Travel Day

We resume our tale bright and early at 6:30 on Saturday morning. Our French/Australian taxi driver Philippe was busy and couldn't drive us, but had set us up with another driver, Loic. (though after the giant tip I gave Philippe after the ride to the hospital, I’m sure he was kicking himself that he couldn’t fit us in on Saturday.) This driver turned out to be equally charming but not so much fluent in English. So front seat conversation took place in French, back seat conversation in English.

Loic was cab driver extraordinaire – not only did he drive us to the train station and help us with the bags, he actually went in with us and once we realized we were leaving from the other side of the station, he walked all the way over there with us, validated our tickets for us and set us up in a good spot to wait to find out which platform our train was on. Besides this, he was wearing a suit. Only in France. He was also rewarded handsomely for his service.

We were early, which we had planned to be, to make sure that we had plenty of time to get on the train, so HKD and I went off in search of coffee and left Mom attending the baggage to prevent the French military men with their berets and Uzis from considering it abandoned and destroying it.

We listened to the lovely sound of the train announcements (all announcements in Paris start with music) until finally our train came up. Getting on went smoothly, and we were among the first ones in our car, so there was plenty of room for stowing our bags as well as the rather unwieldy albatross.

First class seats on the TGV rock. (TGV is the “Train a Grand Vitesse” a.k.a. France’s high-speed train.) Roomy, reclinable, moveable armrests, and, if, you get the window, lots of window to lean against. I think the early morning hospital runs combined with the early-morning train run had caught up with me, because once that train was set in motion, I was OUT. I slept from the moment we left the Paris city limits all the way until we hit the coast. It’s too bad, in a way, because the countryside through France is downright beautiful, but waking up to the sun shining down on the Meditterranean wasn’t too shabby either. I swear, there’s just something about being on the ocean that makes everything all good, even me waking up from a nap. I don’t tend to be the cheeriest person upon waking up, particularly after sleeping on any number of modes of transport, but in this case, I saw the sea and all was well.

As we passed through Cannes, I seriously considered getting off the train there, even though our final destination was supposed to be Nice. Cannes, however, is actually closer to where the villa is located (Mougins) so I decided maybe that was a better place to get off. I waffled too long, however, and since it was only a stop (not the final destination) I worried about whether we would have ample time to get the luggage, the albatross, and Mom all off the train, so we decided to just go on to Nice as planned.

I had not-so-great memories of Nice, because sixteen years ago, when I visited the Cote d’Azur during a school vacation from studying in Paris, my friend Melissa and I got off the train in Nice and looked up some inexpensive hotels. Now it is true that in most big cities that the area around the train station is not usually the most desirable area of the city – this generalization holds true for the city of Nice, as well. Within an hours of getting off the train, Melissa and I had been entirely freaked out by the seediness of the place and had hopped back on a local train headed to Antibes, where we ended up in a lovely youth hostel (which is still there, I passed it) right on the sea where we sat out on the jetty and ate olives and drank red wine with some lovely South African guys also staying in the hostel who taught us how to say “blood orange” in Afrikaans. (Shockingly, 16 years later… I have forgotten the word. ☺)

ANYWAY, that was back then, and this is the now, people. So I was ready to give Nice a go for a second time. This time was also less than pleasant, for no reason other than the heat.

While it had been hot in Paris (95 at least three of the days we had been there) it was now hot and sea-induced humid. There are no elevators in the Nice train station, and while it was nice to be in the first car on the platform in Paris, that meant we were in the last car on the platform in Nice, where the two o’clock sun was beating down nice and strongly on us. Mom wanted to walk after sitting so long, so HKD pushed the empty chair with a bag in it and trailed one bag behind her while I pulled the biggest bag and carried all the carry-ons. This was lovely until we got to the steps. Three trips down the steps with all the luggage and a wheelchair, then three steps UP the steps on the other side, into a very swelteringly hot and not-so pleasant smelling station. I parked HKD and the bags into a corner and went to a) get water b) get a map, c) check out the taxi situation. I think I actually scared the lady in the newsstand with how much I was sweating… I think she thought I was having some sort of medical emergency and she sure didn’t want it happening in her newsstand, so I got very prompt service.

I noticed that it was a bit breezier in front of the station as compared to inside, so we dragged all of our very heavy and at the time quite burdensome American crap over to the front of the station and that is when, as I stood in the taxi line with my map trying to figure out where to tell the taxi guy where to go, a miracle occurred.

I must say, as far as good coincidences go, I tend to very rarely be in the right place at the right time, however, if I had to choose a time for one to happen, this would have been high on my list. Suddenly, as we all stood there sweating through our clothes in a fantastically American kind of way, someone called HKD’s name and she turned and said, with far less surprise than I would have expected:

“Hey, that’s my mom.”

Ah, those were such sweet words. And not only was it her Mom (who shall henceforth be known as Ruth) it was also her brother (a.k.a. Justin/JD) who is big and capable of lifting heavy things such as wheelchairs and luggage far more easily than the rest of us. And a car. A typically small European, but gloriously air conditioned car.

Oh, dear Lord, was I glad that we hadn’t gotten off in Cannes. And it turns out that Ruth and Justin had been waiting for us for twenty minutes at the wrong train station and had arrived just as we came out of the right station.

One would think, for sure, that this is the happy ending.

Well, kinda.

After leaving the train station, we got lost. Tragically, pathetically lost. The five of us, squeezed into a small sized French car, Ruth in the front, a bit rusty driving the standard on the tiny winding French road. It was pretty humorous. There was a lot of stalling and cursing and reversing of directions, going around rotaries four times in order to figure out which way to go, etc. We had directions, but they were in French, and, even though I could read them, they were BAD.

We managed to find the town and after driving around for a while there we fortuitously happened upon the tourism office. I jumped out and ran in, greeting them in French with : “We are absolutely, completely lost. Please help us.”

I showed them the address and at first they were stumped, but eventually pulled out a map and highlighted where to go. We actually managed to get there, but, alas, they had sent us to the wrong address – a condo where a few extra people attending the birthday extravaganza were going, not the actual villa. I sat and studied the map for a few minutes while the others discussed the fact that we had, while failing to locate the house, located the hospital – good to know with the faulty ball-and-socket joint on board.

I managed to find the correct address on the map and we made it there, put the code in the main gate (gated community, ooooh…) and went to the villa where we lived happily ever after.

Uh, no. Actually, we were locked out of the villa gate.

Turns out Lynda and Rod, in the other car, had gotten even MORE lost than we did, and weren’t there yet. They were the ones who were supposed to call the caretaker to let us in, but it turns out that they also had no phone service. So I called the caretaker, who really only spoke French, while JD, HKD, Ruth and Mom stood as flat as possible against the opposite villa wall in the 3 inches of shade to be found in mid-afternoon in the Cote d’Azur.

Lynda and Rod pulled up soon after and we all huddled in the shade discussing our various degrees of lost-ness. Finally, the caretaker arrived and let us in. She gave us the tour, which, unfortunately, only I understood, since she wanted to give it in French and she knew I spoke it since I had talked to her in French on the phone.

Finally we got rid of her and the vacation was allowed to begin. I immediately hopped in the pool and went to my happy place.

**Author’s Note: After I wrote the above, I stayed in that happy place for one week and between that and the fact that there was no wireless internet, did not blog. The rest of this shall remain as factual as possible based on my frighteningly bad for a thirtysomething year old memory.

Back to our story...

Ok, so at this point, there were seven of us accounted for, and three missing. Sara was supposed to be the first to arrive, via JFK at 8ish that a.m., but she had met with a series of tragic airport screw-overs and ended up flying out of Boston (through Heathrow, I think?) and was supposed to be in around 4:30. Lesley was coming in on Lufthansa around 5:00. Graham, who had booked on a flight that arrived at 11:30 pm, hoping to go standby on an earlier flight, had lost that gamble and wasn’t getting in until the originally planned time.


As JD and I chilled out in the pool, Lynda, Ruth and HKD took off around 5 to try to get Sara and Lesley at the airport, planning to hit the grocery store afterward.

They had been gone quite a while, and had called saying they couldn’t find anyone at the airport when suddenly the doorbell rang, and there was Sara at the door. She had taken a bus to Cannes and a cab to the house. 8 out of 10 ain't bad...

Darkness fell and we all waited impatiently on the front deck for the groceries (read: wine) to arrive. Finally the airport crew arrived back with zero new guests in tow. They hadn’t been able to track down Lesley and were cursing at her for not at least calling with the cell phone Ruth had given her to use.

Amusingly, Lesley showed up shortly after, at the gate, having taken the same bus/cab route from Nice to Cannes to the villa in Mougins. The cell phone hadn't worked, so she had actually been cursing right back about the phone as she was getting cursed at for not using it. The outer gate code changed between the time the cabbie dropped her off and left (for security, it changes at 9 pm) so the cabbie was back at our gate in a few minutes, unable to get out. I gave him the codes the caretaker had left and he was not seen again so I guess they worked.

So, missing only Graham, Lynda cooked a lovely meal of spaghetti and meatballs with bread and salad (Note: there were no tomatoes in the salad because, although she had read the blog, Ruth did not weigh them in the produce department before taking them to the register..heh, heh… I try to teach in my blog…if you aren't willing to learn... just kidding.)

Dinner and wine were consumed and we all headed off to bed (except Lynda and Rod, who headed off at 11 to fetch Graham at the airport and of course got lost again on the way home)

Sleep was good, on the French Riviera

(okay, when is sleep not good, actually, but it seemed like a good ending.)

I’ll try to give you the lowdown on week two asap. Thanks for your patience and indulgence.

MLW