I hate myself.

Why yes, I AM summering in the South of France

I’m blogging at you live from Juan-les-Pins, the silly little town outside of Cannes where we’re staying for the next month. Well, actually, I’m blogging at you live from my bed in JLP, where I’ve been lounging listlessly for the past 24 hours. I have a bit of a sickness going on, have no idea what’s wrong with me, but I’m feeling better than I did 12 hours ago, so there’s that.

festival de cannes

We had a lovely man from the Hollywood Reporter come by the Hotel Victoria in Cannes for a Q&A with our study abroad group, and one of the first bits of advice he had concerning the festival was “pace yourself.” I think in general I’ve been doing a pretty shitty job at that, and I think that is why I got sick.

But onto the fun stuff! Only a week into the Cannes Film Festival and I have already seen “Up”, “Air Doll”, “Nanayo”, “New York, I Love You”, “Fish Tank”, “Un Prophet”, “Taking Woodstock”, and “Yuki & Nina”. It is pretty exhausting to watch so many films, which sounds silly I know, but also the whole ordeal of getting into movies is super tiring. Our group was given “Cinephile” badges, which means we can get into any movie, provided we score a ticket. Depending on who is guarding the doors for certain movies, you can slide past without much hassle, but some of them old French ladies are super irritable.

the view from our classroom terrace

There are basically three kinds of screenings: red carpet premiers, market, and cinephile. For the premiers, everyone, regardless of badge rank, has to have a ticket. For market screenings, which is a vast majority of them, you can get in easy peasy with a market badge. If you don’t posses one of the famed market badges, you have to smooth talk/bullshit your way in, or go directly to the film distributor to ask for an invitation. And then, the lowly cinephiles can sometimes hop in line for overflow theaters, or can catch a bus out of town to go to the cinephile theater, La Licorne. Yeah, it’s French for “unicorn”.

The badge system is a total clusterfuck. But, I’m beginning to think everything in France is. The French do not give a shit. Period. Traffic laws, optional. Store hours, flexible. Willingness to communicate with someone who speaks less than perfect French, whateverable. The trains go on strike whenever they feel like it, you choose something off the menu provided to you at a restaurant only to be told they don’t have that item, you can drink and smoke anywhere, it’s like anarchy.

That being said, I really love it here. I really really do. The beach is awesome, there are naked people there all hours of the day and night. The weather has been gorgeous. The people in JLP have been for the most part warm and willing to help. They really like it when I speak French at them and tend to try to work with me if I do. But that doesn’t mean they won’t scoff at me when I ask why they stopped serving paninis at 2 today when I got one there yesterday at 3. Duh. Consistency, France. Get on it!

waiting for the 5:30 a.m. train back to JLP

The kids on my trip are really cool. Thank God. I was worried that a whole group of UGA kids may translate into lame asses dragging me down, but nay! There are 25 of us, and so many of us are so down for whatever. These kids like to party and bullshit and don’t take ‘no’ for an answer – exactly the kind of people who can rock Cannes. We’ve gotten wasted on the beach and had cart-wheeling contests, broken into a trampoline pit near the boardwalk, gone to a foam party at a skeezy euro-trash joint called “club m”, order shots by the dozen, take turns carrying each other’s drunk asses around, and beg borrow lie and steal our way into film premiers so we can score enough tickets for everybody.

I’ve already done so much, seen so much, experienced so much I feel like I’ve been here a month already. I’m having a blast, and could not be happier that I’m doing this. Yay.