Cannes Is Pronounced like a Coke Can. Not Kahn.

We woke at 5 am, and by we I mean, my apartment decided and by my apartment I mean my roommate mother Camile decided that we should wake at 5 in order to be down stairs by 7. While yes some people need two our to prepare for an academy award, but not three average Americans, of intern quality needed to be that ready for breakfast. I can already tell, Camile is going to get on my nerves. She is "miss prepared" but "miss unprepared" when it comes to social interactions and appropriate behavior. Luckily I had plenty of time to get ready. We made it down stairs with our paper wear (technically it was supposed to be with glass wear in our kitchenette, because apparently the American Pavilion: the program I am interning with, is going green!) only to find out that our paper-ware (my roommate bought, "so we would not have to worry about breaking or doing the dishes") was not necessary at all because croissants and fruit do not require much ware weather dish or paper, at all. I am not allowing myself to eat any (not one) croissant, so it looks like I am sticking to fruit. After breakfast we met at the pool side to meet with our mentor groups. My mentor, blonde and peppy, Laina Rose from Austin Texas, was quite the interesting mentor. She seems really dumb but if she were really that dumb she wouldn't be here, so I must have some faith. She took us to the English University down the street where we met up with the rest of group in an auditorium for our "Welcome to Cannes" speech. This Wednesday starts the actual festival but until then we are having speakers, lectures and round tables. I sat in front of these extremely pompous student filmmakers ( in my same program), as they handed out their business cards, talking smart film talk. And their tactics for this and that. It made me so nervous, but shabang I could have busted out my business card, all 250 of them to be exact, if I really wanted to. I tried my very best not to fall asleep, while Water Harris, the student coordinator chatted our ears off with his feminine pizzaz. I found out that the Walter Harris, student program manager is a fashion photographer and a well known make-up artist. Who knew, I thought he was going to be a short fat brown haired danny devito but no he is a grey haired gay make up artist from Louisiana, who studied agriculture. After the meeting we met back up with our mentor groups for a tour of Cannes. We are staying a good thirty minute walk outside the actual festival, so by the time we got into town, we were all extremely hungry. This whole french bagget business is not helping my supposed Florentine detox session. In the afternoon we took a full walk around the facilities and become acquainted with the town and indeed we walked a lot. We met the group at the steps of the Debussy stairs to get our golden accreditation badges. Aka the badge to a happy life if lost, death is what one gets. We have to wear this badge where ever we go, basically we were told to sleep in it. First the first time I actually have a half decent picture on a photo identification badge. This afternoon amongst the sun and glisten waters we hopped aboard a ferry to a small monk island off the coast of Cannes, where surprise suprise Monks live in monasteries and make wine and honey. Who knew Monks lived on Islands in the south of France? As all first days of any program, it was a wee bit unorganized and due to girls needing to use the restroom on the main land, the group was spilt up and we ended up waiting for a good tour hours from them arrive. We finally climbed up an old castle to play the name game (naturally) We, all 131 of us had to say our names and something interesting about ourselves. Obviously I had to go 2nd and was totally unprepared with something witty and fancy like "I did this" or "I met that", so instead I told everyone my name pronounced backwards was Nosilla. LAME. I regret every moment of it. We went around the entire castle learning this and that about this person and that person but had to rush to leave or else we would be stranded on an island with monks for the night. Meh, that wouldn't be so bad now would it? We grabbed dinner at a stand. We being my friends from terminal 2. Yes, I get two marks on my panini counter for the day. We sat along a ledge over looking the beach and watched surfers and sipped wine and brew. I met a really interesting 17 year old French boy, that was recruited for the program because of one of his films he made. Truly inspiring. We walked home and then it was bed time for bonzo's, tomorrow lends itself to another very early.

may 11 in france, the southern part, in cannes to be exact.