Now that we have that figured out.
Recently a friend of mine posted some photos of her trip to Nice. It's a big birthday for her and so she and her husband headed across the channel to France. It got me thinking about how different my time in Nice was. Then it got me trying to remember about my time in Nice.
The trip to Nice was for Senior Skip Day. I do realize that most people I know did not have a European destination option for their senior skip day - I was fortunate. And honestly, I don't even remember how we came up with the idea to go to Nice.
But before we left in the middle of the night for Nice we had to first do our assignments for Senior Skip Day.
Traditionally the Seniors play pranks on the other students and faculty. And our senior class was no different. We had several meetings before hand to discuss options. Then we split out into groups who had a plan for what they were going to do. None of it was overly coordinated. The goal was to prank as best we could so we wouldn't be forgotten. Turned out some seniors did exactly that.
One group of boys decided it'd be fun to take all the furniture out of a the buildings we attend class in and put said furniture into the empty pool by that building. Our class paid for that...financially...for the damages.
My "team" consisted of my roommates and one other friend who we called "Judge" (To this day I have no idea why we called her "Judge"). Our goal was to TP the dorm. And TP we did.
Once we did our part we headed to the train station for our train. I have zero recollection how we go there in the middle of the night, but we did and our train showed up. We had to change trains somewhere and we sat in the train station for an hour or so. We were tired because we had been up all night, but excited to be out and about on what may be our last travel adventure for a while.
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| Judge and I waiting for our second train |
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| Rachel and Judge |
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| Random train station. I sure wish I remembered where this was. |
We made it to Nice and as I recall we walked forever to find our hotel. Judge was the one who spoke French so she had made all the reservations and worked the conversations. It was early in the morning and the front desk wasn't quite open yet. We waited on the steps for a bit until the receptionist finally showed up.
It was too early to officially check in, but that wasn't our problem. The problem was they claimed to not have a reservation for us. While I panicked and worried about sleeping on the beach, Judge put on her best "mom" voice and demanded a room. I didn't know she had it in her, but she was in the zone and wasn't taking the disrespect she was getting from this French woman.
Eventually Judge won and we had a room. And don't you know it was available immediately. We drug our luggage up the stairs to a VERY small room with the bathroom down the hall. We dropped our bags and took a nap.
The memory is fading a bit with what we actually did in Nice. I do remember we walked and walked and walked. That's what you do in Europe. And 18 year old Jenn was in much better shape.
I remember none of the meals we had and I have no photos of them. We didn't waste film on food back then. And I have lost track of Judge and Rachel so they can't fill in the blanks.
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Sometime during the next day we found ourselves walking along the famous pebble beach of Nice. It was later in the afternoon and the weather was perfect. We walked out to the water and commented on how uncomfortable the pebbles were between our toes. It just doesn't have the same impact as soft sand. I mean it has an impact, but not a comfortable one.
Then I spotted the volleyball game. There were a group of men trying to get another to play so they'd have a 3 on 3 match going. I walked up and asked if I could play a game. The 5 men looked between themselves speaking French and then one of them turned to me and said in decent English "Girls don't play volleyball."
Humph! This girl did and she wanted to prove to them she could hold her own. Now to be fair I didn't know if theses men were superstar volleyball players (I thought maybe not) and I didn't know if the rules were the same as I knew. Still, I simply asked in my sweetest voice ever for just one game. It would mean so much to me...blah blah blah.
They reluctantly let me play. I was on team speedo with the man who thought girls didn't play volleyball. Lucky me. He could keep the ball away from me if he wanted, but I had to at least serve. And wouldn't you know it, my first serve was a rocket and got us a point. I only remember that because speedo turned to look at me with a bit of surprise in his face (at least that's how I remembered it).
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| May be my killer serve. May be the one that went in to the net. |
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| Mr. Speedo. |
I really wished I remembered more about this trip, but alas it was over 35 years ago. I might have a journal somewhere with details, but for now, this is all I remember. We left in the middle of the night on a Friday. Stayed in Nice for Saturday and came back to Lugano in the middle of the night on Saturday night. I think I slept all day on Sunday.
Upon our return to school the stories of other Senior Skip Days started being told. Ours was VERY tame by comparison to most.
The one remaining indication that it had been Senior Skip Day was the painted '87 on the grassy hill.
The ultimate outcome of Senior Skip day was a memory of Nice that I'll keep with me. The fun of the pranks. The meeting with the headmaster after we all returned. The discipline we all took - detention for the weekend. No one ever giving up WHO put the furniture in the pool, though we all knew. We had all agreed to go into Skip day as one unit and deal with any of the consequences related to it (within reason).
On my recent trip back to TASIS I told Janet the story of skip day. The grassy hill with '87 on it is no longer there. Replaced by a basketball course. The dorm with the furniture and pool, gone as well - replaced with a newer, fancier dorm. Regardless, the feel of the place and the memory of our last act as Seniors will always be with me. Well, most of it is.
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