2.08.2006

Cannes

Ah, the French Riviera. Now I know how Troy, the diminutive baller that he is, feels on his family vacation. This place is beautiful and is exactly what you picture in your head when you think of the French Riviera. If only it was 10 degrees warmer it would be heaven.

Our trip to Cannes from Barcelona was a bit dicey. We had an overnight bus that leaves barca at 1:35 AM and gets into Avignon (a town about in France about half way between Barcelona and Cannes) at 8:30 AM and then make a train to Cannes.

We left our hostel around midnight but the subway entrance was locked so we take a cab to the train station. At the station, the guy doesn’t have us on our reservation list (we booked it on the internet). Our only option is to wait for the bus to come and hope we are on the drivers list. Meanwhile, the bus station is the shadiest place we've been in Europe yet with a "Beware of pickpocket sign” in five different languages (I wanted Jen to take pictures of me looking like i was getting my pocket picked by the sign but she wasn’t into it at the time) and shady guys circling around the place. They also had a pizza vending machine that served pepperoni slices for 2 euros. It was an aluminum machine and you couldn’t see what the pizza looked like but I’m sure as hell there was no oven inside of it -- so who knows. I wanted to pay the 2 euros to see what would come out but again Jen was having none of my playful shenanigans.

So finally at 1AM I make the executive decision that we should walk down the block to a hotel hoping they will have a computer center so we can print out our confirmation. We walk down the shady block and Jen waits in the lobby with our bags as I go to find the business center.

I walk down a few flights of stairs and see the sign for the business center. All the lights are off but there door is open. I walk through the doors and down the hall and find a row of computers. Three of the computers are locked but there is one that is working and I sign on to my email and print out the confirmation. Miraculously, the printer is working as well (this is in complete darkness). I print out the page and go to leave the room but the door is locked. I’m locked in the dark computer center. Fuck me.

Finally, I find an emergency exit and run through it (tripping the wire but no alarm goes off). The door to the lobby floor doesnt opens so I walk up to the second floor which is executive offices. There is no apparent way out of this floor except for a service elevator in the janitor closet. I take the elevator down to the lobby and walk out a door and I am standing behind the counter at the front desk with the two hotel attendants. They give me weird ass looks and are ready to call security. I throw them the mopey stare as to not intimidate, give them my biggest "hola", look real confused and walk out the hotel.

We get on the bus and there are only a few open seats. I get to sit between 4 Arabs. They smell bad and have scary passports. I eat a vicodin and it makes everything in the world ok.

Jen is looking over my shoulder right now and wants to leave this internet cafe so will have to continue this story another time. We made it to cannes obviously and it doesn’t get much better.

Be good.

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