Being a host in Nice, Cote d'Azur, France. Read about my ideas about the hospitality business.

Spring has finally come to Nice!　　　
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The Vélobleu has come to Nice!　
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From Nice to the Country Side　　　　
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A Day Out (Sospel)　　　

Une si jolie petite plage　　　

Revisiting Boccadasse　　　

Monaco　　　

Haut de Cagnes (Cagnes sur Mer)　　　

A Visit to Ceriana　　　

Antibes in Winter

Being partly Indonesian (my grandmother was a Javanese woman with a French, Portuguese and Spanish background) I think it's in my blood. I love to be a host, I love to cook, I love to serve to make people happy. Another side of that inheritance (probably) is that I want respect, otherwise I can't do it. Don't make me think that you're doing me a favour by making me run for you, because that's when I say fuck it and that's it. Period.
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The other day a guy from New York dropped me an email and he wanted me to look after his apartment in Nice. The whole shabang, meet & greet, cleaning the place, repairing shit, being the contact person, keeping an eye on the bookings calender, whatever.
Now I don't mind that people expect me to clean their toilets and shit, now matter how high up I was in the Ministry of Justice before I retired, but I expect them to treat me as an equal, and they bloody well can expect that I will treat them as an equal. You can't do that? Then fuck off, and that's what I told the guy.
He was flabbergasted and said we wouldn't get many clients this way. I said, "Who gives a shit", and meant it from the bottom of my heart. Sure we want money for our services, I wasn't made with a finger, you know? But we're not in this thing for the money, however nice it is, we're in it to please people and give them a good time. If you can't understand that, if you can't understand that that's the way we think, you don't understand this business at all.
By the way -- it is called the hospitality business.
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Ever since I was a young child I spent a great deal of my time in the kitchen of my (partly) Indonesian family. I watched and tasted and started to cook myself. Very rewarding.　
From my 12th to my 14th I took care of an aunt, a sister to my grandmother. After she died I travelled the world and I became a professional chef, at first in Chinese restaurants, later in classy joints, and I ended my career as a professional cook as a head chef on cruise ships, huge traditional tall ships, with a special kind of passengers: the kind that don't mind paying a lot of money for a lot of (their own) hard work.
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When I was in my twenties, I went to university and studied all kinds of shit, because I had worked with hardcore heroin junkies in Black Harlem, New York for four and a half months and the Ministry of Justice in Holland needed a guy like me to set up accessible institutions for addicts in the major cities, and that's what I did, while I was studying criminal law, criminology, psychology, psychopathology, sociology, and all that shit.
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So as my career was flourishing, and I was busy studying, I kept cooking every day, for my family. It was the least I could do for them, and I loved doing it, because they appreciated it so much. I still cook, every day, and I love to receive good friends for dinner. It still is very rewarding.
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And now I'm retired at the age of 57, I have decided to bundle my hospitality experiences and my organisational skills, and start a Property Management business. Fortunately Jean, my lovely partner, has got the "hospitality blood" too (she and I have been thinking of starting a Bread & Breakfast in Nice), so we're a perfect match.　
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A perfect match. That's what our clients and we need to be, otherwise it's a big no no. Mutual trust, equality, friendship, that should be the basis of the relationship between our clients and us, and if that's not possible, then fuck it. We don't need no shit.
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So this column gives you an idea of what you can expect from us. You can take it or leave it. If you take it, you're welcome! And I really mean that. No shit.
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Jack Vanderwyk,
Bellevue Holiday Rentals
Nice, France.

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