And Finally…Some Photos!

At last…what you’ve all been waiting for…some more photos!  I’m finally done uploading all of the albums from my trip to Corsica and Sardinia, so enjoy!

Nice and Bastia

Corte and Vizzavona

Ajaccio and Bonifacio

Sardinia: Santa Teresa, Nuoro, Cagliari

Paris photos will be coming in gradually over the next week, just click the photos link at the top to see when I’ve added more, or go straight to the shutterfly main page.

Nice and Bastia

the old port area of Nice

I didn’t have many hours in Nice before I had to leave for Corsica, but I did get to walk around the vielle ville and port area some.  Josh: I saw some awesome yachts that I took photos of!  Nice seemed…well, nice (ahh, overused travel cliches).  It was fairly busy and urban though, which was not exactly the environment I was looking for after hours of hectic travel, but still interesting to explore.

I took the ferry in the afternoon to Bastia, Corsica, which is on the northeast side of the island, facing Tuscany in Italy.  The boat that took me there was more of a cruise ship, with multiple bars, restaurants, and game rooms, than what I would normally think of as a ferry.

view of Bastia from the citadel

Five hours later, I found myself in Bastia, the second-largest city in Corsica, with a population of 40,000.  Over the next 24 hours, I was able to get a good feel for the town, which was crumbling and delapidated at times, but in a charming, old-world sort of way.  Some of the buildings surrounding the port are still damaged from WWII.  I was able to check out all of the sights in Bastia on foot: several churches (including one that depicted a relief of one of the Bible’s lesser-known scenes: the circumcision of the baby Jesus), the old port, the citadel (which was once the capital when the island was ruled by Genoa), and the narrow cobblestoned streets that have tiny shops where stables used to be.

Arrivals

Safely in France, and settled at last (for several hours at least). I arrived in Paris around 8:30am local time, after the flight left late from Dulles because of a problem with the plane which caused us to switch planes before takeoff. Annoying, but in light of recent events, I guess I’m glad they were careful.

I got to check out the apartment that I’ll be staying in when I return to Paris and it looks like it will be great. After all the travel and sleepless hours, it was hard to leave a comfortable looking place with a real bed to head out alone again lugging my backpack.

I finally made it out of Paris at 4:16pm, having narrowly missed the original train I wanted, and took the train five hours to Nice. This route practically spans the whole country, so I got to see a lot of beautiful French countryside, and beaches. By the time I got to Nice it was dark though, so all I’ve seen of the city so far are the semi-shady streets around the train station.

For those who don’t know, I’m on my way to Corsica and Sardinia, thanks to a grant from Princeton, to do senior thesis research on the cultural differences between the islands and the mainland (in a nutshell). Of course, when I imagine actually doing this, now that it’s a reality, I’m quite intimidated–approaching strangers for interviews in a foreign language while traveling alone–but I’ll have to overcome that shyness out of necessity. It’s been slightly comforting that so far I haven’t been “Englished” by any Parisians (when I try to speak French to them and they just respond in English instead), which I remember happening a lot in the capital on past trips. So that’s a good sign…of course, hopefully assuming that there won’t be too many signs/menus in the native languages of Corsica and Sardinia, because then I’ll be lost…

Tomorrow I have to hit the ground running, so here’s hoping that this cheap hotel bed is more comfortable than it looks. As the locals would say, bonne nuit.