Traveling with Family- Nice, France

It is an entirely different experience traveling with your parents. It takes about 2 hours longer to get out of the house, 3 hours longer to walk from point A to B, and you end up having to endure comments about your “drinking problem” after your first glass of wine.   To make this trip a little more interesting- my father, mother and I were all suffering from some sort of injury.

My father is in no way to be laughed at for being a total gimp. He has terrible knees, worse feet, and recently had a stroke making every ailment a little more painful and noticeable. This has caused him to slow down a lot, yet he will never admit it. It has also made him extremely grumpy. If you tell him to sit in a handicap seat, he may flip you the bird while screaming he is not handicapped, then sit in the very seat you pointed out. Perhaps senility is also one of his issues.

My mother and I are a totally different story.  Last year, while home on my R&R from Afghanistan, my mother fell down the stairs and broke both her legs. It was my second day home and we were getting ready to go to the wedding of a very dear family friend. I was upstairs and needed scissors for something, and asked if she could bring them to me. She had been on her way up the stairs when I yelled, so she turned around to head back to the kitchen to retrieve them for me.  I am not really sure how she managed this, but in the process of changing directions she fell and broke both her legs. I feel responsible for this since I am the one who asked for the scissors, but she has made me even more the evil child by telling everyone that I had pushed her down the stairs. I think the worst part is that people actually believed her! She thinks it is hilarious, I do not. I also think she likes to milk the attention because she went classy when it came to her casts. She chose to have one leg neon orange, and the other neon pink.

Mom looking Classy in Orange and Pink

 

 

My injury is just another cause of embarrassment for me because it proves I am completely accident prone. I tore my ACL and fractured my tibia playing ultimate Frisbee (the embarrassing part is that there was no one around me- I just fell over on my own). I injured my shoulder last winter snowboarding. Again nothing happened except that I just fell. But for this particular trip, I was recovering from a back injury. This again was just me being a complete moron and tweaking my back while weight training. The only plus of this injury were the muscle relaxers that I was given which made me giggly.

When you combine the three of us together, we looked like a team from the Special Olympics: Family Edition.

This trip had been a surprise birthday/ mother’s day gift.  I grew up in a home that was decorated with the theme of the French Countryside, with a few pieces of Paris thrown in. I get my love of France from my mother. For as long as I can remember, my mother has expressed her dream of visiting Nice, Cannes, St. Tropez, and Monte Carlo. Although we have made numerous trips to Europe, to include yearly visits of my parents to Germany around the holidays, we have never made it to the South of France.

When I was 17, I travelled with my high school basketball team to New Zealand and Fiji for a summer. It was on the flight home, that I met my German connection Christoph. I used to have a problem sleeping on planes, and had spent the entire red eye flight to New Zealand staring at the back of the seat in front of me in the dark, not wanting to wake up those around me by turning on the light to read. My walkman (yes, I said walkman) had run our of batteries, so I was literaly sitting in silence. I had been worried about the flight back and purchased 4 packs of batteries, which I never ended up using because of Christoph.

 

The flight was from Fiji to L.A with a stop in Hawaii. On the flight, along with my basketball team, was a boys soccer team from Germany who had spent the summer playing soccer in Australia and were now on their way to Hawaii for a week. As a child, I had always wanted to learn German so I was over the moon to meet some actual Germans! Christoph, 15 years old at the time, humored me for the entire flight teaching me words and phrases. As we pulled onto the tarmac in Honolulu, he and I exchanged addresses and promised to keep in touch. We wrote eachother my entire Senior year in high school, and when my parents told me that they were taking me to Europe as a graduation present, I wrote Christoph to let him know.

 

He lives in a small town in the middle of Germany, and our trip was scheduled where we spent our entire time in the east of Germany visiting the family of Sylva, an au pair who helped raise the children of my fathers best friend. They lived in Erfurt, which was several hours away from Christoph and his family. I phoned him and told him that we would be unable to meet, but gave him my flight information out of Frankfurt for the following day.

 

As my parents and I stepped off the train at the Frankfurt Airport, I saw a kid staring at me. We began to walk up to the departure area to check in and drop off our bags, when I noticed the kid was following me. I told my parents that it was creeping me out, and that we needed to move faster. At that moment, I felt someone touch my arm and I spun around to see the boy and his father. He stared at me for a few uncomfortable seconds, then said my name. I couldn’t believe it was Christoph! His father and he had driven two hours to the airport in the hopes of running into eachother.

 

I believe in fate. Christoph finding me at the airport set me on the path of where I am now. This meeting sealed our friendship and years later, when I decided to move to Germany to study, his family took me in. We became like brother and sisiter, his parents became like my parents and mine like his. We built such a bond, that when my father had a stroke and the doctor asked him how many children he had, he said two. Confused, the doctor asked for their names. “I have a daughter named Morgan, and a son named Christoph.”

 

This summer, my brother Christoph married a wonderful and beautiful woman in her hometown of Amsterdam. My mother and father flew out for ther wedding, and planned on staying for a month, which would include the 4th of July weekend.

My brother and his bride

 

My mothers birthday falls on or around mothers day every year and I decided that I would give her the one thing she had always wanted, a trip to Nice. I bought four tickets; one for myself, my mother, my father, and my mothers best friend from high school, Johnny.  My friends Sylva, Sydney and Emma would meet us there.

One word of advice that I can give after our first night in Nice is not travel in France during the World Cup, especially if you are traveling with someone from the country they are playing and they lose!  We were traveling with our friend Sylva who decided not to hide her German pride and cheered wildly when the German team schooled the French (although not as badly as they schooled Brazil a few days later- ouch). It is also a good idea to not let said person, Sylva, call for a taxi after such a devastating defeat. I think the operator could tell by her thick accent where she was from, and refused to send a taxi our way. My poor father couldn’t walk another step, the busses and trains had stopped running, and we were at least a few miles from our apartment.  Sylva called first and was promised a taxi in 10 minutes. 30 minutes later I called back and was told they would send one whenever they decided to send one. After waiting another 20 minutes, Johnny and I decided we would start walking in the direction of the train station in hopes that there would be a taxi there. We started asking people where the taxis were and the most common remark was “France lost. Most of the drivers won’t feel like driving tonight.” Damn

Taxi drivers always crack me up (when they are not pissing me off). This is not my first nutty taxi experience.  I remember one time in Paris when my friends and I went out dancing. When I say dancing, what I really mean is drinking…a lot of drinking and a little bit of dancing. And again when I say dancing, I mean trying to look sexy on the dance floor without falling on my butt which usually means that I end up falling on my face instead. We exited the club when the sun was coming up and gave the taxi driver our address. We drove around FOREVER! At the time, all I could think of was how I had no idea we had ventured so far out from our hotel! The bill came out to be $100. The next morning (and by morning I mean 3 o’clock in the afternoon) we emerged from our hotel for breakfast. We took a left and about one block down the street was the club we had been at the night before. I have never felt like a bigger idiot in my life, and if you know me at all, that is saying a lot.

Paris trip aside, I would say Korea was the worst in regards to shit taxi experiences. When I first arrived, we heard stories about Soldiers beating up taxi drivers. I was so appalled! I couldn’t believe that anything could be so bad that you would want to punch a taxi driver. That is, until I got to Seoul.  I consider myself to be a relatively patient person, although I think my parents will disagree wholeheartedly on this. I remember the first encounter was near the train station when I asked to be taken to Itaewon, the area around the Army base.  He looked at me, said “Get out! I no drive Americans” and pushed my shoulder towards the door.

Another time, at about 10 minutes before curfew (yes- we had curfew in Korea and you do NOT want to get caught out after!) I hopped in a taxi and asked him to drive me towards Yongson. Knowing full well that we have curfew, because most taxi drivers in the area are swarmed around 0045-0055 with Soldiers trying to get back to post, he starts driving in the opposite direction. When I told him he was going the wrong way, he started laughing. I ended up having to check into a hotel that night because I didn’t make it back to post on time.

But the kicker was after a Linkin Park concert. Most of my other taxi situations were experienced while highly intoxicated. This particular event I was sober since I was headed to the field for a training exercise the following morning. My friends and I had met the stage crew for LP the previous weekend while in a bar in Tokyo and had received free tickets and partied with the crew afterwards. I was so excited to be seeing another concert that I really didn’t care that I couldn’t party it up with everyone else, and got in a taxi immediately after the show.  There were two girls waiting in line for a cab as well, and said they were going in the same direction. I though “What harm could this do” and said they could join. I asked the driver how much the ride would cost, and he said it would be around 30,000 won (about $30). I jumped in and we drove towards my hotel. It took 5 minutes. I looked at the driver and said that there was no way I was giving him 30,000 won for a 5 minute drive and handed him 10,000. When I tried to get out, he locked the doors and refused to open them until I gave him the other 20,000. When I looked back at the girls in the back seat, they started laughing and yelling “You stupid American! You pay!”

I need to make sure that you all understand that this was not normal in Korea (aside from the asshole taxis). I found that Koreans are some of the nicest people I have ever met (although they have no idea what personal space is while standing in line). I still keep in contact with some of the Soldiers I worked with, and had great experiences working with the Korean Army. I volunteered at an orphanage, and found that Korean kids get even more hyper on tootsie pops and Reese’s peanut butter cups than American kids do which I found to be rather amusing. Side note- don’t bring candy to the orphanages! The staff will not find hyper children as amusing as you might. So on this particular evening with two mean girls in the back of a cab, and the meanest taxi driver I have ever met, I lost my shit. I am not proud at the fact that I screamed at the top of my lungs, roaring like a tiger, and banging on the window. I think I scared him because he eventually unlocked the door.

Back in France Johnny and I eventually found a cab, but he refused to take the five of us. I asked him to just take my mother and father, and then come back for the rest. My mother told him she would show her cleavage if he would take all five of us. He said he would oblige as long as she didn’t show her cleavage and we all squished into the back of the car.

I may have embellished the previous paragraph a little, but I think it is a funnier story this way.

 My family before the Taxi frustration

The beaches of Nice

 

If you ever plan on traveling to Nice, I would suggest spending a day in the town of Antibes. It is breathtaking! From the main train station, Nice-Ville, it is about a 20 minute train ride along the coast. There is a beautiful port where we had our first glimpse at the rows and rows of yachts that litter the cote d’ azure. There is a beautiful little enclave with a small beach just outside the city walls where we chose to have a picnic lunch. We hadn’t planned on spending time at the beach that day, so none of us had packed our bathing suits. What I love the most about my family is that we just don’t give a crap! My dad threw his shirt off the second the beach was in site and my uncle Johnny stripped down to his tighty-whities. “We are in France!” he screamed.  “All men wear bathing suits like this!”  Actually, what we would find out the following day in St Tropez is that many men wear far less. My mom whipped out her DDD’s and we spent the afternoon drinking wine, eating ice cream, and shopping.

Around 4pm we hoped back on the train and headed into Monte Carlo. This was one of those experiences that I think about before going to bed. When I was younger, I used to day dream about meeting Prince William and him falling so in love with me that I would be made a princess. Then that perfect specimen of a human, Kate Middleton, came along and my dreams went up in smoke.  With new dreams of Grace Kelley, I arrived in Monaco in the hopes that some rich Sheik would hand me a million dollar chip and my mother and I could by the adorable apartment we were staying in while in Nice.

Dad passed out at our apartment

I am sad to say that I did not walk away with any kind of winnings, but I did get some fantastic photos!

 

 



I have no idea why certain things happen to me, but I know that I have the strangest traveling luck. On our third day in France, my friend Emma and I decided to start our day off with a jog. I had been eating nothing but Pain au raisin (raisin croissants), pain au chocolate, and 2-3 ice cream cones per day for the last 3 days so I had already gained 10 pounds. We were near the end of our jog, about 10 minutes away from our apartment, when a boy named Iman decided to join us. We were running along, minding our own business when out of nowhere this boy with the most amazing afro started running alongside us. He was drunk and hadn’t been to sleep yet, so I thought he would run for a few moments and then leave.  He didn’t leave. Instead, he told us how he never runs, is completely hammered, that he needs a coffee and would we like to join him for one.

 “I can’t believe I am running! I never run! But I am from Africa so it must be in my blood.” He was dressed in a pair of loafers, jeans, and a button down shirt carrying a man purse while running faster than us!  What I found to be most hilarious, was that he was high fiving everyone as he passed, and kept cheering Emma and I on to run faster! His hair was massive and curlier than mine, if you can believe it possible.

As we turned a corner he lifted up an arm and smelled his armpit. “Oh dear!” he said while picking up the pace. “I smell like a man! I love me!”

We ran up to the bakery that we frequent and sat down to have the coffee.  He was 22 years old, from Tunisia, and had more energy at 0800 in the morning after a night partying than I do after 13 hours of sleep. I thought he was a very nice young man until he said something that made me feel like an old cat lady. When I told him how old I was, he replied with “Really? I hope I am just like you when I am 34!” I wanted to punch him in the face, which I think he noticed. “No, no madam! That is a compliment! You look so young for your age!” Emma, being only 25 found this to be hilarious! This was one of those moments that I never thought would happen to me. Don’t get me wrong, I have said the same thing to quite a few people in my life and always meant it as a compliment! Like “Wow! You look great for your age!” Now, having the tables reversed by a 22 year old who was young enough to be my kid if we lived in the Middle Ages, caught my old ass off guard.  We finished our coffee, thanked him for entertaining us on the run, and headed back to get ready for our planned day at the beach in St. Tropez.

I had made the decision to rent a car while in France since having one had come in handy on my last few excursions. I would advise against this. The public transportation (during the day at least) is pretty great and there is SOOO much traffic in and around Nice. But since we had the car at our disposal, we decided to take a drive out to St. Tropez.

I absolutely love trashy magazines like US weekly and read them far more frequently than I would like to admit. My little tradition is curling up with my magazine and eating a bag of Swedish fish. It is a wonderful pastime that I look forward to. I always say that if I was Catholic, this would be what I would give up for lent. In reading these beautiful displays of journalism, I have noted that St. Tropez is the place to vacation in the South of France.  I can only say now that I think famous people are retarded. The town is pretty, yes, but there are so many other beautiful places that don’t cost an arm and a leg to enjoy! Perfect example: I ordered a bottle of still water. They brought me an evian and bill for 9€!! That is, like, $12! We were also charged 22€ per person for a lounge chair.

You may be wondering why we would pay so much for a chair, and for this I have an explanation.  The town of St. Tropez does not have a beach so you have to go to the outlining area. We just plugged in St. Tropez into the navigation so we were on our own for finding a beach. Luckily there are signs that read “Les plages” for you to follow, which we did. We reached an area that had a handful of beaches and decided to park. We gathered our gear for the day ahead (towels, food, and most importantly wine) and made our way to the beach.  We all stopped in our tracks when we reached the water. Everyone was naked! We had unintentionally stumbled upon a nude beach and now we weren’t sure what our next move was going to be. There was penis everywhere, and when the men emerged from the water they looked like creatures from the blue lagoon coming to attack and I was slightly terrified.  We didn’t want to look like the typical puritan Americans that can’t handle nudity, but there was also no way in hell that I was going to participate while with my dad. Plus, I think I was making people uncomfortable because I couldn’t stop staring at penis.

We meandered about for a while, my uncle Johnny beaming with happiness, when we saw there was a little beach club that was separate from the nude side. The only problem was that you had to rent a beach chair to stay there. So this is how we spent 132€ on beach chairs (we got one for free).

Since my father was having some difficulty, we decided that we would have dinner near the Nice train station. We read in Rick Steve’s book about a small Brasserie that was affordable and delicious. I mention this because I HIGHLY recommend this restaurant. It is called Voyageur Nissart and it was the best meals we had during our trip. They offer 3-4 course meals for under 20€ and bottles of wine for 11€. I had the most amazing rabbit since S.E.R.E school (survival school for the Army) after not eating for 5 days and finally getting a rabbit that we killed, skinned, and cleaned with a can of beer we had found in the woods. It had tasted like bacon, although I think that is only because I had wanted it to taste like bacon. I am WAY off topic at the moment. Voyageur Nissart- great restaurant.

http://www.voyageurnissart.com/home.php





Enjoying dinner

 

After dinner, the girls and I decided to walk around the old city and have a few drinks.  It being 2200, it was past my parent’s bedtime and they decided they were going to catch a train home. I love my parents and I usually don’t find them too incompetent unless technology is involved.  A few days prior to our trip I had decided to stay the night at my boyfriend Chris’ house so we could watch the final episode of “Game of Thrones.” I had set up my computer and TV for my parent’s so they could watch “Parks and Recreation” and showed them what they needed to do to start the next episode and expand the screen. We were about 5 minutes into “GoT” when my phone rang.

Dad- “We can’t figure out how to make the picture big on the computer”

Me- “Go to the bottom right corner where the little box is and click it.”

Dad- “What little box?”

I had put my dad on speaker phone because it is always funny to hear parents when they are confused, and thought this would be a nice treat for Chris to understand where I came from. He was shaking his head and trying to control his laughter.

Me- “Dad, hold on. I will take a picture of what you need to do and email it to you. I will call you back in a few minutes.”

Chris had already closed out GoT and was pulling up Parks and Rec.

Me- “Why are you closing GoT? I can just take a picture without changing shows.”

Chris- “I figure if they see Ron Swanson, they will be less confused.”

With my parents finally back to watching their show, Chris and I were able to settle back in to GoT. Twenty minutes later we got another call from my dad. They couldn’t remember how to put on the next episode.

Chris- “Man, I love old people.”

Knowing full well that my parents can have a difficult time figuring things out, I wrote out for them what platform they needed to be on, the direction of the train, the time of the train, and the stop they needed to get off at. At this point, I felt pretty comfortable that they couldn’t mess anything up. I was wrong.

When the girls and I arrived home at 0100 we found that my parents had only arrived about 15 minutes prior.

Me- “What  happened?”

Mom- “The train didn’t stop at our stop. We ended up in Monte Carlo.” This, by the way, was a perfect example of my mother’s exaggeration. What she meant to say was that they got off at Villefranche, one stop past the stop they needed. She just felt that saying Monte Carlo was more glamorous.

Me- “That is ridiculous!”

Mom- “We saw it pull into the station, but the doors never opened.”

Me- “Did you press the button?”

Mom- “That could be why the doors didn’t open.”

Yup, I also love old people.  But what I love more are the stories I get while traveling with them.