Yes We Cannes

What a difference a day makes. Sunday in Nice, the phrase we heard the most — often spoken in the stereotypical haughty French accent — was, “IT’S NOT POSSI-BLE!”

Yesterday, though, our hearts were filled and spirits renewed by what became possible.

The day started at the Hotel Villa La Tour in old town Nice. One of the innkeepers, Eva, had heard about our predicament of the lost glasses and was eager to tell us just where we needed to go. Turns out there was a shopping mall just three stops up on the tram (think DART rail) where an optician could most certainly help us that day.

Eva was our guardian angel; we never would have found that place without her. (I didn’t even know Nice had shopping malls!)

In the store a nice woman took one look at my prescription and said, “Oh, yes, it’s possible to get that done today.” Chel immediately hugged her with relief. We picked out some frames and spent the rest of the day strolling (as much as was possible without glasses) down the boulevard of shops.

After we got my glasses and I could see again, we headed by bus off to Cannes. We got caught in rush hour traffic, but we got to see the real insides of the city as we traveled off the coast along the back roads the locals take. We saw little old ladies and teenage kids and young mothers and their children, heading to the market or running other errands much like they do in Dallas or Olney or Boston.

We were a little worried about the hotel before we arrived there; the online research we had done uncovered some dicey reviews saying the decor was over the top or that it wasn’t worth what you paid. It sounded like a neat concept, though — each floor decorated in the style of a different continent — so we went for it.

When we got to the check-in desk the attendant informed me that we would be staying on the Europe floor (what we had hoped for) and that we had been upgraded to a suite at no extra charge (more than we could have hoped for).

Chel didn’t hear that we had been upgraded, so imagine her surprise when we got to the corner room and discovered a living room with big comfy chairs and dining area, bathroom with rain shower and jacuzzi tub, and bedroom with a view of the Ritz Carlton next door, and the Mediterranean just beyond that! We couldn’t believe it was possible.

After swimming in the rooftop pool we headed off to dinner. The night before, we were scolded at one restaurant for asking to split a dinner (”It’s just not possi-ble!!”) and ended up at a place down the street where we got the driest fish and rice and worst hamburger ever created. But last night we lucked out with the best dinner we have had on the trip thus far; Chel got salmon with a great champagne sauce, and I had chicken with cream sauce. Afterwards, chocolate mousse!

We pondered our good fortune and wondered how our luck had so dramatically changed in the course of a day. I concluded that it was because we took the bad things that had happened before in stride.

It would have been easy to get upset when the air conditioner went out at our first hotel and things weren’t “just so,” or cranky when we were chided for wanting to split a meal, or despondent when my glasses washed away with the tide — but we didn’t. We left ourselves open to what was in store, and were richly blessed because of it.

Today after some time at the beach (sans glasses, don’t worry!), we are off to Italy. From here, who knows what’s possible!