Too To Tuesday!

Ah Tuesday.  If you've been following this blog, you may have realized that it has taken a while for me to post this day. In all honesty, I really don't know where to begin or what to say. Let's see how it goes.

2:30 AM rolls around and I crawl out of bed. I take a quick shower. The light in the bathroom was out, so I had to use the overhead light and hope my makeup wasn't ala Pennywise.

I repack all of my belongings and head to the other building to buy my shuttle ride back to Gatwick Airport. I turn in my key card and pay my 7 quid. It's 4 AM. How busy can it be?

Turns out REALLY REALLY busy. I suppose no one else has anything to do at that time in the morning. Since EasyJet doesn't have a ticketing kiosk, I had to wait in a long line. I get my boarding pass and so on and go through security.

Fantastic! I have about 30 minutes to hang out in the lounge. Yay!

 Not too bad a selection. They have various hard liquors like rum, vodka, tequila and a bunch of other things I'm not familiar with. They had cereals and pastries for breakfast and ham and cheese sandwiches, coffee, tea, wine and beer. I can't remember what I ate besides a ham sandwich- in keeping with the 'I'm going to France' theme, but I did have orange juice with rum, I think. Yes it was 5:30 AM. DON'T JUDGE ME!

Less than an hour later, I was on the plane in m pre-arranged aisle seat. There was a guy next to me but no one next to him. The two of us waited anxiously for the doors to close. They did. The guy moved over and we had a free seat between us. For the next two hours, I was drifted into a spacious and blessedly screaming sprog-free flight. Maybe a 6:00 flight is the way to go. Seems like things are looking up.

Ahh France!

Insert stereotypical French accordion music here. Oh wait, I already did it for you.

The plane landed. As one usually does, I gather my belongings, including my super tech jacket, my portfolio and my rollerbag and head into the arrivals terminal.

I breeze through immigration as most people were of the EU and there were maybe four non EU passport holders. I see the welcomed sight of the Restrooms and head inside.

What a pleasant surprise. The doors open OUTWARD. That's right OUTWARD so you can actually  get in with your luggage and close the door. US airports, please take note. This was such a small but very appreciated luxury.

Since my power adapter had crapped out on me and my devices were now dead, I figured the right course of action was to purchase one in the airport. Yes, I knew this would be expensive, but since I had no idea where a Target, Best Buy, or random electronic store was in this strange land, it was the only option I had. 

Luckily, there was such a beast in the airport. I grab all of my belongings and pick out a nice one. Well that's a lie, I get the only one the have. I was in a little bit of a bind an beggars can't be choosers.

I go to the cash register to pay for it. Put my portfolio down, place my tech jacket over it and dig in my bag for my wallet. I sign the credit card slip, put my wallet back, pick up my jacket and...

NO PORTFOLIO!!!!!

I don't even know how they did it!  As you can imagine, I was in a state. Of course the first thing I did was check my passport. I had it. Thank God! I felt down the other pockets of my jacket and everything was there.

Ok, maybe I dropped it over by the adapter display? I wheeled back over there. Nope.  The bathroom?  Wheeled over there. Nope. Anywhere in between? Nope. Nope. NOPE.

OMG!!!! What to do? Twenty years of acting notes, headshots, snippets on casting directors' offices, student ID's... GONE. Along with that, all confirmation codes for this trip, addresses to where I'm staying, maps and directions on how to get to various places. Yes, I'm very efficient that way.

At this point I'm beside myself. I ask around and find the Aeroport Policia. Just kill me now. In a nutshell, I spent three hours with this guy going from place to place asking if anyone turned in a portfolio- which of course the didn't. I had to answer questions like... where are you staying here?  I don't know, that information was in the portfolio. Where are you staying in England. I don't know the addresses, that information was in the portfolio. Over and over again.

Even though I did feel like I was facing the French Inquisition, truth be told, they were rather nice about it.

Copy of my Police Report

By this time, I was distraught, upset and really, really wanted to go back to civilization. I go to the EasyJet counter and ask if there were a way to change my ticket from two days from then to the next flight out. I could, yes, but it would cost more. I didn't care. I said... hook it up! The lady punched in my credit card and...

 WTF???? No, seriously... WTF????  Ok, this is ridiculous. Was there internet here?  (Obviously I was thinking about charging my devices, at least one anyway, to figure this out). Oh yes, there is a kiosk right behind you.

I'm sorry... kiosk?  Yep, this bitch.

Because wi-fi hasn't come to Nice as of yet...

Fine. I slide some Euros - that's six euros for about 20 minutes. If you print something, that's 3 minutes of time. Fine. I stick the money in and the thing turned on. Ah crap. Stupid FRENCH KEYBOARD!!!!!

I'm pretty sure I banged my head against the thing several times getting dirty looks from passers by. I didn't care.

I finally figure out how to get the damn thing to work and log into my email. Oh look at this... 

Account frozen due to suspicious activity. Fantastic. Just... great.

I shoot off a couple of panic emails home. Things like 'Please help!' and 'For the love of God, please help me unlock my account!'

Since I couldn't buy a ticket out, I'm stuck in France for a while. I had to print out stuff. All of my stuff.

This is lesson I learned from my friend who shall not be named except for the moniker - The Very Talented Senta (we'll stick with TS for short). She was detained at Heathrow for several hours for having a one way ticket and no itinerary. Always have physical evidence kids. Don't rely on the interwebs for everything.

It cost 3 minutes a page, so I was pumping Euros into that thing like an old school video game. F@#$(%ing France.

Eventually I had enough print outs to get to the hotel in Cannes, get on the plane to England, stay in the various hotels in England conformation email of my class, and confirmation code for the flight home. I think I was good.

I fold up my printouts and try to find my way to Cannes.

I won't go into the exact directions on how to get from the Nice aeroport to Cannes in this blog, but if you're interested, I will add an adendum.

I do have to stop and pontificate for a second here.  Cannes is pronounced CAN. As in 'tin' or 'soup'. It's singular. Do not pronounce the 'S'. If you really want to be authentic, don't pronounce the 'n'. Now listen, I know a lot of lying jackasses in the entertainment world, and if you pronounce Cannes like 'cans of soup', I'm going to doubt you've ever been. And for God's sake, if you pronounce it like The Wrath Of, I'll know your a @#$%ing. liar! It's like pronouncing New York 'Neeewww  Y  Ork.'  Just say it right for flip's sake. I will remove my soap box now.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Moving along...

I get to the bus stop with my rollerbag and coat feeling somewhat naked and sad without my portfolio. The TAM 200 bus finally comes and I get on and give my 2 Euro coin to the bus driver. He gives me a ticket and a coin in return.

I go to sit down and the ENTIRE BUS starts screaming at me. I think what was happening was that I was supposed to slide the card into a slot. Screaming at someone helps this. 

At some point during the bus ride I must have fallen asleep. I was still asleep when I got off the bus for no particular reason. The scenery looked like Cannes. At least there was a coast and some boats, so it had to be Cannes, right?

Turns out it wasn't Cannes. It was Antibes. A cute little French town about an hour outside of Cannes. Of course I didn't realize this at the time and wandered about aimlessly for about two hours before I realized I was in the WRONG CITY! With my broken French, I was able to ask around for the bus stop and sat there for another hour waiting for the bus.

If you have the time and the inclination to check out quaint little French towns, I recommend taking a couple of hours detour. Not if you're in my state of mind. Then it sucks. I did try to enjoy it though. I really tried.

Antibes

An hour or so later I end up at the main bus terminal in Cannes. I was done, over it. I had no idea what the hell time it was and I didn't want to be around any humans. I found a cab, showed him the address of the hotel, handed him some Euros and got in the damn thing.

A few minutes later we pull up at the Hotel les Tourrades.

I found this rather amusing as it was right on top of a McDonalds. Why this amused me? I'm not sure, but it did.  I rolled my bag inside and got the room key. 


Now I know I have an active imagination. I know I can from time to time be a little bit of a drama queen. I'm also aware that I am not a forensic scientist, but I have studied blood spatter - kinda like Dexter.  After all, if the fatal day happens where I commit well justified matricide, I have to know how to cover it up. 

Whatever the case, I get to my room and find what I would only describe as 'back spatter' on the wall. That happens when you stab someone, pull out the knife and have another go. Certainly looks like a cast off pattern to me.

Oddly enough, after the day I'd had, this didn't bother me. I had free wi-fi, I had a charger converter, I had a bed and I was damn happy. I spent a few minutes communicating via Google Chat finding out how my accounts were or weren't unfrozen. As it was the wee hours of the morning state side, I had to disconnect. 

I decided to  let my devices charge while I went out to forage for food. Have I mentioned that Cannes is expensive? Cannes is expensive. Audaciously so. The first thing I did was hit up the Micky D's downstairs. This is what awaited me: 

Now let's do some conversions.   At the time of this writing, the Chicken McNuggets you see there second from the left are 6 for 6.80 Euros. That's $9.21!!!!! for nuggets! You can get 4 off the dollar menu!  I don't care if it comes with 13 beverages and 7 free ice creams, I'm not paying 10 bucks for nuggets. Nope, nadda, not thank you. Call me cheap, not going to do it!

So I walked around a little bit and found a supermarket. In I go. I was done spending excessive amounts of money. I wandered aimlessly through the aisles and picked up a few things. I needed water. Yes I know you can drink the tap water in France. I just wasn't about it, so I bought some. I also got some sparkling water, a ham sandwich and a bottle of wine. All of this was less than 5 euros. Eat that McDonalds!

I get to the self check out and ring up my stuff. Then I slide in my card. Will it work? 

 I don't know if my card was blocked, they didn't take it because it wasn't chip and pin, they didn't take it because it was a US one... whatever. All I know is that I drew the ire of an irate French woman that took great pleasure in screaming at me, slamming a ton of buttons on the machine, pulling out my card and pulling out about seven receipts, slapping all this into my hand and throwing her hands in the air. To this day I don't know what the hell that was about, but I think I got my goods for free. 

At that point, I tucked my tail between my legs, took my free food back to the hotel and spent the evening with myself watching French infomercials. Tomorrow was another day...

I apologize for how long it took to post this day's events. It was a hard one to get my head around.