Cannes – I Ate a Pigeon

Hello! So. Day 2 in/at Cannes was great. Surprise.

In the morning, I caught the earliest shuttle into Cannes to get a look at the city from a travel perspective. I found the picturesque Old Town (where I accidentally crashed some gala), the fruit and flower market, explored some of the shopping, photographed some mannequins and stuck my feet in the ocean on a beach with topless sunbathers. Okay, so only like three of them were topless. Let’s not split hairs.

After that, it was back to the hotel for a disco nap, as I’d only had a few hours of sleep. I managed to take said diso nap by the pool, hoping to get a little tan. It didn’t really work though, because the sun got really hot and the pool water was bitterly cold, so there was no reasonable way to cool off when I got sweaty. I headed back to the room to nap, but as usual, accidentally started working and didn’t get any sleep. Oh well. It’s the nature of le press trip.

In the evening we had a lovely dinner of unrecognizable food at the hotel. Even the salad. It’s one of those manor-style hotels where dinner is whatever they’re cooking; no menus. The red peppers were so artfully presented I couldn’t tell what they were for sure until I bit into them. The main course (below) came, and we asked our server “What’s this?” and he said “Um … birds.” None of us pressed any further because I think we were all trying not to laugh. We agreed that it looked like duck and dug in. Tasty.

Post-dinner was a limo ride to the Palais de Festivals again. Having not prepared for two nights of red carpet, I only had one other long dress: a halter-top Tommy Bahama I had worn on the plane. I dressed up my hair and makeup and did my best to make cotton work. It was criminally comfortable. I tried to get more pictures of myself this time so here’s me in the limousine:

Following my own advice from last night, I did a much better job on the red carpet. We went to see Lung Boonmee Raluek Chat. Unfortunately, nothing happens in that film and we had to leave early, as we were sleeping hazards at that point. Snoring is debatably worse than your cell phone ringing at Cannes. A good quarter of the audience was already gone by the time we walked out.

We then walked the entire length of palm tree lined Croisette, the beachside street the Palais de Festivals is on, to get to a colossal party at VIP room, where we were on the VIP list. VIPs at VIP. Hot. Walking was perhaps not the smartest thing to do. It was a lot longer than we had anticipated. My feet hurt by the time we reached the party, but that was okay; it gave me an excuse to kick off my shoes and dance on the banquettes. And I did.

It was at VIP that we met up with some other hotel guests who had pressed the waiter for more information. PIGEON. We ate pigeon. I ate a pigeon. Good thing my stomach held out. It probably helped that there was no mixing of alcohol, all we drank was Stella Artois (of course). Anyway, yeah. That happened.

We partied like and with the celebs until 5:30 in the morning. There was lots of Stella Artois. At around three, I asked a fellow guest “Uh oh, isn’t our shuttle at three?” and he said “Um, that’s our driver,” and pointed to a man dancing like a maniac all over the VIP area. Hilarious. We drove home in the morning light (below). I downloaded the photos off my computer and crashed hard, knowing that the flight home was the next morning and we had to leave in about three hours. I slept for two.

This trip was hosted by Stella Artois.