Hangin' in the south of france.

After the hustle and bustle of several big cities in a row (Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Paris...) we've arrived at the smaller/slower paced Nice, France.   The tiny cobblestone streets in the Nice Vieux (where we're staying) remind me of the old parts of Riposto and Bologna, and of course, Venice....  No cars allowed...  motorcycles are limited to certain hours, and streets randomly turn into stairs, making it vehicle unfriendly.   We celebrated our arrival by having Thai food near our apartment.

To say the water is blue here would be an understatement...   There's a reason they call this the Côte d'Azur.   The local beaches are not sand - but cobblestones... with very steep banks to get in and out...  tough on the feet and balance - but worth it.  There's a smattering of topless women - which intrigues the kids.  (HA!)  Or at least it intrigued
them until I threatened to go topless.... their interest turned to horror.  LOL.

Our apartment is on a quaint street - it seems idylic until around midnight... that seems to be the time the restaurants close down and young people choose our dead end street to party...If we had  AC it  would be better... but our choice is stuffy and hot or noisy.   We've asked the landlord for another fan since the boys think it's horribly unfair that Lou and I are using the only fan in the place.

Now a rant and a solution...   Rant:  Every apartment we go to has a different coffee method....  We adapt... we're comfortable with Moka pots, french press, american style drip machines, etc.   In Amsterdam the only method was a pod style espresso machine.  We didn't like the product, but at that point we'd purchased pods... so we brought them with us in our "supplies".  (Supplies tends to be: laundry soap, olive oil, spices we've purchased along the way, tp, bar soap, and shampoo.)   In Amsterdam we purchased a mini moka pot to get better coffee than the pod machine could produce.   Well... we arrive here in Nice and sure enough - another pod machine... but it uses different pods.   Lou is convinced the landlords get a kickback from the stores that sell the pods.   No problem, we'll use the moka pot on the stove....  Wait, not so fast - it's an induction stove and the moka pot is aluminum....

Here is our solution - it works just fine.

The pan heats on the stove - providing a hot plate for the moka pot.