PRE-FESTIVALDay 1: Canne
Welcome to Canne! We started off the first day strong by getting a tour of our home base for the next 2 weeks. We went to the farmers market where I saw some of the best looking figs, went to the viewpoint where we could see the whole city, got lunch with the class, and had a catamaran cruise!
Highlight of the day: On the cruise I ended up meeting these two girls who were traveling in the south of France with their mom and are from NY, I ended up converting with them the whole time. It ended up being a great way to start warming up my social battery and reminding me of all the people you can meet in the days to come if you just stay open and present!
Funny Moment: On the cruise excursion I may have taken out a paddle board and the tide may have accidentally taken me so far out that one of the crew staff had to come rescue me on the smaller boat!! So I basically got my own private boat you could say.
Day 2: Monaco
This day we experienced out first excursion. We took the train to Monaco as a class and headed straight to the famous Casino of Monte Carlo. It was beautiful inside and looked more like a palace than a casino.
After that we got a break for lunch, where we went to this outdoor market area with a couple different food vendor options. I ended up choosing the fish sandwich booth and was very happy with that choice! I ordered an ahi tuna burger. After that we hopped on the bus with our tour guide Arthur to head up to the aquarium!
The aquarium was actually beautiful, and tucked away at the top of a mountain where the views were amazing. After we finished up there with the group, we walked through a neighboring park to take pictures and see the view from above. We got FIRE gelato with Sammi, Meryl, and some of the girls and after that headed back to Canne.
Day 3: Antibes & Nice
The excursions continue! We started off the day by getting on the train and heading down to Antibes, a small village that reminded me a lot of Italy. We walked through the Picasso museum while our tour guide directed the paintings and what Picasso’s painting process was like. He had spent some time in Antibes working in that exact building so it was really cool to hear about the history and understand what we were looking at.
Following this, we had some free time to roam Antibes and check out the shops. It had a very cool vibe and Manuela and I stumbled upon this insane and made pottery store. I wanted to buy everything but in wanting to buy everything I came out with nothing!
We met the group back for lunch and I ate one of the best pizzas of my life (as shown in the picture).
From there we headed back to the train to head over to Nice! We walked around and went to the beach (warning: the rocks are very painful to walk on). The rest of the group then headed back to Canne while Manu, Luisa, and I stayed in Nice because we were going to do a bar crawl with our tour guide Arthur!!!
While we waited I had to head into Galerias Lafayette to buy myself Birkenstocks since my current shoes were not going to permit me to dance all night…
We had a great time, met a ton of fellow latinos, danced, and then headed back to Canne with a Taxi.
Day 4: Festival Preparation
This is the day we realized it was time to lock in.
We woke up bright and early to head over to the Palais to pick up our festival badges and get a tour of the building that we would be spending the next week in.
After this we had a quick break for lunch and then headed back to the hotel to speak with Dale, the CEO of MBooth, a digital PR agency. She gave us some good insights about the festival and what we should be expecting.
We then got about two hours to sit as a class and individually work on our schedule for the week. My approach was to focus on my schedule just for Monday, choose the talks I needed to go see and then the ones I would like to go see if I have time. I also took the time to organize all the links from the talks that happen on the beach.
I won’t lie it was very very over whelming but it got done!
We all went our own ways and then met back up for our class dinner on the beach which was AMAZING. After dinner we were going to head straight to the hotel to call it an early night but as we were walking we heard music blasting from a nearby beach Resturant. People were dancing on the sand and the party looked too good to pass up. Today was a holiday in the French Riviera called Fête de la Musique, where the French authorities waive normal licensing laws, allowing the music to continue as long as there are people with the stamina to enjoy it. Needless to say if we were there we had to experience it.
We danced, got back at a reasonable time, and went to bed ready for the week to come!