A Year Abroad: Cannes Film Festival.

After going to bed at 1 and leaving the house at 6 for a flight to Nice, I was so incredibly tired when I arrived. It also happened to be the day there was a bus strike for the one bus I needed to get from the airport to the centre of Nice town. The train lady told me the only way to get to Nice was to catch a train back to Cannes and then a bus to Nice. Not happening. I ended up just getting a more expensive bus into another Nice stop and meeting Liz there.

She lives in an amazing part of Old Town. Pretty much in the centre of it all, just walk out her door and there are market type shops everywhere! We walked to her uni/school for some free food! There are school elections going on now and pretty much the side that throws the best party wins. So free food all round!

Eating baguettes later at the town square

Selfie before Cannes

That afternoon, after one of her housemates had arrived home, we ventured to Cannes via train. I didn't know this, but apparently you can buy tickets on the train if you approach the ticket man before he approaches you to find your ticket. We were in luck! He didn't have the correct change to give back to us so we rode for free! Yay!

Cannes was lovely, like a typical French seaside town. Almost like Bordeaux, but streets were narrower and more expensive haha. We made our way to the festival stage section and there were people everywhere. We got separated from Liz's two other housemates so we fought our way as close as possible to the front, which was about 2 metres from the fence. All well and good until it started to rain and everyone's umbrellas went up and no one could see anything. There was a brief pause of rain when Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman, Christoph Waltz, Stephen Spielberg and a few others came through which was cool, and then it started again. But everyone was more careful with their umbrellas this time after a guy in front of me put his up when it was raining and it pretty much got torn down. There was almost no point in having one anyway, the water ran off the sides of them, under yours and onto you. Everyone was soaked. So, eventually, I just threw my broken one out.

Then the cast of the Great Gatsby arrived. It was awesome. At first, 2 old school cars pulled up and flapper dancers got out and did their thing. Then Leonardo Dicaorio, Carey Mulligan, Baz Luhrmann, Audrey Tautou, Tobey Maguire and others I didn't know got out. The paparazzi could have been confused for a lightning storm. It was good to see though how everything worked in terms of, you don't actually walk the red carpet. You more shuffle along it, turning around every few shuffles while you get blinded by lights. At this point, you're watching everything on the big screen. And then, they climb the stairs and you can see them all. Leo even came and gave us all a wave! I thought I'd be cool and just pretend to not be too fazed and he'd be all "You seem ok with celebritydom, wanna date?". But no, I can't remember, but I think I might have screamed. I wasn't able to take any photos of Leo/Great Gatsby cast in person because as soon as they starting walking the stairs, cameras went up everywhere and your picture just became one of everyone else's hands. But I got some decent ones of them on the big screen.

As soon as they'd gone in, everyone quickly dispersed. And the crowds back to the train were immense. Liz and I pulled into a cafe for something to eat, and a reprieve from the rain, and to wait for the crowds to pass. We eventually walked back to the station and met a lovely American couple from Colorado who we walked home with too.

Day well spent!