NUNS AND ANTIQUITIES

The Nunnery

On Thursday May 10, 2007, I decided, in the spirit of hiking, after eating breakfast to visit a convent where nuns still some nuns at the top of the mountain on which the Winter Palace is situated. I convinced my aunt Joke (a Dutch name pronounced "Yo-ke") to come with, and we happily trotted off leaving my uncle and mother to fret about mounting the curtains in the apartment. Below is a picture of the entrance of the Winter Palace:

We ascended the Chemin du Rosaire, which is literally crawling with stray cats. You may feel sorry for these buggers; however, the old French ladies kindly place food and water outside for them. One lady had even built a kitty nirvana out of part of a wall that had fallen out, using wooden planks to seal it off with enough room for Mr. or Mrs. Kitty to enter. These cats were quite suspicious of us - probably because we didn't look old, or like nuns.

It was all uphill on a tiny path [see below].

There were some colorful, bright petunias, "klap-rozen" (literally translated from Dutch, it means a "folding rose") and some other cream- coloured flower which manage to snare my short attention span:

We passed twelve mini-chapels, each of which tells a chapter in the story of Christ. Very sweet. I felt like a nun for a split second. I forgot about these thoughts as I left a chapel and was then reminded at the following one :)

We reached the top of the mountain after approximately 45 minutes and weren't too exhausted. I could still hear Geza's voice from South Africa: "think of your legs like little robotic engines". The view, needless to say, was awesome [see below].

We entered the monastery grounds [see left] and overheard nuns singing. We decided to sit in the chapel [see below] to listen to them for about 20 minutes. As I was about to leave, I suddenly realized that the person who I thought was a priest was in fact a nun! She was wearing a grey smock, which in hindsight I presume was a nun-in-training smock. Her hair was cut short and was grey. I would have bet my life-savings that she was a man.

I had all these questions about what a nun's resume looks like. How does one convince the convent that you are the best qualified to be a nun. Obviously there is only room for so many nuns. In any event, I decided at the end of it all that I had more important things to worry about and began the descent homewards.

The Antique Shoppe

The following day, hit up an antique store in Menton named "L'Usine". After finally finding a tight (and probably expensive) parking spot, there was a quirky house called the "villa sans nom" (the villa without a name) - see below. I shot some more pictures of colorful buildings on the way to the antique shoppe.

The antique store was huge. We explored all the levels and rooms and I took some fantastic pictures [see below]. Eventually, mother and I bumped into a bird [see left] who was doing the "sexy whistle" at us. We found this extremely amusing and decided to see what else the bird was capable of doing. As it turns out, this bird could say "bonjour" and "comment ca va?". I think he was loving this attention as at one point he wouldn't be quiet, so mother let out one of her laughs, and the bird imitated it: "haaaaaaaa ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa". I had to laugh sooo hard since this bird imitated her laugh near perfect. I would have given him a 9.5 out of 10 if there was a course for imitating laughs.

(table football):

I managed to walk out with only spending 5 euro on two cutlery holders (which one places their cutlery on to spare their tablecloths the grief of grease). I am extrememly content with them :)

Tomorrow we will walk La Corbusiere - a walk from Menton to Monaco / Monte-Carlo which spans about 6 km :)