We decided to leave Nice early for a number of reasons. I found out this area gets covered in yellow pollen from the pine trees the second week in March through mid-April, or longer. This was the worst type of pollen for both Cradoc. I tried to research the pollen situation in the south of France before we decided to come here, but I couldn’t find out anything. The American English library in Nice puts out a magazine every other month and I found this in it:
“The Cote d’Azur…one of Europe’s worst areas for hay fever. About one in three inhabitants of France suffers from what’s called here rhume des foins. There is a significant amount of pollen in the air for some eleven months of the year. There’s a brief truce from mid-December to mid-January…”
The truce time was over. The sneezing had begun. The time had come to change the return date of our airline ticket. During the process we got a small taste of French bureaucracy thrown in.
The first leg of our journey back home was on Swiss Air through Zurich. After eight phone calls to various American Airlines (where we purchased our ticket from) agents in the U.S. one was able to get Swiss Air to agree to change our paper tickets for us at their counter in Nice. Since American didn’t have a counter in Nice I would’ve had to have flown to Zurich to do this otherwise. The agent assured me everything was taken care of. Not to worry.
Since the employees we were dealing with at Swiss Air were French I worried. The French did have a way of complicating things.
Cradoc and I went to the airport the next day. At the Swiss Air counter the agent, Martine said, “I am unable to change your ticket for you. American has put into their system the change confirmation number but nothing in writing saying it is alright for Swiss Air to change the date on the ticket itself. You need to go and call American again and have them Telex or fax something in writing to me before I can make the change.”
So began a long afternoon of phone calls to Swiss Air and American Airlines. Here’s a summary of the various calls:
Swiss Air:
“This is not allowed. There is no way Swiss Air can change an American ticket. This is against the law.”
“Since you say American was able to get Swiss Air to make an exception to the way things are done we must know the name of the person at American and who they spoke with at Swiss Air. Without this information I can do nothing for you.”
“There are rules and regulations that govern international air flight. We are not allowed to touch the tickets of another airline. You can not fly on this new date with your old ticket. You’ll have to go to your own airlines desk to make the changes and there is none in Nice. The closest would be in Paris or Zurich.”
American Airlines:
“All you need is the authorization code that we gave you. I’ve no idea what more they want from us. It can be very hard to change a ticket with Swiss Air.”
“We don’t telex or fax anything. What is their problem?”
“We do this all the time. I don’t’ know what the problem is with them. Its difficult getting the Swiss to do this, especially since we are not partners anymore.”
“We’ve been doing it this way for years. I don’t know what they are talking about.”
Cradoc finally got an agent on the phone at American who sounded like a supervisor, or at least someone who cared about their job. After fifteen minutes on hold she said, “Ok, you should be all set, I added a note onto the Swiss Air system and put in writing that it is ok for them to change the date on your paper ticket.”
I called Swiss Air and got an agent who reluctantly told me that the American notes were now in their system and everything should be ok (everyone kept adding the word “should” to their statements). Then the agent had one closing line, “But the person did not sign with their name and the agent at the airport will need the name of this person and will need to call her for approval.” I said that we had the person’s name but it was a call center and there was no way to get back to the same person twice. He said, “This may be a problem.”
Armed with my tickets, a pile of notes, and our passports I headed back to the airport. Martine was gone for the day. I said to the new agent, “I was here this morning and you now have everything you need in your system to change the date on my paper ticket.”
She looked in her system and for two minutes stared at the computer and didn’t say or do anything. I’d read enough about France to know this was the moment that it was being decided whether you would be successful with your request or not. I stayed silent with all my fingers crossed. She reached for the magic stickers that would be stuck on my tickets with the new departure date. But just as she took one off the sheet, another agent asked her if she was sure she had everything she needed to authorize the change? Again I was silent, held my breath, while the agent read out loud the note that American added to the system. There were a few more moments of silence while this other agent decided my fate. “Yes,” she said. “That sounds ok.” I nearly burst out with cheers, but simply watched the magic stickers get stuck on our tickets.
I mentioned how windy it was outside to the agent. She said it was bad for her because she had allergies. “Ah, me too. The wind is bad for me. That is why we have to leave early. I thought there wasn’t much wind on the Cote d’Azur. Is it usually windy here?”
“Oh yes, it can be. We have three types of wind that can arrive. One is the south easterly wind called Sirocco or Marin. They come in from Sahara Desert in Africa and usually there is a red sand and dust that comes with them. It usually brings rain that is red from the sand. Everything gets covered with a brown/red stain. The streets and everything are very dirty when this happens. It’s very unpleasant. They are worst in the spring, especially March, and should start soon.
Then we have the Mistral winds that blow in from the north. The sky is usually blue but it brings much colder temperatures. It is said that the Mistral’s usually last 3, 6 or 9 days. These are not the worst winds for us since we have the mountains behind us, but sometimes they come around the mountains from the west. These happen mostly in the winter. (I have since read that the Mistral can blow for up one hundred and fifty days a year, up to 100 mph.)
But the agent wasn’t quite done with her explanation yet. “We also have the Tramontana winds that blow in from the northeast across Italy. These usually bring rain, but milder temperatures. The winds can come anytime and this year has been very strange, a very mild winter with no rain. It can get very bad here for anyone with allergies.”
The agent finished putting the stickers on all the pages of our paper tickets. She stamped them in some official machine and voila, it was done. She handed me the tickets. I told her how much I appreciated what she did and how it saved me a trip to Zurich. “Oh, pas de probleme. C’est normal.” (Oh no problem, it’s normal).
So much for being protected from the winds and my dream of a sunny, mild, windless, allergy free winter on the Cote D’Azur.
Visiting a city for a few days was different than thinking of making a home there.
You had to live in a place for a while, or find the right websites, to find out details like this. It certainly was not on the tourist office’s website. There was an appeal to the Cote d’Azur; we were just there at the wrong time of year. It was too wintery to want to spend all day out exploring, although things changed in April. Cradoc’s take on Nice in the winter: “It was like spending the winter in Indianapolis with a beach.”
The search for home continues…
