Cannes Has a Makeover

I apologize for not updating the blog recently. Life in Cannes has gotten much busier since my return from Spring Break. This is what I have been up to....

Written on 11 April 2010:

Tourists have invaded Cannes!

April marked the start of tourist season in Cannes. After returning from Spring Break it was as if our quiet little city had a makeover and now had this youthful, confident kick in its step. Though from this transformation came both pros and cons.

Pros: With the coming of the tourists, the city finally has some life in it. During the off-season Cannes and most of the Cote d’Azur serves as a warm place to retire (Florida but for Europeans). So the first few months we were here that’s exactly what the city felt like...a retirement home. The students of the collège were the only youth in Cannes. Now, every restaurant and shop that Cannes has to offer is open; the bars have people in them...including young people; the beaches are full; and the sun is always shining! It’s amazing what can happen in a week away.

Cons: Though with tourists come annoyances to locals (or in my case students living in Cannes for an extended period of time). No longer are our leisurely walks into to town to browse leisurely at all, but spent combating people in the crowded streets. At the more popular bars it is almost impossible to get a drink and clubs now charge covers to get in. Thankfully, because we Americans typically eat dinner earlier then Europeans we can still get a table at our favorite restaurants, but the prices have undergone a nice little increase. With the nicer weather more people have been making it to the beach, which has been great because I am getting tan and keeping active by swimming, but European beaches are a lot less modest than American ones. Oh yes...the topless sunbathers are out in full form in Cannes and no they are not young girls, but women 45+...now there is an image for you. But despite that I have a lot of respect for their confidence and indifference to the rest of the world (plus their tans are flawless) but the men I could really do without. As the collège security guard once told us “beware of the sharks, they are not in the water”. In the bars and on the street le dragueur (flirt) are uninhibited, have a lack of boundaries and can smell an American girl from over a kilometer away. On the beach they are they are the same way, but in short little trunks, Speedos and the occasional man thong...its hard to erase the image of a man in a thong laying down next to you out of your head.

Since the start of tourist season, life in Cannes has been very different, but it’s the time of our lives and we sure are living it!