Where to find a shitty cup of coffee

Europe » France » Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur » Nice
January 13th 2011

Published: January 14th 2011

Who knew there was a science to coffee? It is apparently one linked to the history of Nice itself. Let me explain.

Today Marissa and I had a meeting with Davide Salotto (why yes he IS Italian and you DO pronounce the last E) and his secretary Marija (pronounced Maria...I promise) at 12 noon for lunch and an orientation to follow. We met them at their offices and were pleased to see another person who looked vaguely lost just like we did. It turns out that the semester, the University of Nice is hosting 3 American students. This student is Jonathan from Utah. He is here like Marissa to study French and maybe some History. The three of us chatted for a few minutes while Davide and Marija finished up their work. We walked a few blocks in the fabulous Nicios air to a restaurant that looked really expensive. The five of us sat down and the waiter came by to serve us some rose wine and tell us le plat du jour. He was babbling rather quickly and from the looks on Marissa's and Jonathan's faces they didn't know what the deal was. Davide saw this and asked the waiter to slow his roll and talk more slowly. We all agreed on the plate of the day and waited with impatience for fish soup which I already knew I wouldn't like but was willing to give the French the benefit of the doubt (bad choice). In front of me is a rather large bowl with huge chunks of unnamed fish (poisson) and pieces of vegetables all surrounded by a red broth. It smelled okay so I started with was I thought was salmon. Two points for me because it was. The salmon was good. The broth really complimented the taste of the fish and the various vegetables added to it as well. Once the salmon was completely gone I moved on to the bizarre. There was a white flakey fish that I think might have been trout? It was fresh tasting and went down okay. The next two I am at a loss as to what they were. They both still had their skins on one side and the first I tried (to try something in French is to gouter and a taste is un gout) was beyond salty and had those amazing little clear bones in it that you inevitably choke on. Yeah those kinds. The other one was just plain disgusting. Not only did it look like rancid cat food....it tasted like it too (not that I would have ANY idea what that tastes like...). I kind of mushed those two up so it looked like I ate more than I really had. I felt bad because everyone else's plates looked less full than mine...definitely no happy plate 😞 Of course it was served with a mix of different breads so I attempted to sop up the broth, which was the best part of the whole plate, and fill my belly with bread. My favorite part of that dish was when I went to take a sip of my water I could smell the fishiness of the meal on my glass, so even after the plate was gone I could continue to enjoy the luscious scent of cat breath. :D For dessert we had tiramisu (not French but Italian which I was definitely okay with) and coffee.

So far we had had pretty consistent conversation throughout the meal. Marissa and Jonathan seemed at a loss for words or shy so being the daughter of a very talkative person I felt compelled to fill the silence with my babbles on whatever was being talked about. I really enjoyed talking to Davide. He told us he was from Torino and came to Nice (Nizza in Italian) to study at the prestigious law school here and fell in love. He gave us some background information on the school and some tips on things to do and places to go etc. He was the one who brought up the topic of shitty coffee. Jonathan, Marija, Davide and I all got coffees. Now I'm not sure who will know this already or not but if you do bear with me while I explain. In France and I assume in most of Europe coffee is not served in a huge mug with tons of sugar and milk and certainly not Creamora. It's served in these tiny little cups with tiny saucers the size of tea cups in England. They're made from a real coffee machine and taste more like our version of expresso. You can ask for it with milk already in it and it comes all foamy and junk. I wouldn't say I didn't like it because that wouldn't be true but it was certainly a new thing for me. It was really strong (even more so because I didn't think to ask for milk!) and bitter tasting. I added sugar and immediately regretted it because the single serving of sugar they gave me made it WAY too sweet. All in all though it wasn't awful. haha I was watching Davide look at his coffee like it was an ugly bug. He looked up and said to us that he had a (petite histoire) little story about his theories on coffee. We had been talking about how Nice had once been a part of Italy and how there was a percentage of the population that wanted to remain Italian and a percentage that wanted to be French. Of course there would always be this mix because the area was close to both borders. Davide said his theory on coffee was directly linked to the borders of France and Italy. He believes, and Marija agreed, that in Menton (the last stop before Italy) you can go into any cafe and get a crappy cup of coffee; however, when you pass over the border to the first village in Italy (I forgot its name but it starts with a V) you can do the same thing and get an amazing cup of coffee. The theory goes that when they were deciding on where to draw the line between France and Italy, they went about having cafes and where the coffee was good was Italy and where it was bad was France. The same works in reverse for croissants.

Aunt Rosie and Uncle Eddie will be happy to know that I mentioned you two to Davide when we were talking about eating habits that vary from country to country. I told him my mom and I eat early (5 or 6 sometimes even 4) which is in high contrast to the eating habits of Europe, especially Spain, Italy and to an extent France. I told him my aunt and uncle, who're very Italian in nature, tend to eat later than most Americans. He liked that. The tiramisu was delicious and I ate as much as I could stuff in my mouth. I have great table manners by the way. Once we had exhausted our conversation we got up and walked back to the office to have our orientation. I was feeling kind of beat. My brain hurt from trying to stay on point so hard. It's really tiring to think that hard in French. We all sat down together, minus Marija, and began our orientation that lasted for 3 1/2 hours! I'm so serious. Davide must have liked me best (if only) because he always looked at me when addressing us. It was my fabulous French (actually I probably had something on my face...either or). He went over how to get our email addresses for the school and all of the tools available to us from the portal. He told us about our id cards and all that we can get out of those.

He helped clear up the class picking mess a little. I plan to go and talk to the secretary in the Italian department on Monday about which classes I need to take. Davide explained the grading system here which is particularly funny. They grade from 0-20. Only God gets a 20, only the professor gets a 19 (and they aren't even being graded!) so that means the highest grade I could hope to expect would be an 18. If it was a subject such as Math where I can get a perfect than in theory I could get a 20 but since my subjects are going to be more opinion based it will be nearly impossible to get a 20. The credits here are different too. I need to take a minimum of 12 credit hours this semester to stay full time. Here credit is measured in ECTS. 1 American credit equals 2 ECTS which means I need a total of 24 ECTs (at least) to stay full time. This means I will probably have to take more than 4 classes like I would do normally in the States. I'm not 100% sure how it will work out yet so we will all have to wait until Monday to find out (cliff hanger!!!) We got this gay briefcase bag filled with what Davide called "goodies." Basically it was advertisements, mints, a pen made of paper, and sticky notes. I had only brought my purse with me so I had to carry that gay bag all the way back to the dorm.

On the way back Jonathan, Marissa and I stopped at the bar Marissa and I had gone to on Tuesday because Marissa had left her coat. While we were there I saw sexy barman. Still lookin' sexy even though I was sober which is encouraging. We walked up the strip (this is the popular part of Nice with all of the shops and restaurants) and looked about for a place to eat dinner. All of the shops had red signs that said <<SOLDES>> which means sale. Right now France is having its semi-annual sale where everything goes on sale. It's literally amazing. I went into the French version of JC Penny and bought a coat and scarf that made me look more French and a better case for my camera for dirt cheap. Basically everyone knows what I'll be doing tomorrow. : D After my shopping hysteria we went into a Quick which is the French version of Burger King and the like. They actually had a drink machine that gave you ICE and FREE refills which is almost nonexistent anywhere else here. The food was even better than McDo...no really. It was around 8pm when we left and all the shops were already closed so we all headed home (Jonathan lives on a different campus called Valrose (our campus is Carlone, also Italian)). There are actually 13 different campuses (one even in Cannes) and they're all spread out over the area called Nice. And so endth my day. I talked to mom but she seemed peeved about something. I can't wait to get my first two packages. I don't know how I will get the biggest one to my room but Titou vowed to be my slave and help me when it gets here. You know how its goes.....

Where to find a shitty cup of coffee

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