To Italy and Back

I’ve been in France for four weeks. While I like to say I have travelled and can adjust to any culture, the French have worn on me. Please don’t mistake me for a weary traveler. I have  traversed the prison like chamber that is the JFK airport with ease and rode in hot underground trains with what seemed like the entire population of Tokyo. France, however; is a different beast. 

One of my first days in Cannes, I ordered a crepe from a street cart. I thought I would try to use some French as not to be that American tourist. I say, “Je voudrais un crepe.” The French woman stares blankly at me. Maybe she’s hard of hearing? I ask again, “Je voudrais un crepe.” Still nothing. Maybe I’m not committing enough, so with my best faux-french accent I say, “Je voudrais un cr(insert stereotypical French phlegm sounds here)epe.” At last, she understands. 

Sure there might be an actual difference between crepe and “crghghghrrepe”. I don’t know, but the difference can’t be so vast that a woman WORKING AT A CREPE STAND wouldn’t understand what I was trying to say. Needless to say, my weekend in Italy was a welcomed change to my stay in France. 

My first attempt at speaking Italian was a complete failure. Delirious from waking up at 4:30, I stumbled into at cafe after getting off my first train in Italy. All I wanted was a cappuccino, but all my brain could muster was a string of strange French phrases. Every “Merci!” was followed by a “Errr, I mean…. Grazie!!! Clearly some language adjustment was needed. 

I was only in Italy for forty eight hours, but I managed to pack in a tour of Lucca and Pisa, a trip to the beach in Viareggio, and a hike up a mountain that made me want to call bullshit on the jaunty ending to The Sound of Music. (Sorry for the two Sound of Music references in two posts, but in my opinion you can never get enough of the Von Trapps.) 

To say I loved Italy would be an understatement. Even on the train ride, I was drooling as I looked out the window onto the ocean and then the country side. Then I got to listen to five old Italian women gossip while I ate my breakfast. It was a perfect introduction to northern Italy.

Lucca was beautiful. Kayla and I got lost in the winding streets. Luckily for us though, the city is surrounded by a medieval wall. When all else fails you just keep going straight and you will eventually hit the stone walls, that or some Italian designer store. I wasn’t complaining. 

Saturday was Pisa. You get off the train, and it just looks like a random Italian city. I don’t know why, but whenever I travel I expect there to be huge signs pointing to all the famous landmarks or the tourist sights will be right next to the train station or airport. With Pisa, you have to walk across the city from the the train station to get to the tower. 

We really had no idea where we were going. We passed a piazza, a bridge, and a street packed with stores and restaurants, but no tower. I started to try to follow all the other people with cameras at the ready, and eventually the street opened up to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. 

I find it hilarious that something is so famous because it’s a screw up. It gives hope to middle children everywhere. In the courtyard with the tower is a beautiful dumo and church, but no one really seems to care about them. Sure you take a picture of them, but not a “Look how strong I am that I can hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa” picture. I myself opted for the much more realistic “Look at how weak I am as the Leaning Tower of Pisa starts to crush me” picture.  

Sunday was a quick trip to Viareggio. I got to shop and hit the beach for a bit before making the train back to France. It wasn’t a long trip, but the entire time I was there I just kept feeling like I wanted to stay. I was talking to an Italian woman on my train back into France and she asked me if I liked France or Italy better. Without hesitation I said, “Italy. Most definitely Italy.” 

Obligatory lamp post shot. 

The Day My Faith Was Restored In The French

4:30

My eyes shoot open. There will be no snooze button today. I need to be on time. I need to be alert. I need to not get mugged.

4:40

I look over my travel plans for the day: Juan les Pins to Ventimiglia, Ventimiglia to La Spezia Centrale, and La Spezia Centrale to Viareggio. I call these plans, but they are awash in uncertainty. All of the worst possible scenarios run through my head. What if my first train is delayed? What if I don’t make my transfers? What if one of the trains is cancelled? What if one of the trains is cancelled and there isn’t another train until the next morning? What if one of the trains is cancelled, there isn’t another train until morning and I get mugged in the interim? I eat my nutella covered croissant like it’s my last meal. 

4:45

The sugar from my nutella laden croissant hits me, and I get a new sense of confidence. It’s reading time tables and sitting. Surely I can handle this. I grab my bags and head downstairs singing “I Have Confidence” from The Sound of Music to myself. 

4:48

I pass the receptionist and offer him a much too cheery “Bonjour!” for this ungodly hour. He asks why I am up so early. I explain that I bought a ticket out of Ventimiglia at 7:48, and this first train is the only one that will get me into Ventimiglia before then. He wishes me good luck then hesitates and in a most un-cheery tone says, “Be careful as you go to the train station.” He must see the automatic panic in my face and says, “Not that you have to worry,” then switches back to his doomsday voice, “But be careful.” 

4:49

I walk the block to the train station without blinking once. 

4:50 

Walking up to the station I see that the doors are closed. Maybe they don’t open the doors until 5:00? I don’t panic, because I see a French woman smoking by the shut doors. At least someone else thinks there is a train coming. 

5:00

The station is still closed, but the French lady is on the move. I watch her get onto the platform through what is normally the exit. Since I am starting to panic and really don’t have any better options, I follow her. You know, like a mugger. 

5:05 

I see her get a ticket from the machine on the first platform. I forgot about this outdoor kiosk. Suddenly relieved that I can buy my ticket, I show the French woman how to validate her ticket. She realizes I don’t speak French. We share awkward gestures. Oh it is grand. 

5:10

I spin the dial of the ticket machine with confidence as I choose my location and get my discount. This confidence comes crashing down when the price pops up. €7.50. These remember that these machines only take coins. I rip open my purse. I only have €6.50 in change. My throat starts to close. 

5:12

I look at the ground around me praying that by some miracle a shiny euro will look back at me. I am once again reminded that my life is not a Disney movie. 

5:14 

I contemplate cheating the system. Maybe I can buy a cheaper children’s ticket? This sounds like utter brilliance until I remember I don’t know the word for children in French, so I can’t find it on the machine. Maybe I will just chance it and get on the train sans ticket? I think that since my train ride is an hour and twenty minutes that they certainly will check tickets. After four weeks in Europe, cash is diminishing, and I can’t risk a forty euro charge. I curse my gelato runs and souvenir shopping. Screw everybody at home, I just want to go to Italy! 

5:15

Times are desperate. I have ten minutes until the train comes, but still no ticket. I imagine myself walking back to Couleurs Soleil with my head down in defeat. The receptionist will ask what happened, and I will feed him a fantastical story about how I missed my train because I was mugged by a man with a hook. I try to decide if I should rip my sleeve to make it look like a hook got to it. 

5:16 

I hear a cough behind me. The French woman. In my panic and self deprecation, I forgot about her. I think the unimaginable. I, the American who speaks eight words of French will ask a French stranger for help. I walk over to the second platform preparing to get a baguette thrown at me.  

5:18

I approach her and ask, “Do you have a euro?” She looks at me strangely. Of course because she doesn’t speak English. I mustered all the French I know and say, “ I need un billet. I have un, deux, trios, quatre, cinq,... six. I need... seven. I need un euro.” 

She either understands that pile of garbage, or the desperation in my face must have been so pathetic that she gave pity on my stupid English speaking soul. I don’t care, because she reaches into her wallet and handed me one shiny euro. I burst into one hundred rushed versions of “merci beaucoup!” 

5:20

I run back to the ticket machine, pay for my ticket, and run back to the second platform with a few minutes to spare before the train comes rolling in.

6:43

I arrive in Ventimiglia. They never checked my ticket. Classic France. 

My Strange Addiction

Don’t ask me where it started, because I don’t know. Some of us just have weird loves. I am just glad mine isn’t heroin or watching Toddlers and Tiaras. Instead, (and please spare me from the Anchorman references) I love lamp posts.  

I have tried to think of why I am drawn to them, but I can’t come up with a very good reason. Maybe it’s because they are functional but allow for ornamentation. Maybe it’s because they reflect the city you are in. Maybe it’s because I was dropped too often as a child. I don’t know.  

I do know that when I see one I like, I take a picture of it. I am not picky about the location. I have taken pictures of them in front of a palace in Spain and a restaurant in Florida. Although I must say the selection is better in Europe. 

    Today was a great day for lamp post picturing taking. After class, I went into Antibes for the afternoon. I was expecting a little beach town like Juan les Pins, but it turned out to be entirely different. There were gorgeous sea views, ivy covered houses, an old roman fortress, roads barely big enough for both man and cars to coexist in peace, and, of course, tons of lamp posts. I will end my rambling here and leave you with my favorite pictures from the day. 

24 Hours to Italy

I’ve always thought the idea of going to the airport, looking at the departure screen, picking a city, and just going was something I had to do at least once in my life. However my struggle to book a ticket to Italy yesterday makes me reconsider my travel fantasies. 

Who are these people who just hop on planes and travel around the world? How do they even get a reservation on such short notice?  Do they ever get stranded in foreign countries because of train strikes? How do they make five minute train changes in stations they have never been in? Do they have buckets of money at their disposal? 

They must have ties to the mob. Sadly, I do not. 

Instead, I sat on trenitalia.com for hours yesterday trying to figure out how to get from Ventimiglia to Viareggio. After accidentally booking a train for Saturday rather than Friday, I contemplated throwing my computer across the room. I just had to remind myself: How often are you in Europe? How often are you and your cousin in Europe at the same time? Not too often/never. Figure out this stupid website and get your ass to Italy. I did, and tomorrow I will.  

My travel plans for tomorrow. Wish me luck! 

Mud

For a film entitled Mud, everything seems to shine in Jeff Nichols’ third film about two boys helping a fugitive evade the cops and reunite with his longtime love. 

Matthew McConaughey plays the titular character with charm and ease, while Reese Witherspoon breezes through as Mud’s love, Juniper, long enough to get her name in the credits. The real performances, however, come from the two child actors who play Ellis and Neckbone. 

After appearing in The Tree of Life, Tye Sheridan anchors the film as Ellis, a boy on the brink of the excitement and disillusionment of adolescence. Even with his parents headed toward divorce, Ellis holds on to his idealized notions of true love. They are his main motivation for helping Mud retrieve a boat from a tree that will hopefully lead him to Juniper and freedom. 

McConaughey repeats, “A boat in a tree; that’s a hell of a thing.” This may be true, but I’d argue more that Sheridan gives a hell of a performance. In one scene, Ellis receives his first kiss from the older May Pearl and immediately asks her to be his girlfriend. When she accepts, Sheridan gives one triumphant smile that captures the butterfly in your stomach feeling of first time love. Unfortunately, this smile doesn’t last for long. 

As his parents’ marriage becomes more volatile, Mud and Juniper’s relationship wanes and May Pearl turns up with an older boy, Ellis’ faith in love starts to crack. This comes to a head in a fight between Ellis and Mud. Sheridan depicts the anger and betrayal we all feel as our romanticized ideas of love are first shattered.

He doesn’t rely on McConaughey to bring the emotional drama to the fight, but rather has his own commanding presence and one hell of an arm. Sheridan’s loss of faith is convincing, but turns out to bite him (literally) in the end. 

In his first feature film, Jacob Lofland plays Ellis’ best friend, Neckbone. It would be easy for this southern accented orphan to come off as a stereotype, but Lowland delivers a well timed comedic performance as Ellis’ loyal friend who thankfully is also good with a wrench. 

While these performances are fun and engaging to watch, the pivotal relationship between Mud and Juniper seems underdeveloped. There isn’t a problem with either McConaughey or Witherspoon’s performances, but rather a lack of screen time and believable history to persuade me that not only are they a couple, but they are one worth fighting for. This, however, is one of the only flaws I saw in the film. 

Mud explores the many manifestations that love can take. There are several variations of romantic love, each more disappointing than the next. Nichols also depicts the father-son relationship in a literal way, between an uncle and nephew and with a surrogate father figure. Another variation highlights the loving bonds of friendship. However, one is more subtle than the rest, but permeates throughout the entire film. In its execution, Mud reads like Jeff Nichols’ personal love letter to middle America and his home state of Arkansas. 

During an opening scene Ellis helps his father ride across town and sell fish out of his truck. While the job itself doesn’t seem all that pleasant, the sequence is stunning. It’s shot during that magical time when the sun starts to melt into the Earth. Everything has the blue-gold haze of summer and youth. As they drive down a highway, you can see American flags and a sign that read “God Bless America” in the background. Nichols constructs this world with a certain authenticity and beauty that only a director from the same area could achieve. 

Mud is a regionally specific film as it takes place on the Mississippi River, but Nichols does a good job of evolving his characters beyond Southern conventions. These characters are in sensational circumstances (it is a movie after all), but they aren’t sensationalized characters. They are the ordinary, the broken, the lovesick. The type of people you would find in any riverside city in Arkansas. This realism aids in the film’s mass appeal and our ability to effortlessly invest in these characters and the film.

Now I have to admit my bias. The day before I saw Mud, I met Jeff Nichols and listened to him talk about his inspiration and the processes of making this film. On top of that, Mud was the last premiere I saw in the Lumiere theater during the Cannes Film Festival. 

While I can’t deny that I had an extraordinary viewing experience of Mud, I don’t think I would have enjoyed it any less if my first screening was in a familiar cineplex back in the states. Mud is a well-crafted uplifting drama that audiences will love no matter where they watch it. 

Antiviral

     Welcome to the Lucas Clinic, where your favorite celebrity’s diseases are at your choosing. Antiviral takes celebrity obsession to new heights as rabid fans pay to inject themselves with anything from the flu to herpes in an attempt to feel closer to their famous idols. Brandon Cronenberg attempts to master body horror like his father, David Cronenberg, but falls short in this sickening and exploitative depiction of a society possessed by celebrities. If Antiviral is any indication of where society is headed, I’ll off myself now and save the trip to the clinic. 

Class and beach. Beach and class.

Sitting in class in the morning then laying by the beach in the afternoon: my life post-festival. Not a bad combination if you ask me, and a good way to get over my end of the festival depression. 

Juan les Pins is a nice little town, but it is no Cannes. It’s felt weird not going to the train station, dealing with crowds, and walking down red carpet. I am not use to this thing called “down time.” What do you do in such situations? Why go for a swim in the Mediterranean of course! Well, at least that is what I tried to do yesterday. 

After class, I did a bit of shopping in JLP. I found the quintessential European clothing store. Everything was neon and fringed. I picked up a pair of skinny jeans only to discover that I had accidentally stumbled in the men’s section, and they were meant for guys. Whoops. 

I finally hit the beach and the second, THE SECOND, I got my towel out and got situated the sun went behind a huge cloud. Beach fail. Today was much more successful. So much so that I have started my French tan. 

The next nine days will include classes (which aren’t bad, it just isn’t the festival), day trips (I have Monaco, Antibes, and maybe a night back to Cannes on my list.), and this weekend I am headed to Italy to visit my cousin. 

I am so so so excited for Italy. If I can manage the train, I will be there Friday afternoon.It will be such a nice change from France. I will actually be able to somewhat, sort of, maybe converse with people! The food will be amazing! I will get to go see the Leaning Tower of Pisa! AND (most importantly) I will be with Kayla in the Italian countryside!!! Can you tell I’m a wee bit excited??? 

My view from the beach. Not too shabby, eh?