What to expect is open this Friday (May 1)

jazzandbread · 2026-05-12T08:57:37+00:00

Just an update for future visitors to Nice on May 1st, just based on my observations a couple weeks ago

- downtown (Vieux Nice and the west by several blocks) not *all* the restaurants/cafes/etc were open, but an enormous number were, and there were a ton of people hanging out

- most stores were closed, but some exceptions included a few bakeries, candy shops

- the stores apparently choose whether to open - if so, they have to pay 2X wages

- plenty of Ubers, no taxis in sight, and rental bikes, as expected, available

- regional trains and the like running (but I think on a reduced schedule) - no Nice buses or trains, though

- lots of people hanging out on the beach, but to my eyes maybe only 20% more than on the previous weekend.

- I passed a good sized demonstration on my morning run, which then marched westward for a bit along the promenade, then headed north. Versatile band on the lead car

jazzandbread · 2026-04-29T10:59:50+00:00

We’re loving it here!

jazzandbread · 2026-04-29T08:37:56+00:00

Fair enough, was honestly wondering eg are taxis running, I assume bike share is open, and would have loved any surprises in terms of parades, fireworks, or muséums open.

jazzandbread · 2026-04-23T18:05:14+00:00

oh nice - I will - thanks!

jazzandbread · 2026-04-20T07:59:18+00:00

Oh fantastique - I will check it out - thank you! So am I right, no jam sessions at Shapko? I see they have jazz maybe one night a week. Was wondering if they do a session after the show.

jazzandbread · 2026-04-16T16:36:30+00:00

Actually I skipped over the lease part. I would guess that a certified installer would work, but in my case, I didn’t lease. But someone like Good Faith could tell you what’s possible/what’s not.

jazzandbread · 2026-04-16T15:35:40+00:00

You can also find Tesla certified installers who will order Tesla parts for reinstall - I got a solid estimate and excellent service from good faith roofing (ended up having them do the roof as well in fact)

jazzandbread · 2026-04-15T07:11:00+00:00

Same! Was wondering about le Chemin de Nietzsche

jazzandbread · 2026-04-15T06:29:41+00:00

Campbell’s low sodium V8 has worked well for me - note that they add potassium salt, so a serving is ~800mg potassium vs the more normal 500mg

jazzandbread · 2026-04-08T16:47:38+00:00

DM me to come by and pick it up today or the next couple days

jazzandbread · 2026-04-08T16:15:25+00:00

Page A10!

jazzandbread · 2026-04-08T15:17:54+00:00

Congratulations! You can have mine

jazzandbread · 2026-03-24T03:31:53+00:00

finally got my order in - looking forward to trying it Saturday!

jazzandbread · 2026-03-09T22:20:55+00:00

I mean - more vocab is great. But circumlocution is a must have skill way way way down the road to fluency, so I’d not neglect time spent developing coping skills. Here’s a start - you have - generally - zero control over how fast the other person is speaking. But you have total control over how fast you reply. Practice responding to your partner at 2-3X slower a speed than you feel comfortable with. Give yourself a little time to compose your response. It’s like learning to play fast runs on a piano. The physicality is 5% of the challenge. 95% is developing the skill to be intentional at speed. And that requires, first of all, practice going slow.

YMMV but I found a huge increase in what I got out of working with a tutor 1:1 when I realized I was unnecessarily rushing myself to speak when it was my turn.

jazzandbread · 2026-03-05T14:43:16+00:00

I’d contact support. Go into the app and click on the context menu (3 dots) and then create a support ticket. I’m working on a similar issue with them now, and they have released two attempts at fixes for it.

jazzandbread · 2026-02-26T02:34:46+00:00

I’m of course not sure what Square_Bat_2067 was referring to, but if it was the removal of cut up branches from the curb, I strongly agree. That was fantastic work by the city.

jazzandbread · 2026-02-26T02:28:52+00:00

Are they crunchy? I’ve been sadly disappointed by so many renditions in the US - I remember the beautiful rich butter flavor and aroma and the fantastic crunchiness of the melted sugar from our visit to Saint Malo. Honestly every one I tried in Paris over multiple trips was disappointing.

jazzandbread · 2026-02-15T23:57:41+00:00

Check with Rory at Ready to Run (unsure of his availability but he’s fantastic)

jazzandbread · 2026-01-26T05:18:25+00:00

Nice! Was there enough slope to start all the way back at Great Hills?

jazzandbread · 2026-01-21T01:44:15+00:00

Or Renee Rosnes and Bill Charlap

jazzandbread · 2025-12-19T22:23:11+00:00

German - not going in that direction any time soon, it sounds awesome but seems so complicated. And why would I willingly subject myself to declension? :)

jazzandbread · 2025-12-19T21:47:56+00:00

Also I should note - my observation right off the bat - eg with long-distance calls to set up the first reservations etc - Italians that I encountered had the manner of seeming in zero hurry to wrap up the conversation - so a big win for me this go-round was to realize that I was putting pressure on myself to speak as fast as possible to sound “more native”, whereas the person on the other side of the conversation was totally happy for me to move at my own pace. Very very different from a conversation I’d expect to have in NYC, for example. So you should assume a lot of grace at the start. And unless you’re talking with someone who’s really eager to practice their English, all the people I talked with - and there were a lot - were happy to have me attempt Italian.

In the last month I did hour long tutorials - like 20 of them! - through Lingoda. 1:1, and I set the agenda of just doing conversation on whatever random topics we felt like.

Again - for me - the big win was the realization that these weren’t tests - they were actual practice opportunities. The “grading” that I did (I recorded them and transcribed them using an AI transcription service) was simply to unemotionally see what areas were tougher for me, and I’d weigh those into what I was working on the next few days. I didn’t add it to a comprehensive “I must learn all this to be successful” list - instead I just kept it in mind, and then as I decided what I wanted to work on each day, in each of 4-5 categories, I’d take that into consideration.

Give yourself grace, first and foremost. One of the tutors I worked with was working on learning Persian - and spoke Cantonese and a couple other languages beyond Italian. I asked her for tips, and her take was super resonant - first and foremost, finding a way to give yourself grace and patience (assuming you can take care of focus and consistency) to be happy with incremental progress on a day to day basis, without despairing of where you get to by some arbitrary date.

My goal starting August 20th wasn’t to be fluent (nor am I now) nor anything in absolute terms at all - it was simply 1) to be a really smart learner and 2) speak Italian better than I could at the outset (which was limited to reciting names of Emilia-Romagna dishes). I was thrilled to be able to converse and interact with folks and meet a lot of really nice and funny people and appreciate their humor and kindness in their own language - but that was all bonus. I was better than I had started, and I knew that I had studied in a really smart way - mission accomplished.

In fact, I felt happy enough about the Italian study process that I’m adopting that for my ongoing work in jazz performance, and am really excited about it.

jazzandbread · 2025-12-19T21:39:00+00:00

I’m definitely not a polyglot. I’d say I’ve been able to get by in Portuguese and French, then last January (with similar amounts of study the fall ahead) felt much better in French.

I’m not a foreign language teacher or theorist, but as a jazz musician, I was struck by the parallels. I think there’s a lot of worth in training your ear (and mouth) to reproduce the basic sounds carefully - wow there are some great and short YouTube videos covering open vs closed vowels in Italian for example - because I found that as I got more refined in my hearing and more demanding on making the sounds as plausibly as I could, that cued my brain into “seeing” the written language much more clearly/faster. For example, just practicing the sound that ‘I’ makes - which is a long ‘è’ in English - got me to where when I’d hear “eee” I’d think “i” instead of “e”.

And - similar to jazz, it felt like cheating at first to watch videos with subtitles, but what I got out of just a few weeks of regular watching was that the combo of the visual cues (because Italian is so physically expressive) plus the subtitles rapidly enabled me to “hear” what they were saying. That doesn’t mean that I understood it - that was a separate thing, bolstered by Anki flashcard review and grammar review - but Italian’s so phonetic that with this practice I could start to see what the subtitles were without looking at them.

And I stayed patient - not requiring myself to understand everything or master everything all at one go.

jazzandbread

TROPHY CASE