Perfect days must have originated in Nice. It is so perfect here that I feel the imperfections keenly. To enjoy this place to the fullest I’d have to be a civilian. The orders on which I came say that I am to courier material down and take photographs. So this morning I set out to take some. The doughboy on leave is a study. But he is an interior study. He is always inside the Y.M.C.A. I am our for little human interest touches and things the other unit may overlook. I’m not trying to do the place. I got a few.
This afternoon I went for a long walk all around town and up some of the hills above with Sgt. Gross, of the photo nit. It is all very picturesque and southlike.
Nice has some beautiful hotels. American soldiers live in the 7 days without paying a cent. The gov’t pays them at the rate of 12/16 francs a day for each soldier. I believe Nice can accommodate about 3000, and it must be full now. I am at the Atlantic, which is a 2nd class house, near the ocean. The meals are fine, and the comfort good. I have moved my room again, to a small one this time but large enough to sleep in and very clean. I’m alone in it. Of course I pay for all this, but get the money back when I return.
Nice is on a bay called “Baie des Anges”. I think the angels must find it an improvement over heaven. Surely there is no water as blue as this in the celestial regions.
It is a heaven for shoppers too. The windows are uniformly more interesting, artistic, varied and expensive than in Paris. One would have to be flat broke or stone blind to resist. My sight is still good.
A leave area would be nothing without a Y. Here they have taken over the casino called La Jetee, which is built over the water, at the main point on the chief promenade. It is a pretentious place in its Gallic way, and abounds in domes with minarets and colors. Inside it has about six magnificent halls with beautiful chandeliers and glass walls.
One hall is a reading and lecture room, another a writing room. A third is used for dancing, and afternoons and evenings the boys can have American dancing music and partners. In another is a canteen that sells smokes and candy; a light-lunch counter and a billiard room. There is also a large theater hall where they have vaudeville and movies.
Never before have I seen a place where the women are so uniformly good looking. The south makes beauties out of ordinary children, and does it early. But I fear it spoils them early, too. One of the most remarkable things about Nice is the kind of people one sees. They all look like real folks – honest-to-goodness people, which is so different from the rest of France. One wants to know them all.
You never can tell when you pass a person whether he’ll be speaking French, English, Italian, Russian or Spanish. All of these languages are current, and in about that order. All the natives speak and understand English.
Orange, olive, palm, cypress and acacia trees line the streets and fill the gardens. There are many magnificent villas set in delightful grounds. Most of the buildings are glaring white and the roads are white rock. I have never seen as clean a place.
These are just a few wandering, not to say rambling, impressions, but they may serve to show you that life in the army isn’t so bad.
Next post March 22.
Letters from Sidney Friend During The Great War 