After the preparation mentioned in my previous post, today I was finally able to tackle painting my entry. Above is the nearly-finished product!

There is still more to do. The entry was done oddly by the previous owners, leaving a strange section to fill in above the WC door. I also need to get better-quality paint brushes in order to finish smaller areas where a roller won’t work. The cheap brushes I had worked all right for the primer, but left enough marks that I’d rather wait to buy nicer ones before putting on the finishing blue coat.

I’m very happy with how the main wall looks now. To think, it used to look like this: entry in May 2009, before I’d started removing tile and the textured paint. The main wall looked like this with the textured paint off.

I also went to the port yesterday, going on foot along the Promenade. Unbeknownst to me, there was a show of cars for the Jean Behra rally, so I was glad I had walked rather than taking the bus.

Nice’s port is lined by colorful buildings and all types of boats can be found there, from cruise ships to NGV (high-speed boats to Corsica) to ostentatious yachts licensed to ports such as Nassau, Cayman Islands and London, to a lineup of school sailboats to small wooden boats painted every color of the rainbow. The two in the closeup here are shown from further away in this picture. I also liked this lavender and bright turquoise boat, as well as the funnily-named M’en bati. In Nice there’s a saying, “m’en bati, sieu Nissart” — “I don’t give a flip, I’m Niçois”, joking with Nice’s strong sense of individuality. Nice was not part of France until 1860, and even that cession was — and still is — strongly debated. Although it’s extremely doubtful that Nice’s inhabitants would ever actually declare their independence, the idea is discussed, and to this nine-year resident’s ears, often seems more like an affirmation of their uniqueness than a true call for secession. (In that sense it is much like Pacific Northwesterners griping about similar issues — see the “Free Cascadia” icon in my sidebar!)