Nice

Hi folks! Brief update.

I spent a month in Edinburgh enjoying the festival, spent a fortune on shows and expensive festival drinks. I met some fun folks, though more toward the end of the month - there was a fair bit of wandering around with two or three hours to kill between shows and not much to do, which dampened my sense of festivity at times. After the Festival finished, the place calmed down a bit, and I happened into some nice circles of friends, which it turned out all interlaced with each other. I hung out at Yasmin and Mat's, Kelly's, Martin's and Axier's, and hung out with Anna, Anna, Helen and Nicci.

I spent four nights in Glasgow at a hostel. Contrary to its international reputation as a gritty industrial city, it's full of beautiful buildings and was lovely. It was interesting to walk around and attempt to pick if people were actually speaking English. The accent has an "I'm throttling myself" element to it. Glasgow hosted two international industry fairs at the end of the 1800s, so the museum was in an extremely glamorous building. The art nouveau design from Mackintosh and friends from the early 1900s was a highlight, and great to see that women's design contributions were well represented. Martin came over from Edinburgh and joined me for the last couple of nights in Glasgow, and we had a blast.

I flew from Edinburgh to Nice on Saturday, and Nice is everything you'd want in a holiday. The hostel is a megahostel, not conveniently located, but otherwise fantastic. They picked me up from the Nice airport, for example, and I didn't even have to speak French to request it. In Nice, the Matisse gallery was a wonderful showcase of his work, and very inspiring. So is the icecream store in the old town - I had two bowls so far, one "old lady" flavoured (orange blossom, lavender, rose) and one novelty flavoured (almond, cactus, Corona beer). I've travelled from my Nice base to Eze Village, Monte Carlo in Monaco, Antibes beach, and am off today to Vence and St Paul de Vence, most visited village in France and home to many Impressionist artists.

I'm planning to head to Marseille in the next couple of days, to explore and then use as a base for Avignon, Aix-en-Provence, and whatever else may come.

Hugs to all!
Luke