night.We'll be back, that's for sure!

The next day, we'd been invited over for dinner to Claire and Antoine's place over in Carros. The usual suspects were present, that is to say Claire, Antoine, the kids, Julie, Aurelien and Sarah. Me and Mathilde had spent quite a lot of the afternoon preparing home-made crisps from various suitable vegetables I managed to find at the farmer's market (potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, beetroot...). Quite a lot of effort for something that was a little bit disappointing, I have to say. I think I'll just buy my crisps at the super-market the next time... ;) The meal itself was delicious, as always. This time around, sauercrout & sausages were on the menu - yummie... Great to catch up with everybody as well!

On Sunday, it was time for the crazy Finn to take part in the yearly Cagnes-sur-Mer Christmas swim. Well, the temperature was a rather humane 16.5, so not that much craziness was required, really. Good fun, all in all, it got pretty crowded on the beach, with 300 participants (ranging from an age of 12 months to 93 years!).

And I even got the shake the mayor's hand, as he handed me the certificate! I think I might just do another winter swim a bit later on, it was pretty refreshing!

Japanese dinner @ Saison

As you may have noticed whilst reading this blog, me and Mathilde are rather keen on Japan at the moment. So this weekend, we managed to convince our dear friends Julie and Aurelien to try out a rather well-rated Japanese restaurant in Nice called Saison.

Saison serves up delicious fusion food, preparing Japanese dishes using Mediterranean ingredients. A rather well-working concept, we found. The place is certainly not one of the cheaper places to eat in Nice, but compared to our rather expensive Japanese meal in Paris a couple of weeks ago, Saison's prices are rather reasonable. And the quality of the food is just excellent. So, should you be based on the Cote d'Azur, dear reader, don't hesitate to give this place a go some time!

Great to catch up with Julie and Aurelien as well, it's been a while since last time we met up.

Mushrooms, mushrooms, mushrooms...

Picking mushrooms is one of those family outings no Finnish child can escape (or at least couldn't back when I was a child aaaages ago). Perhaps I didn't appreciate it as much as I should have back in those days, so I decided it was time to give it another go, as the hiking club at work organized a mushroom picking outing, with a mushroom expert joining us 'n all!

We were blessed with a suitably sunny day for the activity, and jumped in our car with Ilario, and headed down towards Greolieres, where the plan was to go mushroom hunting. And there were plenty of mushrooms to be picked, that's for sure! Not really knowing which ones were edible, poisonous and so forth, we pretty much picked all the mushrooms in sight to start with. Only to be told by our expert that most of them were either poisonous or just not very tasty... (turned out that the guy doesn't actually like eating mushrooms though, just studying them!).

But no matter, we had a rather spending time walking around, enjoying the sunshine, and in the end, we ended up with a fair few edible mushrooms as well. And at the end of it all, we enjoyed a nice little picnic lunch (with some of my colleagues bringing wine, and haribos-flavoured eau de vie, if you can imagine it!). We were also treated to a nice and pedagogic mushroom identification session as well. All the names sounded a bit too latiny to me, so I'm afraid the lesson was a bit lost on me!

All in all though, a great way to spend a Sunny autumn day! And we had a nice little mushroom omelet the next day, and didn't even get sick ;-) (unlike a couple of colleagues!)

Long weekend in Paris

There are a couple of long weekends in France come November, and we decided to take advantage of the first of them (All Saint's day) to visit Paris. It's been a while, after all, and visiting Paris is always good fun!

After a rather dull Easyjet flight (in spite of a flight attendant trying to be funny - there seem to be statistically rather many of those on Easyjet flights for some reason?), and a ride on the airport bus, I arrived at our hotel, located near Place de l'Italie, where I was happy to be reunited with Mathilde (who had spent a few days in Angers before making her way to Paris on the TGV).

On Friday, we had a rather cultural day planned out. We started off with a visit at the  Musée Jacquemart-André, located just off Boulevard Haussman. It used to be a rather impressive town house, which is used as a museum these days. We were there to check out the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition that was on - the theme more particularly was to celebrate female beauty. We rather enjoyed the exhibition (especially Mathilde, who's quite keen on the Pre-Raphaelites).

Our original plan was to walk around Paris, but alas, we had to change plans due to the abysmal weather (we're just not used to rain anymore, I suppose...), so we did a bit of shopping instead. Since the weather didn't show any signs of improvements, we decided for an extended dose of culture, and made our way to Trocadero, to La Cité de l'architecture & du patrimoine, where there was an art deco exhibition on. The exhibition wasn't all that interesting, but the museum itself is brilliant! It gives a kind of overview of architecture throughout France, both from a geographical and historical perspective. They've moved/replicated big pieces of church facades etc. to demonstrate various styles and methods. We spent quite a few hours there, until the place closed, actually. Highly recommended! And what's best, there's a superb view towards the Eiffel tower from the museum (we got the "by-night" variant).

After all that culture, it was time for some food finally. Our obsession with Japan continued, we'd booked a well-rated Japanese restaurant called Kiyomizu. And the place certainly deserves its reputation - as far as the food is concerned, one might as well be in Japan (which isn't always the case with Japanese restaurants abroad - it's quite hard to meet the high standards Japanese folks put on their food!). We did find the place quite pricy though - one can certainly find the same quality food for much cheaper in Japan (we were amazed at how good value for money restaurants were in Japan on our trip this Easter). But hey, this is Paris, and Japanese food is "in". And the main thing is, we had a great meal!

The next day, our wishes were fulfilled, and the weather got better. So we decided to walk around Paris - the best way to really appreciate this wonderful city. Our walk took us from our hotel, in the 13th Arrondisment, all the way to Odeon, where we had a rendez-vous with Sarah, a colleague of Mathilde's who is from Paris. We had a quick coffee with her at a real typical Parisian brasserie (although the waiters were almost polite, which is rather atypical for a Parisian brasserie). 

We then headed off to meet up with Myriam (an-ex colleague of Mathilde's, also a Parisian!). After walking around for a bit, we ended up having lunch in a nice little restaurant in the Latin Quarter. Great catching up with her! We spent the next of the afternoon doing a bit more shopping and just taking in that great Parisian atmosphere. We even made our way to Montmarte, hiking up to the hilltop. We were rather put off by the hordes of tourists though, and didn't stay for too long... Amelie was a great movie, but I am sure Montmarte was a nicer place to visit before the movie came out... ;-)

Our original plan had been to stay at Philippe and Aniko's place in Chaville, but due to a last-minute emergency situation, we had to change our plans, and so we headed off to stay at Sarah and Bruno's place near Vincennes instead. Which turned out quite well, since it gave us the opportunity to catch up with them as well! As usual, Sarah had cooked a great dinner for us - fish this time. Yummie! Nice to see young Ulysse growing up too!

The next day, the plan was to cross Paris to Chaville, and catch up with Philippe and Aniko (and meet their little girl, of course!). We did have a bit of time on our hands before heading Westward, so we decided to visit Vincennes castle, which is one of the most famous castles in France. There was a classic car gathering taking place by the castle for added entertainment. After checking out classic cars for a bit, we headed off to check out that famous Chateau. It's a pretty cool castle to visit - it's more of a "medieval war castle" rather than a "fancy reneissance show-off castle", which is what I prefer ;-). From its humble origins as a hunting lodge, it became a royal residence, until it was replaced by the somewhat more glamorous Versailles.

The touristy bit done, we said our farewells to Sarah, Bruno and Ulysse, and jumped on the west-bound RER towards Chaville. After a changeover to a commuter train, we eventually arrived at our destination. Turns out Philippe, Aniko and young Elize are temporarily staying at Philippe's parents place, due to some delays in their new lodgings getting ready. At any rate, it was great to catch up with them, even if it was only for a quick coffee. 

And then it was time to head for the airport, unfortunately. What can I say ? Paris is a great city - there's so much to see and do. Looking forward to our next visit!

Day trip to Sanremo

If you happen to follow my blog regularly, you've probably noticed that both me and Mathilde are what one could call big fans of Italy. This year, we've not made it across the border that many times though, so we decided now would be a good time as any to enjoy a day on the Italian Riviera - especially since the weather forecast was promising a nice, sunny, autumn day.

We've actually done most of the touristy stuff on the Italian side of the Riviera (the part that's close to France, anyway) already during our numerous excursions, but after some research on the internet, we finally decided to head to Sanremo - the "cultural excuse" for our trip being Villa Nobel (where Alfred Nobel spent the last years of his life).

It was indeed a nice day to be in Italy. The sun was out, and plenty of folks were walking around, enjoying the nice weather, shopping, and so forth. We started off with Alfred Nobel's villa. It was pretty interesting stuff - plenty of information about Nobel's life, the inventions he came up with, and of course that famous testament, which dictated that a part of his vast fortune (which he mostly made from manufacturing dynamite!) should be given each year to the finest and brightest of mankind. The fact that a lot of the texts were only in Italian gave us a good opportunity to practice our Italian as well ;-).

The cultural bit done, we walked around Sanremo, and then headed off for lunch. We'd done a bit of research in France beforehand, and ended up in a place called B. Bros & Co. Not particuarly Italian-sounding, perhaps, but the food was certainly Italian - and top-notch as well! A real culinary pleasure!
We naturally stopped at Grom's for a delicious naturally flavoured ice creams (cost a lot less than an industrial ice cream full of dodgy stuff would in France, too!).

After enjoying the sun by the sea side for a bit, we jumped in the car and headed back to France. Not before stopping over for a bit of grocery shopping on the I
talian side of the border though - always good fun!

Pub quiz in the port

Last year, we started a sort of an "irregular tradition" (hmm, doesn't make much sense does it?) of doing the Ma Nolan's pub quiz on Thursday nights - which gave me a sort of nice "reliving my youth in England" sort of feeling ;-).

So this particular Thursday, we decided to revive this tradition (at least once!) since it's been rather a while since our last humiliation at Ma Nolan's. Unfortunately, we were missing our regular contributors Aurelien and Julie, but were on the other hand joined by Vincent, Clemence and Sarah.

Unfortunately, we didn't do all that well in the quiz - a fact that I think we can at least partly put down to the fact that we absolutely refuse to cheat (ie. use our smartphones) - but actually, we were about half-way in the ranking, which is better than usual ;-). But let's not forget the most important thing about pub quizzes - they are just an excuse to drink beer and socialize ;-)

Hockey Night!

Being a Finn, I'm naturally quite keen on ice hockey (in a couch potato kind of way, naturally!). One might imagine that Nice might not perhaps be the best place to enjoy this sport - but there is actually a local team (Les Aigles - that is to say the eagles) that's not too bad by French standard (which does of course mean they are rather bad by international standards!). Anyway, since it's been  while since I've seen our local Finnish friends, we decided to head off and check out a hockey game (unfortunately, I wasn't able to convince Mathilde...).

It was a pretty good game actually, with excellent drama - Nice unfortunately lost 2-3 on overtime in the end... Good game from the Finns - Koivu (no, not the brother of Mikko and Saku) and Raikkonen (no, not the brother of Kimi...).

Afterwards, headed off to Rue Massena for a pizza and some catching up with Mikko, Aki and Henna.

Oktoberfest again!

As some of your readers may have noted, I appreciate a pint or two of beer every now and then. So, since our good friend Sami is now living near Munich, I figured it would be the perfect timing to visit Sami during that Bavarian festival dedicated to this wonderful beverage.

Happy to find reasonably-priced Lufthansa tickets relatively last-minute, I hopped on the flight, and arrived in Munich after a relatively hassle-free trip. I then jumped on a train and headed off to where Sami lives, Rosenheim (which actually turned out to be an hours train journey from Munich, actually, towards Saltzburg. Happy to see Sami again, we chatted away into the night over a couple of beers in his nice flat (which I eventually in spite of my nearly non-existent sense of observation, realized he was sharing with a lady - mind you it did take rather a few non-too subtle hints from Sami for that to happen...).

The next day, we jumped on the train and headed into Munich, where we headed  straight away for Theresienwiese (the fairgrounds where the madness takes place). Dodging drunken Germans and foreigners (mostly the latter), we tried to get into one of the tents, but unfortunately failed miserably (and this was 9 in the morning!). But hey, no problem, we did find a nice table outside one of the tents, where we could commence the beer drinking ;-)

Since getting into a tent was basically mission impossible, we decided to head off to Englisher Garten instead, where some of my ex-colleagues form Ulm where hanging out. Quite a crowd had made their way down from Ulm: Scott, Mina, the mad Dane Jens, Meli, Vanessa, Emanuel, Steffi and Katrin. A nice mix of expats & locals, mostly all dressed in traditional Octoberfest wear though! Great to catch up with everybody again (hmm, thinking about it, the last time was pretty much exactly one year ago - at Octoberfest!).

After drinking far too much beer, we stumbled along to Steffi's flat, which was conveniently located in the centre of Munich, where we hanged out for a while, after which we found a nice little late-night bar where we continued. Me and Sami had a last train to catch to Rosenheim though, so we sadly bid everybody farewell and headed off (and nearly missed the train!). Interesting train journey - worse then the last train in Helsinki on a Saturday night - and that's saying something ;-)

The next day, both of us in surprisingly good shape, me and Sami decided to head off on a tour of Rosenheim. It's a decent-sized town (61,000 citizens according to wikipedia), and seems to be a pretty decent place to live in. The surroundings seem pretty nice, with a lot of parks and the Inn river flowing past the town. The town centre is pretty picturesque as well, with a surprisingly intact historical central, considering the heavy bombings the city suffered during World War II. Another interesting detail - apparently Rosenheim has the highest amount of bordellos per capita ;-)

And I did get to meet Sami's better half as well, as she got back from her trip to Brussels just before I had to catch my train to the airport! Hope to see them both in Nice soon ;-)

Party in the Port!

We've become big fans of the Port of Nice - it's one of the nicest parts of town, maybe the best place for going out and having dinner - the place is trendy and has great bars and restaurants. So we were quite keen to head over and check out the Fete du Port this particular weekend.

We stated off by cycling to the Promenade des Anglais at Nice, and having a walk around the old town (and naturally rewarding our hard physical effort with a nice ice cream, as we customarily do). A perfect day for it too - the sun was out. September is probably my favourite time of the year in Nice - the weather is still great, but it's not too hot, and the tourists are mostly gone (sounds a bit pretentious coming from a foreigner like me, I suppose...).

We then made our way to the port, where we checked out the naval activities (sail boats, traditional boats navigating amongst the big yachts and the ferries headed for Corsica).

The plan was to meet up with the usual gang, that is to say Aurelien, Julie, Vincent, Clemence & Sarah. Before meeting up with the rest of the crowd, we headed over to our favourite Irish Pub, Ma Nolan's, for a couple of beers to get into the mood. Thankfully, we were able to get a table, in spite of the big crowds that had taken over the port... We were also treated to a proper Rio Carneval procession - with some exotic-looking boyz n' girls dressed up colourfully and parading along the port.

We eventually managed to meet up with the others, and desperately tried to find a place to eat or drink, but the place was getting a bit overrun by people, there to enjoy the food festival (after glancing at the queues for the food festival for a split second, we opted against spending all night in a queue) or to enjoy the music festivals. We managed to grab a table by the port, and survived through the night on snacks and beer. All in all, excellent fun! Great atmosphere, and good to see everybody again.

Unfortunately, we had that last damn train to catch, so we had to leave the fun way too early... Sometimes I really miss living in Nice!