Well here i am on the sunny cote d'azur ...
Trip Start
Apr 25, 2002
1
4
19
Trip End
Ongoing
Juan Les Pins,
France
Thursday, May 2, 2002
What a surpise, fifteen other Antipodes and Poms lining up to register for work. Seems like my little plan isn't as original as I first thought, and there isn't a spare bed in the place because of all the bloody Aussies in town. It's a busy year apparantly. At the agency I'm told to be patient, check in for work every day and walk the docks looking for day work. No probs, but what about a bed? Some guy called Smudgy (has to be Australian) tells me about a hostel on the Cap d'Antibes that has beds for 14euro, only its a bloody long walk back to Antibes every day.
Option two is the nearby town of Juan Le Pins, the more bohemian, authentically french area on the eastern side of the headland where Picasso and F. Scott Fitzgerald spent their summers in the 20's. At 20mins walk down scenic Boulevard President Wilson or one train stop it is a good option, and a good idea to get away from the anglophiles in Antibes.
I dump my stuff in my own hotel room near the station and hit the town with Blair, a prosthetics manufacturer from Florida and Christian, a hockey player from Connecticut who is on one last jaunt before attending Yale. We sit at the bar two doors down and swap stories from our last few days on the road. Barman Pat puts on a Cake cd to make us feel welcome and looking at the french lovelies in the room, we toast ourselves on meeting and having the good fortune of being in paradise. Upon meeting Sandra and Claudine, two examples of french physical perfection and students from Antibes, we embark on a stilted conversation in French. I want to tell Sandra how much I love it here, but as I point to the table it comes out like "I want to love you here". Oops.
The next day Blair catches a train for Nice and then Rome, Christian bails for the Alps and I negotiate to book out my room for the week.
