Blogs from Cannes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France, Europe - page 4

When a girl finds herself far away from home, in a foreign land, without a car, facing a long bus ride into town, and laden with nearly 500 euro and many heavy pounds worth of bedspreads, sheets, towels and bath mats, what is she to do? Simple: call upon the most contentious yet quintessential of all lessons garnered from her favorite childhood stories. Quickly set out to find herself a Knight in Shining Armor. Or, at the very least, a guy with a car. Today I returned to the illustrious Zone Industrie on the outskirts of Cannes to finish the mattress-shopping project I had started, and to purchase bed frames for the new mattresses. I went right after class ended, and thus landed along the roadside, amongst all these huge warehouses, smack-dab in the middle of ... read more

Today was my first day of school. Last night I carefully laid out just the right outfit, set aside my school supplies and packed my bag with the days essentials. OK, not quite. But it was kind of fun to get up and go to school again after all these years. I signed on for a French Intensive class at the College International de Cannes. The price is exorbitant (300 euros for one week of class) and the location not exactly ideal (a good 45-minute walk from the apartment) but I justified the cost by thinking of it as an investment in my language studies, and recognizing that I needed to do SOMETHING productive with myself while here in Cannes. I can't spend the next 10 days napping, sitting on the balcony and jogging along the ... read more

A short drive to 'la Croisette' in glamorous Cannes, where we have time to admire the yachts in the marina and go celebrity spotting! We'll see the Film Festival Centre before re-joining the highway to drive through Provençal landscapes reminiscent of Van Gogh paintings. Then on past the Camargue National Park and to the border with Spain. We cross over the foothills of the Pyrenees and are soon in the region of Spanish Catalonia. Past olive groves and vineyards we approach the 'avant-garde' city of Barcelona - a cosmopolitan port on the Mediterranean. This was a long day of driving. I slept on the bus most of the way. We stopped for bathroom breaks and lunch at a truck stop. We did arrive in the evening in Barcelona.... read more

Cannes: Cannes feels sort of like Los Angeles ( California ) with palm trees, sandy beaches, and extravagant cars with a Newport Beach chaser of multi-million dollar yaughts. Being from California, I quickly realized how the Mediterranean has influenced everything Californian. I had noticed this first in Spain , but the influences are throughout the Med. The only thing clearly better in California is dance music, vegetarian food, and Mexican food. The French school Americans in just about everything else. The USA is also better for shopping selection, prices, and electronics choices. People seem skinnier in Europe in general and everyone in France seems to speak a little English. You don’t need a car in Europe and sidewalk cafes and designer shops are much more charming than mall-living in most of the US , though you ... read more

The end has come of my time in Cannes. I packed today and I will leave tomorrow night. It's been a great trip, I've met a lot of cool people and been able to visit a lot of places! The film festival was a really cool experience. I saw a total of eight movies. They were all very different, and honestly I would only see a couple of them a second time. My favorite was "La Silence de Lorna" which was from the same directors as "L'enfant" which won the Palm D'Or a couple years ago. I wasn't able to see the one that won this year, hopefully I will in the future once it's released. I went to a movie on the beach one night, that was fun. We saw "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" ... read more