Travel Day to Nice
Started off today with a drop off at the Moncton airport from Marc and Mary-Sue. Nice surprise to see Rollande and Jacques at the airport, I thought they were leaving tomorrow, but actually they were arriving in Spain tomorrow so I had the dates all wrong. Great catch up, the 2 hours went really fast with friends to talk to that we hadn't see in a while.
Even though we just had carry on luggage we asked at the check in counter if they were going to ask for volunteers to check luggage as we were willing to check ours at no charge. Saved $150.00 by doing carry on free check in only, I'm sure it will be on the same back. Airports have gotten so much better lately with luggage lately we weren't too worried about checking in luggage, and were actually kind of hoping it got lost so we could purchase new clothes in France!
First connection was in Montreal. Bye to Jacques and Rollande as they are on to Toronto now, and we are on to Brussels but have about a 7 hour wait time so arranged for Jill, Robin, Craig, Glen, Jake, Steve and Laura to meet up at Moe's for smoked meat. Jill and Robin picked us up at the airport, early flight in so we were early at the restaurant, but all worked out great. A really nice leisurely lunch, lots of catching up as we haven't been together in a while. Unfortunately Brenda and Terry were sick so couldn't make it, maybe in April when we go home.
Back to the Montreal airport and our flight is delayed by 1 hour. Then it changes to a delay of 45 minutes but we need to change gates. Off we go and the gate we are at is also used for domestic flights, in a crazy spot and they only open it up 30 minutes before flight departure. All goes OK, splurged on bulk head seats, configuration is 2, 4, 2 so we could kind of spread out, as much as an airplane lets you when you fly basic economy. Wendy watched a terrible movie. We both ate a terrible supper and had a terrible sleep, but it is only a 6 hour flight to Brussels so not too bad. Andre watched Grand Turismo and really enjoyed it. 2 thumbs up. Forgot about the little fight at the start of this flight. The woman behind us got on late and asked whose stuff was in the overhead bin above her, she seemed to think it was reserved for her, lol. She won, she found the man whose suitcase was there and he moved it. This was one of those big planes with plenty of overhead space to be found, some people. The spot right behind her was totally empty, urgh.
Brussels we played total rookie travelers. We actually went through customs twice! Wendy proudly takes the blame for this one, not great marking, saw the sign for Canadian travelers connections after customs, came out back on the other side of customs. If anyone watches Border Security I now have a little sympathy for the losers that end up in the line to go through customs and get in trouble when they had no intention of crossing the border. Only 2 people were working the border security so we went back to the person I had crossed through, all she did was take our passports and X out that we had left the country. The man behind us had done the exact same thing, and we hear another guy in the same predicament, better signage may be in order.
Another delay in Brussels by about 45 minutes. It is one of those airports that don't announce the gate you will be departing from until 1 hour before departure. We gamble and just find a gate to sit at instead of sitting down at one of the expensive airport restaurants in the middle. Andre volunteered to drink beer for 1 hour but he was vetoed, maybe it was because it was 9AM or too expensive???
Arrive in Nice, bathroom break and our luggage is off the carousel in a couple of minutes. It is quite a surprisingly small airport. Andres cute lobster name tag has been ripped off, a new name tag for his bag will be on the shopping list for France. This flight is like last time in Europe, charge for everything, coffee, tea, juice, water is all a charge, this makes service very quick as very very few people buy anything. A first as well, the lady sitting beside me spoke to the flight attendant about Andre using his phone to take pictures, yes he had it in airplane mode, cranky lady assured it was fine and the plane wasn't about to go down for taking pictures in airplane mode.
Contact the AIRBNB and tell them we are on the way. Then manage to get on the tram going in the wrong direction, get ourselves turned around correctly. The free 2 stop tram from the airport worked well, but a long line up to buy tickets, but it was even longer at the airport, and the airport was an additional 10.00 Euro. Only one machine to buy from, they seemed to have instructions on an app to download and we could load that up with tickets, sent Andre to read the French instructions, we now have an app that we can just add money to for the tram, plus we can all use the same app, we don't have to all load it on our phones.
Our apartment was very easy to find from the tram stop, not even a 5 minutes walk. We are just outside the old town of Nice, seems like a fantastic spot. Went for a short walk. So far we have a SIM card on Andres phone, 20 euros for 1 month with 100 Gigabytes, groceries to start a couple of days.
Back to the apartment for a break and then out again for a walk. Sun was setting so walked to the beach, no sand here all pebbles. Bleachers are set up for Nice carnival coming up. Found a bar with decent happy hour, we were by far the oldest people outside, plus we don't smoke, why do so may still smoke here? It was cool tonight, glad we had our jackets. This afternoon was just long sleeves, but you really needed a jacket tonight. Walked home through more of old town, we have lots of exploring to do, can't wait!
Nearly 9PM now, so impressed we made it this late, trying to stay up for 1 more hour and get on the correct time zone.
5 degrees in NB, very mild winter this year.
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| even the bugs are out this morning |
Saying goodbye to our little airport and Moncton
We went through customs twice in Toronto in November so we know how that feels. We got 50GB sim cards here for 10 Euros. Looked at our credit card summary that night and saw that we had been charged twice. Went back the next and get a refund with no problems.
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