A message from on high

Yesterday I mentioned that you always have to watch your step when walking around Nice because there is dog poop everywhere. I also told you that my friend Carrie says that you haven’t experienced Nice until you’ve stepped in dog poop. These past couple weeks I’ve kept my eyes peeled, scouring the ground in front of me to avoid the inevitable. Well it looks like staying vigilant just got a whole lot more difficult. Not only am I supposed to look at the ground, but apparently I also need to keep an eye on the sky!

Today I got pooped on by a pigeon.  I know that’s supposed to be good luck, but walking around town with bird poop dribbling down your "party cardie" just doesn’t feel very lucky. Fortunately I made it home just in time to throw the sweater into a load of laundry…wait a minute? Was that my “luck"??? Because if I hadn’t been pooped on in the first place, I wouldn’t have needed the luck at all. 

This is me with my dad in 2006, holding a pigeon. One would think that if you're gonna get pooped on, this would be the time. Instead they catch me 5 years later walking to the beach for a group picnic.

The sad thing is that this is not the first time I’ve been bird bombed…pigeon bombed, to be precise. When I was au pairing in Italy in 2005-2006 the mother and I brought the kids over to Nice for a long weekend in spring. We took the train and just as we were walking out of the station I got pooped on with a baby in my arms, but not baby poop. Pigeon poop. It was kind of like my “Welcome to France!” And it was here in Nice, just a few blocks away from where it happened again today. Is there something about these particular birds? Why are they dead set on showering me with a lucky inaugural poo? I don’t remember anything particularly “lucky” happening after the first attack, but I’m going to insist that getting bird bombed means I am  “experiencing Nice."