Stonehenge, Bath, and the Bod

I feel like a lot of what happened on Saturday can be covered by looking at my photo albums (picasaweb.google.com/elmorelt), but for the sake of refreshing my own memory I'll rehash a few things here. Whoever tells you that Stonehenge is intriguing and/or breathtaking is probably high. It is mysterious indeed that people thousands of years ago wanted to drag these 4 ton stones into the middle of nowhere, but after hearing about/seeing Stonehenge in so many history books and films seeing it in person didn't do anything new for me. You don't even get to "get up close and personal" (as one UGA student put it) with it anymore! It was a cold morning, so most of us took a few funny pictures with the rocks to lighten the mood and generally scurried past most of the numbers posted on the ground that guided our audio tour. If even a historical society can't make heads or tails of Stonehenge, I figure it is best left a mystery.

We drove another hour to see Bath, the town which houses England's only natural hot spring. Jane Austen lived in Bath for a few years, so I was ready to get a bit more into her mindframe as several of us set out for the Jane Austen Centre in a northern area of town. We could see how Bath was a fashionable social center as we walked up rows and rows of shops (including The Disney Store?), and the fancy clothes/small rooms/traffic around the residential streets made Bath for me as well as for Ms. Austen a fun place to visit but nowhere to dream of living. The Centre was pretty small, with only a few decorated rooms, a costume exhibit, and a tea room that we didn't have time to visit, but I am pretty glad that we went. The girl who gave a small talk on the Austen family's time in Bath was enthusiastic in a nerdy but cute way, so I could envision myself having a job like hers if I lived in Bath. Since we were in the neighborhood anyway, we passed through the townhomes known as The Circus and the Royal Crescent--the huge scale of the architecture was overwhelming the the best of ways, and I could have sat on the sprawling grass park in front of the Crescent just people-watching for the rest of the day.

Eventually we did amble back to the center of town, and, upon the advice of a passing group of fellow UGA students, we coughed up the 9 pounds apiece to go in the Roman Baths. Money well spent! I laughed about the balmy atmosphere around the percolating, green pool reminding me of home in Georgia, and even though we were not allowed to bathe we enjoyed taking pictures from all possible angles, listening to the fun/fact-filled tour over the "audio wands" (much cooler than their Stonehenge counterparts), and imagining what the largely unexcavated ruins must have looked like in their prime. We skittered in and out of the abbey next door before we had to return to the bus; the hodge-podge of family crests and tombstones dotting the floors and the walls of the old building made a neat contrast with the vaulted ceilings and hundreds of stained glass windows above. There even was a modern evening service going on during our tour! With what I've seen of England so far, I am constantly impressed by the attitude of renovating and reappropriating history--as weird as it might look to tour the baths with a glorified walkie-talkie, or to sit in a Victorian house typing on a computer, you can never ignore the wonderful history of this place.

We took a bit of downtime once we got back to Oxford (I had to lay down, since even sitting has aggravated what feels like an arthritic hip I've gotten from walking so much!), but then several of us decided to hunt for the elusive Turf Tavern. We found it with little difficulty, but we arrived just after they had stopped serving food at 7:30 and I split off with the group that went in search for supper. We saw a sign for "excellent food" on the side of the King's Arms, a pub on the corner of Broad Street across from the library buildings, and, having eaten two bowls of cereal earlier, I had just to sit and be jealous of my friends' "veg lasagne" and "bangers & mash." I enjoyed my cider with the best of them as we relaxed and chatted along one of the pub's long, wooden tables, and, despite having chugged the last third of my drink on a dare, I think I'll enjoy pub culture in the nonchalant Oxford student way instead of in the debauched Georgia student way for the rest of the trip.

Sunday was our first breather of the trip, even though we ended up walking over a lot of the city again. I cleaned up my room and read most of the morning, and by 2 or so in the afternoon Sarah, Carly, and I wandered into Summertown for coffee and groceries so that we could meet Julianne, Kao, and David in the City Centre to seek the Krispy Kreme soon thereafter. Sarah and I got to Cornmarket Street after idling in the UGA house's backyard for a bit (while she, Carly, and Zach smoked, I looked around the back fence and found a peartree! It's like the Oxford equivalent of the peachtree, since lots of streets are named after the trees but few are actually inside the city), and soon enough we had indeed found the Krispy Kreme in the castle ("Kastle"?). Their hot doughnut machine was broken, but we all enjoyed some of the baked doughnuts and didn't mind having to make plans to return for the real deal very soon.

Dinner at the UGA house was fun and crazy as we tried to cram all 30 program members/staff/families into the dining room for pasta. It took everyone to get enough chairs into the room and enough dishes washed afterwards, but it was neat to see everyone in one place. Dr. Bradshaw, the professor for one of the first seminars and the organizer of all of our tutorials for the trimester, visited and gave a very funny speech inspired by a cat he saw in the backyard. The night was pretty quiet after that, and I tried to get ahead in some of my reading for Dr. Eberle's class, but I had a bit of a scare when I apparently got stung by some insect that had wandered into the library. My ankle swelled incredibly, similar to the infamous "tater toe" incident, and I got a bit lightheaded. Even though I eventually found Gabriel, who gave me some Benadryl, I was a bit shaken. I have to be looking out for myself here! Thankfully Benadryl knocks me out pretty quickly, so I couldn't sit up and fret about it for too long.

To be continued (5:40 p.m.)...

(11:40 p.m. 9/11/07) Or not, I guess! It's been a fun but busy day--going to two seminars, reading, and of course the long walks to and from Keble--so I'll try to get in an update tomorrow afternoon. Lots of love as ever from Oxford! --Lauren

New Shoes

The group flight from Atlanta to London-Gatwick airport was pretty pleasant. I met about 8 of the people on the trip--Gily had the excellent idea of wearing her UGA at Oxford shirt, so I had no excuse to not sit near them and I think we all enjoyed have people to talk to during the 2.5 hours we had to wait for the plane after getting to the airport 3 hours early to be on the safe side of the long security lines. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep on the flight anyway, after two tries at 8+ hour flights this May and June, so I had resigned myself to watching the crappy inflight movies, but I soon learned that the 767 we were on, though being more cramped than I remembered, had personal TVs so we could pick our own movies! I rushed through Meet the Robinsons and Shrek 3 in my excitement. I then tried to sleep, then tried to sleep with my iPod on since I was bored, then tried to watch The Office. The lights snapped on at 1 am Georgia time (6 am England time), and I enjoyed my pre-packaged but oddly fresh/warm croissant (ah, the miracle of science) while I watched our approach to the island. I first thought "Wow, check out Ireland!", but realizing that the landmass I saw was way too narrow to be its own island/country I checked the map to see that we were flying over a bay between Wales and south England. England looks a lot like Iowa since so much of it is still organized in neat little packets of pasture and farmland, so I felt at home. But then it looked like there were no roads between all of farms! Apparently every English road has to be surrounded with bushes and trees (for privacy?), so I imagined roads where all of the neat lines of trees were.

Navigating the airport was not so pleasant. It's laid out as crappily as JFK in New York where you have to walk around in a circle almost to get to baggage claim. My knee was killing me after the cramped flight, and my carry-ons full of books already felt too heavy. Thankfully customs was very quick (I bungled my departure date a few times, but the agent must have realized it was too early to be asking anyone anything more than a yes/no questions). Baggage claim tested me a bit since my bags came out on a different belt that some of my fellow flight members and when I found them the bigger (read: 72 pound) one's handle was broken. I can't roll it properly anymore, and I found this out when I rolled over my toe and removed the top half of my toenail. I bled all the 2 hour bus ride to Oxford, but since several people had helped me with the bag crisis and since I discovered some bandaids in my backpack I felt cheery enough listening to Seu Jorge and The Shins in traffic.

Driving up Banbury Road only just prepared me for our awesome new house. We're in, apparently, the rich part of residential Oxford, surrounded by huge houses with huge gardens that must belong to some of the colleges or some of the people who named the colleges. We could tell we were home by the flaming red double doors, and inside we were treated to that wonderful "new house" smell. I am in a triple room at the front of the house (the one at the first landing), which was great yesterday because I could hardly stand dragging my bags up any more stairs and will be good for the whole stay here because of the wonderful view. I have the top bunk and the center desk in front of five bay-style windows that overlook the road; try as I might to capture this glory in a photo (which, by the way, can be found on my new photo website picasaweb.google.com/elmorelt), it is impossible to recreate. You'll just have to imagine me looking at it as I write this post. My roommates, Carly and Ashley, are both really nice (very accomodating, like me--we took a long time deciding who got which cabinets since none of us wanted to step on any toes), and we mostly filled the room to storage capacity as we unpacked.

The afternoon is a bit of a sleep-deprived blur for me at the moment. I know I set out to Summerville (a few blocks up Banbury Road from the UGA house--Oxford to Summerville is like Atlanta to "Midtown", only Summerville is LESS expensive) to get some more bandaids (or "plasters" in Britspeak), and I ended up meeting Laura and Carlye to go to Co-op for groceries (including Empire magazine!) and to this Lebanese restaurant for a cheap lunch of falafel. I stayed back a bit to get the milk that was too heavy to carry the whole way, and the evening sprawled into a weird stretch of unpacking and sitting around after I looked around a lot of campus with Sarah. Somehow I missed the boat on going to dinner with a lot of the group, but then I had time to find the two incredibly nice girls from Florida, Sara and the third Carly, to eat cereal in the amazing main kitchen (where I will probably cook tonight as soon as I can muster the strength to walk to the grocery store!). I passed out at 10 and woke up only to the sounds of Kurt banging on a pot to tell us we only had 10 minutes before we left for the tour of the Bodleian Library.

To be continued--5:20 p.m. Oxford time

7:00 p.m. Oxford time--Had to take a break, but after the last walk I can manage for the day and an awesome dinner from the grocery store of the gods (Marks & Spencer) I feel awesome.

So yeah, totally thought they were joking about wake-up today. I hadn't set my phone correctly, so the alarm went off at 9 and not 8. I have never dressed that fast in my life! It was so nice and cool out this morning, so the 20 minute walk to Broad Street was not that bad. The library, like most buildings in the college, was set behind one entryway to a quad, and we were ushered into a really severe looking room by a really nice looking lady. She explained to us that the room has been used by University government as well as British government--Parliament would occasionally be held there when things like the plague drove the court out of London. The ceilings were high and super-intricate, and family crests dotted most of the building, commemorating the nobles who donated to build the University. We didn't get a tour of the library like I expected because it took so long for all of us to get our cards and recite the Bodleian oath (to obey library rules, to not damage any books, and, most importantly, to not kindle flame in the building), but after a quick coffee break up the street we returned to take a tour of the campus.

We met our tour guide, Debbie, in the middle of a spat with a University official--some hawkish lady snapped at the folks who brought food into the *outdoor* quad, and Debbie fought with her a bit, continuing a vendetta she later said began when that lady had tried to plow into her tour group on a bicycle (the #1 weapon in Oxford, I'd say). Debbie claimed early on that she was different from most Brits ("because I have a sense of humor"), and she led a really fun, spontaneous tour through the City Centre. We saw a 300-year old tree, the beautiful chapel of Exeter College (where J. R. R. Tolkien and Philip Pullman studied), the Radcliffe Camera, and the most-exclusive All Souls College. We didn't see anyone walking on the quad behind their fence, but we were assured that, when they do, they float.

Several groups broke off to go shopping. Most peeled off to get cell phones (which Sarah and I did yesterday! So smart!), but Sarah and my roommate Carly and I went in search of bigger game. We found Gloucester Green, which is surrounded by a lot of neat-looking coffee shops and pubs, and eventually we asked someone and found Primark, a really cheap clothing and home goods store. I got towels there (yay for having to do the laundry less often, which is good because right now we can't get into the laundry shed...?), and at Boots on Cornmarket Street I loaded up on essentials (it's like Target and Ulta in one cosmetic-shopper's heaven). We looked through the edge of the covered market to get really cheap and delicious sandwiches for lunch (the one I went to was playing Paolo Nutini--old hat for Brits, I suppose, but I was enchanted), and I agonizingly trundled off the quickest route, looking for the poster shop (lame for dorm decorating, but good for souvenirs), before getting home.

Even though my legs really hurt from walking so much the past two days, I was already planning where else I wanted to go when I was walking home (yoga and video store in Summerville, for starters). I'm looking forward to having a bit of free time on Sunday to check things out, find my favorite coffee shop, etc. In retrospect, the Cannes trip was definitely a great prep for this longer stay abroad--I've gotten so self-reliant that I'm ready and willing to find the things I want to find, when I want to find them, to have fun, and I don't feel as much of the need to travel in big packs. It'll be good to have excursions, like the one we're going on tomorrow, and big classes for the first few weeks, but I can tell I'm really going to enjoy my "me time" here.

The evening's been pretty tame. Carly and I both agreed that a bit of time just to sit down was heavenly, so I took my time uploading pictures on the super fast Picasa and updating a bit of this journal before heading back out for dinner. Summerville is cheaper and, more importantly, closer than City Centre, so I got a small group to walk over to M & S to get some prepared meals. I had this awesome stuffed chicken and got some cereal for later whose ingredient label rivals the delicious Casino granola that I would eat five times a day in France. I think I'm going to grab a shower now while the house is pretty quiet--need to be ready for another early morning since we're going to Stonehenge and Bath tomorrow!

Oxfordshirt!

Say the title of this post without the "T" on the end and you'll be talking about where I'll be living for the next three months (Oxfordshire)! I'm actually wearing an Oxfordshirt right now--we got our first official UGA at Oxford togs at the orientation tonight, and even though it's long-sleeved and it's summer I'll just turn up the AC. I wanted to see how it looked on me, and the answer is: Pretty damned official.

I've been slaving away over my 20+ books for the whole summer post-Cannes, and with the number dwindled to 4 (totally manageable in, uh, thirteen days) I'm finally starting to anticipate the payoff. I actually got to hear a bit about Oxford today even before I went to the second orientation; I was catching up with Tolu at Jittery Joe's before I went up to Park Hall, and a nice girl overhead my Oxford chatter and came over to witness about her fun on the summer program! I totally get how a study abroad program can turn you into a missionary, since anyone who asks me about Cannes practically gets a Powerpoint presentation out of me, so I started to envision Oxford as an experience possibly as fun as France and then found it hard to just sit in my seat and not run around in excited circles.

I got super gross walking up to the Broad St bus stop with Tolu (and standing to chat with Bill, who I totally meant to bring the Transformers poster from my most recent Empire magazine), so I found one of the hidden Park Hall bathrooms like the savvy upperclassman I am and then settled into the big lecture hall with a lot of similarly uncomfortable-looking kids and their parents. I settled accounts with one of the program managers (whew, lots of money, but this time it was my dad's! rock on, Dad!) and got my T-shirt to fiddle with so I looked busy enough to not have to make awkward small talk with anyone (I know that's so awful, but when I've been out of school this long and only talk to my family--who get me--or my regular customers at the video store--who generally are cute/crazy old people--on a regular basis, I feel a little socially retarded). We got a virtual tour of our new home, full of lots of details. 1) No, it is not flooded. 2) You might just have an oven for a desk. 3) Laundry is free in the building (WTFBBQ?! After 8 euro loads in France, this was probably the best news I could have gotten all night). We also went over a rough itinerary--we'll probably be going to Stonehenge or Bath for our first group excursion, we get a full tour of the Bodleian library on our first day there, and once a week for the first four weeks a group of students will be responsible for making dinner for the rest of the house (and spending the 200 pounds allotted for it wisely)! I can definitely foresee six or eight batches of my eggplant curry if my housemates like spicy (aka awesome) food...

After two hours we were sent home with packets full of more info, like Dr. Trivedi's quirky review of all things gourmet in Oxford, Dr. Pfile's file of nearby grocery stores/ATMs/bookstores, and an overeager/probably student-compiled rundown of the Oxford bar scene. I think a lot of kids and parents still had some questions, or felt nervous about 12 weeks away from home in a strange environment, but I left ready to take Oxford as it comes. I've been trying to justify taking two rather expensive school trips within half a year (three, if you count the Grady long weekend in NYC in January), but I feel like all of my experience has culminated in a great, independent mindset for myself. I've had to make it work, often on my own, getting to magazine offices in Times Square or exclusive premieres on the Croisette. I've learned that, even if you're speaking the same language, you have to communicate differently with people from different cities and backgrounds (and it's pretty fun figuring it out!). I really enjoy the days when I'm on my own to find something to do--it's either an accomplishment when I get a few friends together for dinner, or a mental break when I can just take a walk by myself and not think about anything. It has been hard to keep this state of wonder up while drudging through boring days at the magazine office or crazy days of people yelling at me about late fees, but I feel like I go into every day with fewer expectations and end every day with fewer disappointments. It's a good thing.

Back in Cannes

It wasn't too hard for me to get back into life in the suburbs. I hadn't felt homesick whatsoever in France (despite some pangs reminding me of eating guacamole and watching movies in the basement with my family, I was too busy enjoying myself), but suddenly sleeping in my bed, waking up (early, even!) to make my own espresso and toast, and walking the dog were all thrilling.

I commute to Atlanta three times a week to intern at The Atlantan, a luxury lifestyle magazine. It's pretty fun to get all dolled up and listen to hip hop on my drive into Buckhead, and everyone at the office is really nice. Three other college girls are interning there too--we have a cute cluster of cubicles near the "kitchen" (read: free gummi bears) and Sarah C's desk and its illustrious "beauty box" (free samples of Shiseido and some super expensive sunscreen! holy cow!)--and all the editors prank on each other over lunch. Some highlights: playing chicken in the parking lot of Taqueria del Sol (and pissing off a slow-driving old lady) on Friday and looking into an editorial meeting with the Sarahs, Danny, and Travis on Monday. I'm still a bit awkward around the office, and I still don't know if this is the right thing for me, but it's so nice to be working out the kinks with such an inviting group of people.

I've had a few princess and the pauper moments with my second job as a rental clerk back at dear old Hollywood Video. I'm the only intern to have/need another job, and a pretty low-class one at that, but going to work three minutes away from my house is even cooler than it used to be compared to my hour-long commute to north Atlanta! I've rented five movies over two shifts; I've always been a nut about my free rental perks, but after getting to see free movie after free movie at Cannes I've had quite a void to fill.

Tonight, Mom and I watched Barton Fink, the Coen brothers' film that won the Palme d'Or in 1991. I was instantly amazed at how quickly the "Cannes feeling" came back watching this old awardee--I could see myself sitting in the pink armchairs of the Palais (albeit with bigger hair and more sequins), listening to the weird Beauty and the Beast intro music, feeling like the movie is too long and challenging even though it's in my own language for once. I'm not sure what to make of Barton Fink and have postponed looking at other reviews as long as possible to try to work it out on my own. I keep going back to good acting and great cinematography (hearing the waves whenever Barton looked at the picture of the beach put me in his mind, and probably made me feel a bit crazy for all of it), but when I can barely make heads or tails of what really happened or what didn't I have to think: Is it futile? Is it one of those filmic "fuck you"s that Cannes is famous for, a la Wild at Heart or All That Jazz? In the end, is the film so shallow, so intentionally convoluted and pointless plot-wise, that you're supposed to think it's deep? For all that I want to hate it or refuse to dignify it with any further mention, I did enjoy watching it. I think Cannes has either made me really tolerant or really obsessive.

Last days

June 6-8

Apparently tequila shots night in JLP went off without a hitch. Most of my friends told me stories about falling down while dancing—later they showed me the sites of these incidents when we walked past the scene of the crime—but there was no real story to tell when Allison cancelled class. We just hit the ground running toward Nice for round two of climbing the rock castle and eating ice cream at 96 Flavors. Kaison and Mandy were patient while I got the best deal in France on my mother’s birthday present (she taught me to be a good bargain shopper), and we took a ton of pictures, stood for a long time in front of the waterfall’s mist, and helped some fellow Americans find the best flavors at the ice cream shop (I got Grand Marnier! I love that stuff!)

Was this the night we found the McDonalds in Golfe Juan? Kaison and Tolu and I were walking the beach and saw a “McDonald’s this way” sign, and since I hadn’t lead anyone wrong on the trip thus far we decided to go on a Happy Meal quest. We almost gave up twice, but after one false alarm we did see the red and gold flags and ran screaming through a few intersections to get to the fancy McDonalds not 3 but 25 minutes out of our way. As soon as we stepped back outside with my small Coke and fries it started raining, so we high-tailed it back to gloat about our fast food victory/warn everyone against ever following a McDonalds sign in France again.

Thursday was a fun/weird/emotional last day of class. We finished up a few reviews, including mine on An Old Mistress, but then we got into experience papers. It was such a strange moment, hearing about some of my experiences from another person’s point of view. I was glad to know that we were thinking some of the same things, but when someone would get to a detail that I completely missed I was grateful that my already wonderful memories got that much richer. After we finished up, Allison read her experience paper from her first trip to France with Nate’s family on the old Avignon study abroad—too weird to hear about her meeting Paul Cox for the first time when we had just met him two weeks ago. She also shared a really remarkable essay she wrote in response to an outline question on a sociology final. She hit the nail on the head when she talked afterwards about feeling inadequate, but witnessing someone else take what they love to such a perfected extent energized me to keep doing what I do.

Several of us went into Cannes for one last time to have some company/not get too emotional before the farewell dinner at 8. We hit FNAC (where I whipped out some mad French to ask where the Italian rap was), the banini stand (where Tolu and I danced with the cashier to that Nelly Furtado/Timbaland/Justin Timberlake song that’s so cool), the Palais (for some sad, faux-mopey pictures), and Monoprix. I didn’t feel at all sad about seeing Cannes sans festival or about seeing the town for my last time on the trip—it was too fun to go back and keep laughing with my friends.

The farewell dinner was spectacular. I was one of the first students to go up to the solarium, and all of us gasped at the view and wondered why we never took all the windows down before. Out on the roof a long, purple-clothed table covered in bread and wine had room for all of us to sit surrounded by friends, and I soon situated myself between some of my favorite people with a plate full of chicken, mini-quiches, and fruit salad (real food!). Reverting back to my typical self I was pretty quiet (hopefully not awkwardly so), enjoying listening to several different conversations and taking in the rooftop scene. Eventually we all got a bit more animated as everyone was taking party pictures and making so much noise one of the residents below us asked us to get off the roof (!). I chatted with Anna Eidsvik and a few others as we moseyed out—will definitely miss her as a movie buddy!—and then most of the students went their ways for the last night of partying. About a dozen of the students and I couldn’t get out on the “4L Challenge” pier because of a guard, but we sat on the rocks right next to it. As usual, one shot of vodka in my Schweppes did not get me even a bit tipsy, but I still had plenty of fun.

I felt “lost” for the first time on Friday. Without the festival or class to give me a bit of structure, I slept in until 11 and was at a loss for anything to do until I met up with Kaison and Tolu for a bit of cooking. We toyed with going to Ventimiglia for a while, but eventually we decided to get a bus out to Antibes to see Carrefour, the French Super Wal-Mart. Carrefour was a monstrous building (about 3x the size of a Super Wal-Mart), and I bought some replacement wine glasses for my room, we all tried to find a TV as big as Tolu’s TV at home (out of luck there), and one of the four huge rows of alcohol had flavored vodka samples?! I think Carrefour would have been more fun if we went more in the middle of the trip—we didn’t need any supplies and couldn’t fit much else into our luggage, so we could only look around for a few aimless hours.

I packed, wrote out my belated birthday card for my mom (the one time on the trip, outside of movie theatres, that I cried), and farted around on the internet for the rest of the night. Lots of the kids went out to the rocks even though it looked like rain, and Samantha and I didn’t feel like falling into the Med so we just got Grand Marnier crepes and ice cream. When Lauren and Lindsey cajoled us into venturing out around 11 everyone was coming back in, but then we had plenty of company to go get one last bit of junk food and have a potluck of remaining groceries in Tolu’s and Amanda’s room. We all played some iTunes and I struck up a chorus of “Damn Girl” with my JT CD, but around 12 I went to sleep so I could get up early to shower and finish packing.

Our final morning in France was wonderful. Most of the folks in Tolu’s room stayed up all night—a few of them had to take a 4:30 am shuttle to the airport, and the others wanted to see them off—so there were a lot of yawns and tired hugs when the later shuttles left. America’s Next Top Kaison left at 7:20 and made Tolu get a little misty, but we cheered up at Fournee Provencale over some amazing cappuccino. We toasted to a great trip with our orange juice, and Tolu gave me a piece of her baguette, so I felt a bit overcome. Our shuttle got to Couleurs Soleil a little bit before our 8:20 reservation time, but six of the students and I crammed in all of our luggage and took off for a seaside drive into Nice.

Our plane, originally scheduled to leave at 11:30, was delayed until 12:45, but we were glad of it when the slow check-in attendants tested Tolu (over her passport) and Jimari (over his buddy pass). We got to the terminal just before the 10:30 sign-in cutoff and sat, slept, and drank 3.60 cokes. When reminiscing about American food, I discovered that I “just wanted to eat a goddamned avocado” to the delight of my fellow travelers. The flight from Nice to JFK only took 7 hours instead of 9, and I have to say that my waiting-in-line skills served me well. I stared off into space for most of the time, which made the trip go by pretty quickly and painlessly, and the 2-year-old girl who babbled and screamed most of the flight could not make me mad because she was seriously too cute. The Cannes trip taught this loner to appreciate being inside her own brain even more, so I didn’t mind that I wasn’t sitting next to my friends and chatting; I thought up an idea that I might run with to write a screenplay and reminisced about most of the good movies I saw/looked forward to seeing again in the States.

Customs in JFK were not as awful as I thought they might be, and the flight to the ATL was still on time for a 4:30 take-off. I could use my incredibly hot red RAZR phone for the first time in a month, enjoying one voicemail from my friend Jenna amid FIVE messages from Vision Video about a late rental. I yelled my digits out to Tolu from my spot in a separate customs line, but she actually made it through the non-citizens line in time to see us off at our gate before waiting on her 6:50 flight. Delta made history with a 15-minute early arrival in Atlanta, and after all my traveling and waiting I finally saw my mom at the top of the escalator to baggage claim. We had a little snafu when I hugged her too hard and made her new surgery wound seize up (she didn’t tell me about it in time! o_O), and I wondered who on earth was picking me up and swinging me around the baggage carousel when my dad got in from parking the car. It was so great to see them both again; I gave them their gifts over some Mexican food (including avocados!) in the car, and I had not trouble staying up until midnight (6 am French time) gabbing and sharing photos with them.

Having a Nice time on the Cote d'Azur

June 3-5

On Sunday most of the stragglers still in JLP met with Charley, which took awhile because he went to town on Mandy’s paper. Eventually Tolu, Kaison, and I decided to go into Antibes. Kaison said he knew the way because he had been out to dinner with Allison and a few of the others the night before, but we got lost on the narrow streets near the JLP train station and had to ask a little kid riding a bike where Boulevard President Wilson was. I gathered that it ran past the lycee, so we wandered until we hit a major road that had a high school and started walking down a street as steep as the road into Sin City and/or Lumpkin Street. There were a lot of pharmacies (as usual) as well as Asian fast-food restaurants and locksmiths (Kaison said this last species probably sprang up due to the number of car break-ins—he had already seen two on his trips to town).

Eventually we got to the middle of the city, where I had a deliciously sickening beignet a crème and Tolu got a nutella banana crepe (good, but not the same level of crunchy excellence that is the nutella banini). We wandered through the old part of the town (the only pretty part), found the hidden archaeological museum on the coast, looked at porno art at the open-air market, found but could not eat “Mexican nachos” (the kitchen was closed?!), and toodled back home past a lot of other good-looking food before I grazed in my room.

I was planning on going to Beaulieu-sur-mer on Monday to look at a Greek mansion and another mansion full of statues on the coastal mountains, but the train I wanted to take was cancelled. So, I improvised and took myself to Nice with Samantha’s directions and had a great time just doing me. I looked in a few shops I had missed with the big group (the McDonalds closer to the beach was too cool! It had stonework on the inside!) and made my way to the beach over the heavily under-construction Place Massena. The beach was in its natural form—covered in little rocks, with no sand—but it was about as crowded as the beaches in Antibes since it was a nice day.

I spotted the “white thing” Samantha had told me about pretty quickly and made a beeline for it, power-walking behind a cute British guy. There was an “ascenseur” to take you to the top of the rock, but I wanted to be a badass and climb to the top. Bad/good idea. My legs ached after the first two sets of stairs, where I took my first pictures of the town below. But I made my way up all of the strange rock face with trees growing from it to find the ruins of a chapel, a graveyard, a waterfall, and two restaurants/souvenir stands. Different sides of the rock showed every bit of Nice, from the Bay of Angels that I was first walking along to the inland hills to the other bay, where the Corsican ferry could have taken me to San Remo (! it keeps taunting me!). I would have liked to have had someone to talk with about the beautiful view, but I enjoyed having some time to myself to just think, go where I wanted to go, and start scheming about getting my family there for a vacation.

I walked through all of the old city, looking in most of the weird chocolate shops and olive oil shops (they had a L’Olivier shop, the actual store for the fancy brand of olive oil I got my mother for Christmas! they had little olive trees for sale and I wanted one really bad!). I found not one but TWO 96 Flavors kiosks and had fig and pear sorbets at the first one. No beer flavored ice cream for me, but it was so good anyway!

I got back in time to chat with Charley for about an hour about what drinks to make (pastis) and what grade I got on my paper (A), and then I found Tolu and Kaison for our first run of French fry frying. Dinner stretched out into a late-night Grand Marnier crepe run, and I think I’m almost as addicted to those now as I am to nutella baninis.

It was weird going back to class on Tuesday. Everyone had fun stories from going to Bordeaux, Cinque Terre, and Florence, and we talked about “bad” movies and sex scenes for most of class after Allison recounted her dark tale of camping with Paul Cox in his unrefurbished French mansion. After class I got a blue Schweppes with Andy and Chris at Juan les Bread and rushed off in the rain to Cannes on what I thought was a trip to get something at Galleries Lafayette for my mother. Didn’t happen (my gift was out of stock!), and neither did a salad at FNAC since they had weird ones like Tandoori chicken and Salmon that day. For once I felt underdressed in Cannes, sticking out like a sore thumb on the Rue d’Antibes in my cheap pink flip flops, so I took to the beach and found a nutella banini, which I ate in front of the newly redecorated Palais (World Perfumery Congress this weekend)! I also made a stop by Monoprix, where I put the last jewel in my Schweppes crown with the purchase of “Citron Lychee Cactus” Schweppes.

Lazy day back in JLP. Everyone was finishing up the last paper for Nate’s class (experiential reporting—I talked about my encounter with the French businessmen, which I’ll probably post here soon), and in our boredom Tolu and I went to get potatoes for more French fries. We deep-fried a whole bag of potatoes and inhaled them with Geoffrey (hi, Geoffrey!) and a few visitors who we lured in with the delicious scent of frying sunflower oil. The cactus Schweppes went down easy, and plans were made to mix it with vodka for Andy and Chris’s screening of Little Bruno, the favorite “bad movie” discussed in class (actually a DVD one of the actors gave to the kids who dropped by the Gray d’Albion during the festival… “It’s the best fucking gangster movie you’ll ever see. I’m in it.”).

The set-up for the world premiere of Little Bruno in room 223 was impressive. They had rolled out the red carpet (one of the blankets from the hotel linen closet), and people wore their bow-ties in the roped-off “orchestre” section. I hooked my way in with one of my patented “invitation?” signs and sat on the futons in the balcony, making only a small drink for the drinking game of “drink every time something’s so bad you laugh.” I made it to the part with the guidance counselor’s sweaty moobs, but it just got too ridiculous; Samantha and I poured out our mostly unfinished drinks back in our room and watched Wedding Crashers. Around 1 we all got a text to go do tequila shots for Allison’s birthday at a bar in JLP, but I was too tired (and broke, and unwilling to get publicly plastered) and went to sleep at the old-granny hour of 1 am.

Tu vuo fa l'Americano...

May 31-June 02

We had our last class with Nate on Thursday! He had to fly back for the Peabodies—which we all understand and which many of us hope to pull some strings and attend next year—and we’ll miss him this next week despite a lineup of fun meetings with Allison. We read a few reviews of the more popular movies, but then Nate called on me to read my write-up of Les Chansons d’Amour to bring a French one into the mix. I was pretty nervous, because it was my first review and pretty awkwardly written, but even though I skipped around and stuttered a bit it seemed like everyone liked it OK. After a lot of sarcastic reviews, mine had some self-effacing humor that made my point without being mean, and it was a goofy enough movie to get a few people interested in seeing it.

I wanted to go into Cannes at least one more time, so after a few meetings with Charley several people joined me on a pilgrimage. It rained and tried to make us feel sad for the now un-decorated town, but Cannes has a lot of character anyway. Tolu and I watched me eat/ate a salad at FNAC before meeting everyone else at Subway, and then we wandered around the few stores that had souvenirs for the film fest. Lots of knock-offs for some of the kids’ parents and friends, and a new issue of Empire for me for a well-worth-it 7.80 euro. We got back around 6 and everyone had to write the rest of the night to finish up the final two reviews (!).

Friday took Tolu and me to Italy! We had heard about an outdoor flea market in Ventimiglia, the last stop on the French train and the first city across the border, and shopping fanatics as we are we could not pass it up. It cost 13 euro for a roundtrip ticket and 1:30 hours each way, but the trip was too fun! The train snakes up the coast past Antibes, Nice, and Monaco, so we got tons of beautiful pictures of ritzy beach houses and mountains falling into the sea (all, sadly, with the mark of bird crap that was on my train window :P).

Ventimiglia was a very interesting little town. There were liquor stores seriously every two steps, with cute little “Eurodrink” signs and bottles upon bottles of grappa and limoncello and absinthe (but no Jager!). We also saw a ton of groceries each with their own special Nutella snacks: a weekly pack of seven mini Nutella jars labeled for each day of the week, a bottle with a section of orange juice to drink with your Nutella, and a 3 kilo boulder of Nutella with a golden lid for 22 euros. The best grocery shopping took place in a three-aisle, covered farmer’s market, where you can find every possible kind of produce for really cheap (wish I got either those figs or the red bell peppers the size of my head!). The open-air market stretched up the beach, and while we got some nice views of the hills of Ventimiglia in the distance there was little good shopping to be found. Tolu got two jerseys of some of her favorite soccer players and an incredibly cute I-don’t-know-what-to-call-it outfit that looks kind of like overalls but club worthy, we both tried about every nasty-ass type of bitter Fanta the Italians have come up with, and I gorged myself on a huge piece of focaccia before we caught a train home in the rain.

Today was the first day completely open to my wanderlust, and after getting up at a leisurely 10 am I caught a morning train to Cannes. Sadly, after all of my gushing about the amazing white trenchcoat, I came to my senses (or just got enough buyer’s remorse/need for the extra 80 euros) and returned it. It was fun to see Cannes again on a sunny day, with nothing but locals milling around in no kind of film-industry rush. I felt like the heaviest weight had been lifted off me with the 80 euros restored to my credit card; I had stopped by my favorite store, Les Freres Mariages (a tea shop), just to do some window-licking, but when I saw that the tea I liked was 13 euros instead of 18 I bought some, guilt-free!

I got a ticket back to JLP, but I remembered making plans to get lunch with Kaison and Tolu in Nice and decided to just ride a little further than I had paid for. They actually got on the same train with me and we had a good 30-minute ride up the coast, and then we went to *~*KFC*~*! Ah, how wonderful it was to return to civilization (or, at least, capitalism)! No mashed potatoes or biscuits or macaroni & cheese or anything too Southern, but my chicken tenders and fries made a little oasis of Southern-style comfort for me amid all the yelling French teenagers. Oh yeah, we had found Ryan and Jill on the train, and in exchange for my “curry sauce” (spicy French-fry dip) Ryan gave me some extra ketchup, so I really went to town.

Tolu was mad excited to go shopping for cheap and awesome clothes at H & M. It was just a few steps down the strange rue Jean Medecin (lots of pretty old six-story buildings, but under construction in the middle and very cluttered), and when we got there all of the shoppers in the Cote d’Azur had already descended upon the little three-story shop. After a while I knew I wasn’t going to buy any more clothes, so Kaison and I left Tolu to her devices and went two doors down to FNAC. Oh. my. god. Love! Pure and simple, I could live at FNAC. This one was FIVE STORIES and lit with strange red blacklights, achieving the look of a fancy bordello. I am a technology ho, after all, so I drank in all of the plasma TVs and French video games and even the BDs on the top floor. Got to remember though that the quaint, rooftop-café variety of FNAC in Cannes still holds a very special place in my heart, but I truly lost my FNAC virginity today when I *~*bought the Chansons d’Amour soundtrack*~*. Tolu, after rejoining us, got pictures of every stage of my purchase (freaking out in line, saying hi to the cashier, pulling out my money, and getting a receipt), which I will make you look at once I see you in person.

Bill, Laura, and Mandy, as well as Ryan and Jill on their own, met us to trek over to the Virgin Megastore. Pretty, and much lighter, but not as awesome as FNAC. It had a weird, smoky café full of fancy-looking people sitting with their dogs. INDOORS. The French are weird. They were even weirder at Nicetoile, the four-story indoor mall closer to the train station. No shops that were particularly cool (I told Jill later that it was more Gwinnett Place than Lenox Square), but Kaison and I had fun getting fancy soft-serve from a chocolate store, seeing both a monster-sized baby in a carriage and a four-year-old with a pacifier in a home goods store, and looking for strange teapots. The rain eventually drove us out of Nice too, but I will be back tomorrow to see the old city and find the gelato shop with beer-flavored ice cream.