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The beach
My wife's parents found us a great apartment
on the beach
along
the French Riviera and we are tremendously grateful that they were
willing to make the many trips necessary to scout the area and find us
such a nice place. We have an unobstructed view of the
Mediterranean, the bay of
Cannes and the mountains that surround it. We got it for a
reasonable rate because we are here in the
off-season
(fall and winter). We arrived in
late August so it was pretty crowded at first but come September school
started and most of the craziness has subsided. The weather
has been unusually rainy in September but there has been plenty of
time for sun.
The proximity of the
balcony to the beach is a continued source of entertainment throughout
the day. In the morning we have breakfast while watching the
seaside come to life. First there is the day's condition of the
surf and a new set of yachts
that have moored during the night. A tractor comes to sift
the sand on the beach (we call it the Sandboni because it follows the
same pattern as the machine at an ice rink). Next, the
regular beach-bums (mostly
retirees) come to take advantage of the freshly cleaned beach for an
early swim or to stake out their territory for the day. As the
sun increases
in intensity the tanners come in good number to bake their
bodies. That the woman often go topless on the beach here is more
than
distracting to a poor American male but the locals seem not to pay too
much
attention. Young girls, mothers, and old ladies alike seem very
concerned about tan lines. Often, they put their tops back
on when getting up to go swim and remove them again only while
sunning. (I
have studied this behavior carefully.) During the day, sport is
limited by available space to the ubiquitous paddle ball (a sort of
ping pong without a table, net nor any score. The object is to
keep the ball going back and forth between two people
as long as possible. That's it. Click, clack, click, clack,
aye!) As we sit for dinner (at 7:30 or 8:00pm--early by
French standards) there is
often a
game of soccer or volleyball (or a cross between the two where they
never touch the ball
with
their hands but instead kick, knee or head the ball over the net) being
set up on the beach for our entertainment.
I am not so fond of the blazing heat of the day or the crowds
that it
attracts but it's nice to take the family for a late walk before the
kids go to bed. Late at night, the sound of the ocean can be
soothing once you master the ability to ignore the vehicles
zooming past on the road below. Actually, even watching
the impatient tourists, the often cute or exotic european cars
and the death defying antics of motor scooters is amusing from the safe
vantage of our overlooking balcony.
Thanks again to Maïté's parents for finding this
place for us.
I considered the idea of doing a series of sand sculptures on
the beach below but there are already a couple of guys doing that--for
spare change. They have some kind of special permission from the
city
government to sleep on the beach to protect their work as they
elaborate it day after day. The response from passers by is
typically positive though the coins are generally small.
29 August 2005
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