The Incredible Journey - 19 May, 1994

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 In 1994, I did what most white South Africans my age saw as a right of passage. I went on a tour of Europe with a schoolfriend and her girlfriend. I was in my early 20's.

 

These are the letters and faxes (this was before everyone had email, Children) I sent home, or entries in my trip diary. They are all real. I couldn't make this shit up.

  
The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post.

 

 

 

 

19 May - Cannes

 

Went to Nice for a day trip.  Separated from Carrie and Varla and met an Aussie called Vicky on the beach.  She was so cool.

 

Arranged to meet her later at her hotel and went to the Modern Art Museum.  It was amazing.  I discovered an artist called Ben and was blown away by his sense of humor.

  
 

  

  

Met Vicky and told her about the situation with Carrie and Varla.  We basically can't stand each other.  She invited me to travel with her but she was going down to Spain - the opposite way I was headed.

  

I went on to Monte Carlo and was amazed at the number of expensive cars.  Saw the casino but could not go in because I was not dressed up enough.  Went up to the palace - no big deal.

  

Met Carrie and Varla by chance at the station in Monte Carlo and Carrie said she had tried her bank card and they were out of money.  She had budgeted wrong.  They had decided to go back to London.  I said I might stay, thinking that fate had now given me the chance to do what I had been too afraid to do - break away from them.

  

Back at the campsite we played pool again with Christophe, Fabrice, Medhi (the latter two were staying at the campsite).  Carrie and Varla won consistently. 

  

Carrie and Varla went to bed and I hung out in the bar with the guys and met Helena, an Englishwoman living in Barcelona.  I told them the situation with Carrie and Varla and Christophe said that, if I stayed behind, I could stay in his bungalow.

 

I drank too much vodka and ended up in one of the empty bungalows with Christophe.  Not the best I've had, even if he was pretty.

 

 

 

20 May - Cannes

 

Carrie and Varla left, having decided to drive though to England as quickly as possible - not that it could be that quick in our old geezer of a van.

 

I did some washing and sorted my stuff out - threw away a lot of it because I couldn't carry it in my backpack.

 

Went to Cannes with Helena.  She went up to Security and spouted some bull about losing her pass and having to get something to her Producer and managed to get us into the enclosures and we saw some of the exhibitions and the mobile phone brigade making deals.  Went down into the pit of the Palais where all the porno stuff is.  Interesting.

 

There were people dressed up in costumes promoting things and tons of street artists on the waterfront.  Amazing atmosphere.

 

Left Helena and, back at the campsite, met Simon (Aussie), Gisella (Brit), two Danish au pairs, Thierry (French mime artist), and Patrice (French bodyguard who had some amazing stories about protecting French porn stars).  We all had supper together, joined by Fabrice and Medhi, sharing stuff in the campsite and managing to communicate through much translation back and forth.

 

We all went into Cannes together, which turned out to be a total abortion.  It was full of people and you couldn't get in anywhere.  All the bars and restaurants were full or closed for private parties.  

 

People on the street playing the part of the power Producer.

 

Got home late and Christophe waltzed into the bungalow demanding payment for the free accommodation.

 

 

21 May - Cannes

 

Vicky, the Aussie I met on the beach in Nice, arrived at the campsite and we walked along the beach to Cannes.

 

She told me about a girl in her hotel who had met a great looking young guy on La Croisette who invited her for a drink on his yacht.  She went with him and then asked if she could go to the toilet.  When she came out, the hatch was locked and she was stuck inside the yacht and there was an old naked man in front of her.  She had to use her bag to break a window to get out.

 

We got into the Kodak pavilion and, having learnt well from Helena the day before, I managed to bullshit my way in quite well.  Actually, I was interested to learn how it all worked, and played twenty questions with a Producer from Paris.  Vicky said I was a supreme bullshitter.

 

Vicky and I decided to move on and go sit on the beach where we saw a bimbo - unbelievable! - doing the on-camera frolic on the sand.  Vicky went back to Nice and we arranged to meet there the next day.

 

I went back to the campsite and hung out at the bar.  Back on the vodka and orange.  Met some producers from Belgium and had a fascinating conversation.  They were explaining to me that the competition at Cannes was not at all the important part.  It was a trade fair, with deals being made, primarily with distributors.  This was like all other festivals but Cannes was unique in that everything was concentrated on La Croisette and the public were involved.  Most festivals were completely closed to the public.  Although you do have to have a conference pass - so actually be in the business - to get into the enclosures. 

 

I found out that movies take years and years to make and that there can be two years between the time the movie is finished filming and when it hits theatres.  I didn't know that movie distributors weren't the ones who actually made the movies - I thought that the movie studio just did it all.  Also ideas can be sold to distributors before they are even made if you have a big enough star signed up to do it.  It was fascinating.

 

Met three guys who had arrived at the campsite who were traveling by bike, and spoke to them about South Africa.  Rudiger and Emannuel (more campsite inhabitants) came back from a screening at 2am with Laurent, a journalist for the Air France in flight magazine.  Emmanuel gave me a ticket to a screening at 8:30 the next morning because Rudiger didn't want to go to a film that early.

 

The official screenings of movies go on in the Palais all day and the 8:30 ones are unpopular because people have been partying the night before and don't want to get up.  Rudiger's loss, my gain!

 

Christophe suddenly started warming up to me at the end of the evening... payment for free accommodation again.  Men are so predictable when it comes to sex.

   

 

 

My memories of this time

 

Staying alone in France when my friends decided to drive back to the UK was a big deal for me.  But we were so sick of each other by that stage that we were ruining each other's experience of the journey.

  

The trouble with me is that I am an anxious person.  I didn't know that back then, of course.  So I did stuff on my own but I didn't necessarily just take a breath and relax into the whole thing.  I have very few memories of this time because when I am anxious my brain spends all it's time dealing with that, neither enjoying the present nor storing the memory to enjoy in future.

 

This is one of those classic examples where you think to yourself "If only I could go back and do it again..."

 

If I could beam back to my 20-something body and be in Cannes, in summer, at the Film Festival, I know I could find a way to end up with one of those "power producers" and, if I had to pay for accommodation with sex, at least have it be in a five star hotel.

  

 

  

22 May - Cannes

 

Woke up and went to the screening - Ken Loach's "Land and Freedom," about an idealistic young Englishman who ends up fighting against Franco in the Spanish Civil War.  Went with Emmanuel and Laurent.  Ended up crying my eyes out in the movie with no tissues in sight and having to sniff.  Disgusting.

 

There were people standing outside the Palais in the morning, before the screening, yelling "Any extra tickets?  On a des billets?"  Apparently a lot of people have extra tickets because the people they were going to come to the screening with haven't got out of bed yet.  Pity I didn't know this before because I would have been at the Palais at 8am every morning.

 

After the movie we had coffee in some computer graphics special effects place (Goddammit, it really pisses me off that I have no memory of this at all), and I thanked Emmanuel and Laurent and left.  I went back to the campsite and got the stuff I wanted to post to myself in London.  Pascal - Christophe's sidekick - kindly came with me to La Bocca to post it all.

 

I brought some Guinness for Christophe to say thanks for the accommodation and went back to the campsite to give it to him.  He was really offish and said he didn't like it.  What a shit.

 

(As I look back on this now I realize that I was, and still am in many ways, a victim of my own insecurity.  It never occurred to me back then - and I am still not sure about it now - that there may have been the chance that Christophe really liked me.  That he came to me every night because he wanted to, not because I was staying for free and he was "demanding payment" and that he didn't like my gift because he didn't want me to leave.)  

 

 

I got my stuff together and said goodbye.  Saw Helena as I was leaving and Pascal walked me to the bus stop.  I was sorry to leave them all behind, but these groupings of people are transient, and you just have to have fun with them while you can.  

 

I went to a hostel in Nice - traveling on my own for the first time and really nervous.  Vicky wasn't there.  I found out she was at the other hostel in town.  I had screwed up.

 

 

23 May - Nice

 

Got up and arranged my stuff.  Tried to get hold of Vicky and couldn't.  I got scared being alone and decided to leave Nice. 

 

I called Tante M but she said she was going out and could not collect me, bla bla bla, so I said I would go to my cousin Caroline.

 

I couldn't get hold of her either so I went to find out about a train to Ales.  The guy at the guichet told me it was leaving in 2 min so I just got on it.   The train was delayed so I had to run for the next train at Nimes so I couldn't call Caroline there either.

 

(Remember, this was before cellphones.)

 

In Ales I called her and said "Hello!  Guess where I am!"

 

She was amazing about it and came and picked me up right away.

 

Jean, Fifi and Leontine, her kids, accepted me right away and I felt so at home.

 

Watched the opening of the World Cup Rugby in South Africa.  Not particularly great.  They had PJ Powers singing which I thought was mortifying.  For God's sake!  Isn't she dead yet?

 

 

( There are so many different paths I could have taken on this trip.  I could've got a job in a bar and spent the whole summer in Cannes with Christophe, saving money to travel more after that.  I could have chosen to find the right damn hostel and go back down to Spain with Vicky, experiencing the same country but in a different way.  Not making the effort to find Vicky is one of the top ten on my lifetime regrets list.

 

This is why we say youth is wasted on the young.  When we are young and free enough to do these crazy things, we are too stupid to really appreciate them.)

 

 

The trip started in January 1994. To read the posts in order, go the Itinerary Post.