When I worked in advertising we used to get pretty excited about the Cannes Gold Lion awards. Not excited like drinks night excited, but still, pretty enthusiastic. I never thought I'd actually get to go to the awards in person. I planned on going to Cannes for the film festival one day, but I kind of figured it would be as Keanu Reeve's date or something. You know, when he won Best Actor. Anyway, I guess the date part worked out - I'm accompanying my hubs Ryan who is judging at the awards this year. Judging the cyber ads to be specific. Ha! And he needs me to work the printer at home. He is so going to make me delete that.
The flight to Cannes from Bombay was pretty uneventful. Two hours to Dubai, three hours in Dubai and then six hours on to Nice. I slept on and off most of the way, mostly because the best in-flight movie option featured Jennifer Aniston. Ryan and I were pretty exhausted by the time we got to Nice but I was happy to see our customs officer had a French beard. We must really be in France! The awards organisers had a very nice car pick us up at the airport and bring us to our hotel in Cannes. We're at the 'Palais Stephanie,' which I hear is much nicer than the 'Palais Karen' or the 'Palais Rhonda.' I've never stayed in a palais before so I'm excited. Plus, we get to sleep under a giant poster of Carey Grant kissing Grace Kelly. And it's not cheesy at all because it's in black and white.
While I was packing for Cannes I'd asked Ryan, who'd been here before, what kind of clothes I'd need. "Oh," he said "everyone dresses casual. No one dresses up." Yeah. Right. In my world "casual" means pajama bottoms with a clean t-shirt. Over here it means a light linen suit. When people talk about how stylish the French are, I thought they meant the cool French people. Not the average Jean on the street. Turns out, even the average Jean here looks like they're from an ad for expensive coffee. I had a beggar (a beggar! In Cannes! Who knew?) come up to me wearing nicer shoes than the ones I wore for my wedding. On second thoughts, maybe he was trying to give me money. I don't know. He was speaking French. Unfortunately my French is limited to asking for directions to the disco and claiming 'that airplane is for me, me, me, me, me.' Not terribly useful. I've never needed a disco.
Our first few hours in Cannes were spent frantically trying to contact home. It seemed our mobile 'roaming' was limited to receiving international spam messages. We couldn't get through to anyone and the kids wouldn't be able to get through to us. Ryan seemed to think this was a bad thing. By the time it was all worked out we only had a few minutes to get to the welcoming dinner planned for all the judges and their 'companions.' (Thats, me, a companion. Trusty, loyal, occasionally shedding hair on the sofa.) Thank goodness the dinner was 'smart casual.' As I stepped out of the lift in my jeans and collared t-shirt (that's the 'smart' bit) I couldn't help but notice every single other woman was in some kind of black shiny cocktail dress and spiky heeled shoes. And most of them weren't even French. Not awkward at all really.
The dinner was fun. Ryan met up with the other judges and I drank a lot of champagne. I think I spoke to a few other spouses. I can't really remember. And I can't ask them because they're not returning my calls. Odd. So today I've been pretty much on my own. Like Scarlett Johanssen in Lost in Translation without actually being anything like Scarlett Johanssen. Went for a few walks along the boulevard, took a few photos, found the cutest little cafe with an authentic French menu and ate next door at McDonalds. Oh yeah, I'm that kind of tourist. I wonder if there's a Pizza Hut around here somewhere. Will check it out tomorrow.
