June 12
Yesterday's big adventure was actually in the apartment, doing laundry.  The dryer would get extremely hot, but the clothes would remain wet, and the dryer would stop running after 1-2 minutes A light on the control panel would say "vider le reservoir", which I took to mean check the interior.  Finally took an iphone picture of the front of the dryer and walked over to the leasing office.  Turns out that dryers here have a compartment at the top where the water from the clothes eventually ends up, and it needed emptying.  I'm not the only tenant not having this bit of knowledge, as it had about a gallon of water and full to the brim. Must be restricted to the European market.
This morning my daily walk progressed to about 1 1/2 hours, first in search of a restaurant location that no longer exists (and it really sounded good, darn it!), then to the sea, the port, the market and home.  In the afternoon we took an easy bus ride from our corner to the Matisse Museum, a really nice visit. Matisse himself gave some pieces, then his wife and later his heirs continued to give to this museum, so it has some nice works, but mostly from his cut outs phase.
The plan was to then ride the bus around to the port and try to make a dinner reservation in person.  Just when you think you're getting around well, you get it all wrong.  We went up on the #22 and should have returned on the #20, but we returned on the #22, my big error.  Before I knew it we had gone to the entirely opposite end of Nice, though we did pass within a block of our apartment at one point.  We got off, my ever improving French allowed us to get new directions, and we headed back, changing buses halfway to the port.  Spent a few minutes at the port, but no one at the restaurant to take our reservation, so used the same transfer ticket and got a third ride on another bus home.  Oh well, the entire afternoon costs us 2 tickets each for the bus (1 euro each way per person) and free admission to the museum.  Oh, and Jim got to see much of the city where I've been walking in the mornings and some ritzy residential areas up on the hills.

front of Matisse Museum, no interior pictures allowed

Tomorrow I'll have to buy some chicken breasts and be prepared to cook dinner at home on the 14th, as I suspect many places will close for Bastille Day.  I remember reading there's fireworks at the beach, just need to find out where exactly.