I joined the AVF!

The what? The AVF - Accueil des Villes Francaises. What is that?  It is an organisation that was set up to help the French settle in a new town.  This has been extended to foreigners such as myself.  There are all sorts of things to do from learning the language, or indeed another language, playing sports like boule to cooking and days out.  Pretty comprehensive stuff.

The Nutcase and the Bank - Part Deux

Having embarrassed myself previously by getting my pin wrong and misreading the instructions in French it seemed a good time to inflict some more humiliation on myself.  Things went well.  I demanded the machine give me 120 euro and it obliged.  Alas the notes received were a 20, which is fine, and a 100, which is not fine as it is impossible to spend it since everyone believes them to be counterfeit!

Approached the help desk.  I explained the problem.  Not a problem I was advised, simply deposit the offending note in the machine and ask for 100 euro only whereupon it will provide small denomination notes. Sounded good to me.  Approached the appropriate machine.  Moments later I heard "monsieur", yup I was at the wrong machine.  It appears the cash machine that I withdrew cash from was also capable of taking money as well.  The kindly help desk person assisted me as they no doubt have to do with all morons.

An evening in the Antiques District

Things did not start well ....

My landlady forgot that I was turning up late.  No big deal.  The fun started when I switched on the air con unit and set it to blow out some heat - hey, it gets cold in Nice at night you know.  Anyhow that didn't go too well in that things appeared to work, but the stopped. When I say stopped I mean all the lights went out! Hey ho, power cut.  Peered into the dark.  Just me then!  Then it all came on again and, you are ahead of me, it all stopped again.  Bleated by email to the landlady.

So I spent a pleasant albeit cold night.  In the morning I decided to make coffee as you do.  This also caused the electricity to cut out.  When it returned it also illuminated the lights which weren't off. Brother! I won't bore you with the rest.  Bottom line was that the place was pretty much untenable.

So I booked into a lovely little hotel for a knock down price through LateRooms which was the Lepante, a very old style 2 star hotel.  The pic on the right is from streetview.

Eventually the electrician turned up after which EDF was summoned and by 6 on Friday night all was good again.