Day One: The Offliner's Tale
Mar. 26th, 2011 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksAn irritating day, although it's still nicer being here than in London.
First of all the Internet didn't want to work. Marie (the woman from Nice Pebbles who was meeting me at the flat) said that she would phone the technician, but just after she had left, it started working.
Another minor annoyance is that the flat only has a wired connection, and that connection is upstairs in the bedroom! Weird.
I arrived here by 11.30am, and it was a gorgeous day, but I was absolutely shattered. For some reason I just could not wake up for the entire trip. So I had a nap.
Two hours later I woke up. It had clouded over (to the extent that it looked like rain) and the internet had gone again. Twenty minutes of struggling got me nowhere, so I phoned Marie again. She said that she would get the technician. And, you've guessed it. Just after I hung up, it started working again.
When the technician came round (it was by now 3.30pm) he told me what I suspected, that the ISP wasn't that reliable, and that if it dropped off again, I should just unplug, wait five or ten minutes, plug it back in, and then wait. Since then it has dropped off one more time, and this strategy does seem to work.
After getting back from the supermarket, I turned on the netbook, and got, …. nothing. I mean, the netbook was dead.
A quarter of an hour of disconnecting and reconnecting established that the socket into which I had plugged the adaptor was fused. So, although I thought that I was operating from a machine plugged into the mains, I was in fact using up the battery. I know it seems obvious, but when you have an adaptor, an extension lead and a computer to think about, it's a slow process working through all of the possibilities to find that it's a broken socket.
One shock awaiting me as I walked to the Monoprix was that the bus station is being demolished! Not a moment too soon (would that they would do the same to Victoria Coach station!) but the downside is that you now need a Ph.D in French bus maps and timetables to work out where you have to go to if you want to catch a bus. They seem to have stopped the Nice to Eze route (it now starts from Beaulieu-sur-Mer, from the look of it), and I couldn't find the place (or number) for the Cap Ferrat bus. However, I think just heading to the port is a safe bet for all buses heading in roughly that direction. It might not be the terminus, but most of the required buses will stop there.
The other good thing about the old bus station was that you could head there of a morning and just catch the first TAM bus, wherever it was going. Now you have to decide in advance whether it will be St Paul de Vence (no idea where that bus leaves from, btw) or Cannes or Menton today.
Plans for the week include St Paul de Vence, Ile de Sainte Marguerite, the Eze-to-Eze trek, Menton. I rarely manage more than four, but I hope to manage Digne-les-Bains as well (or at least one station on that rail line). Another random train to the north-east would be nice too.
Given the madness of the current bus system here, it's an opportunity to use the railway more.
Just listening to the radio. It's advertising a holiday in Dublin. Hmm, I think I'll stay here, thank you very much.
++++++++
Later: Went for a walk. It's quite mild out, because of the cloud cover, but all of the restaurants have the plastic screens up for the “outside” tables. And quite a few still seem to remain closed for the winter. It also seemed relatively quiet – perhaps the recession is even beginning to hit Nice.
Some photos of the apartment and of me doing some wandering.
Only half a second exposure. I'd meant to stand under the lamp, but that took me a little bit too far away from the camera, given the number of people around! This is the street in the old town where Alzieri's is based.
Quite a long exposure. Probably 4 seconds @f5.6 I think. I'm now using the Manual setting and taking an AWB test shot before most pictures outdoors at night.
_________________
First of all the Internet didn't want to work. Marie (the woman from Nice Pebbles who was meeting me at the flat) said that she would phone the technician, but just after she had left, it started working.
Another minor annoyance is that the flat only has a wired connection, and that connection is upstairs in the bedroom! Weird.
I arrived here by 11.30am, and it was a gorgeous day, but I was absolutely shattered. For some reason I just could not wake up for the entire trip. So I had a nap.
Two hours later I woke up. It had clouded over (to the extent that it looked like rain) and the internet had gone again. Twenty minutes of struggling got me nowhere, so I phoned Marie again. She said that she would get the technician. And, you've guessed it. Just after I hung up, it started working again.
When the technician came round (it was by now 3.30pm) he told me what I suspected, that the ISP wasn't that reliable, and that if it dropped off again, I should just unplug, wait five or ten minutes, plug it back in, and then wait. Since then it has dropped off one more time, and this strategy does seem to work.
After getting back from the supermarket, I turned on the netbook, and got, …. nothing. I mean, the netbook was dead.
A quarter of an hour of disconnecting and reconnecting established that the socket into which I had plugged the adaptor was fused. So, although I thought that I was operating from a machine plugged into the mains, I was in fact using up the battery. I know it seems obvious, but when you have an adaptor, an extension lead and a computer to think about, it's a slow process working through all of the possibilities to find that it's a broken socket.
One shock awaiting me as I walked to the Monoprix was that the bus station is being demolished! Not a moment too soon (would that they would do the same to Victoria Coach station!) but the downside is that you now need a Ph.D in French bus maps and timetables to work out where you have to go to if you want to catch a bus. They seem to have stopped the Nice to Eze route (it now starts from Beaulieu-sur-Mer, from the look of it), and I couldn't find the place (or number) for the Cap Ferrat bus. However, I think just heading to the port is a safe bet for all buses heading in roughly that direction. It might not be the terminus, but most of the required buses will stop there.
The other good thing about the old bus station was that you could head there of a morning and just catch the first TAM bus, wherever it was going. Now you have to decide in advance whether it will be St Paul de Vence (no idea where that bus leaves from, btw) or Cannes or Menton today.
Plans for the week include St Paul de Vence, Ile de Sainte Marguerite, the Eze-to-Eze trek, Menton. I rarely manage more than four, but I hope to manage Digne-les-Bains as well (or at least one station on that rail line). Another random train to the north-east would be nice too.
Given the madness of the current bus system here, it's an opportunity to use the railway more.
Just listening to the radio. It's advertising a holiday in Dublin. Hmm, I think I'll stay here, thank you very much.
++++++++
Later: Went for a walk. It's quite mild out, because of the cloud cover, but all of the restaurants have the plastic screens up for the “outside” tables. And quite a few still seem to remain closed for the winter. It also seemed relatively quiet – perhaps the recession is even beginning to hit Nice.
Some photos of the apartment and of me doing some wandering.
Only half a second exposure. I'd meant to stand under the lamp, but that took me a little bit too far away from the camera, given the number of people around! This is the street in the old town where Alzieri's is based.
Quite a long exposure. Probably 4 seconds @f5.6 I think. I'm now using the Manual setting and taking an AWB test shot before most pictures outdoors at night.
_________________
