Gemini Radio v0.2

A Game Ronin in Europe, part four: Cannes

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I’ll have you know that I’m writing this post right here in Cannes, to maintain the spontaneity, although knowing me I won’t actually put it up for another 3 weeks [make that 6. fuuuuuck. -ed]. In general, even when my posts are behind, they are based on notes and segments I wrote at the moment, in addition to my thorough but boringly Just-The-Facts-Ma’am journal, so they are always pretty timely in their own way. Back off.

So there I was on the train to Nice, the city which Lonely Planet proclaimed the perfect launching point for adventures around Cote d’Azur, the French Riviera, the eastern portion of the southern coast. When you buy your Eurail Pass at the >25 years old rate, you automatically get First Class seating on every train, and, sure, I could sit in Second Class instead if I wanted to, but comfort is important on a 6 hour train ride. Guess who from Paris buys First Class train tickets to Cote d’Azur? Old people. My car smelled like the geriatric ward of the hospital (where do old people get that smell? Is there a special cologne?), and I bolted awake at one point to an old lady screaming for help in French, and I smoothly prevented her luggage from falling on top of her and killing her. Your hero.

In addition to sleeping, I contemplated the sparse content about Cote d’Azur in the Lonely Planet guide. It occurred to me that I wasn’t looking for a “launching point”; I was heading south on a gigantic detour from an otherwise northerly route to meet 2 specific goals: swimming, which I hadn’t done since Washington DC, and using the internet, to attend to my neglected email and blog. The book said Nice didn’t have the best beach, and it named a bunch of cathedrals and museums and such that I had no intention of visiting. Hmm… so maybe not Nice.

So I stepped of my train early, into Cannes, thinking that the beach would be better and due to the Film Festival, the internet resources a bit more modern and plentiful. I was nervous about being in a town for which the book had neither a map nor many recommendations, but I’ve learned by now to go to the Tourist Office first thing and pick up their map. Map in hand, I dragged myself and my shit through the narrow sidewalks jammed with the French and their own particular body language for establishing pedestrian right-of-way on said sidewalks, to arrive at my first choice hotel from the book.

A Game Ronin in Europe, part three: Paris

This post is dedicated to my brand new niece and nephew, Calla Marie Bourdeau and Easton Lewis Bourdeau, born on September 9th, 2004, at 7 in the morning. To see them and read more about them, check out my new daily journal, The Domestic Life.

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...Mary Burge and I are laying on adjacent beds pushed together in the corner. We are trying to sleep. The room is a dark-ish haze. Sounds drift in like ghosts from under the door, through the walls, in through the open window. Out beyond is a narrow courtyard lined with other windows, and beyond those are excited girls who just got back from a drunken night in Paris, some men relating stories in an unidentified foreign language, a loud radio, a neglected child, other noises. From the hallway out past our door a man emerges periodically and sternly insists that everyone shut up, that he and his family are trying to sleep. Otherwise silent, Mary and I giggle at the sincerity of his frustration, hoping he can’t hear. An hour passes, and the voices drift off one by one, until all that is left is a tinny hip hop cd somewhere above that skips every couple of minutes until its semi-coherent owner advances to the next track. It is too hot to close the windows, but I do it anyway, and the room is finally dark and silent.