No. 9

Yesterday lived up to every single expectation we had. Let me start off by describing Wednesday night…. Last time I checked in, we were getting ready to go for dinner and a movie. Well, movie never happened- dinner was too good/fun/amazing to even consider sitting in a dark theater for two hours after that. We walked down the cobblestone street with the bazillions of restaurants and by chance, settled on one in particular called Di Fredo. We chose it because on the appetizer menu for the price fixe, it had a pan-fried foie gras on top of a homemade apple tart (Adam Pearlson’s heaven on a plate slash one of the best things all of us have eaten this entire trip). I don’t think I’ve ever seen Adam eat anything that slowly, well, ever…. The waitress too, enticed us with a giant “magnum” bottle of rose wine and stopped us on the street to tell us she thought we looked like a fun bunch. How could Hayley, Rawson, Adam, Arthur, and I ever turn that type of invitation down? The food (especially the chocolate mousse which we all had for dessert), company, and conversation made it the best meal we’ve had all trip! Afterwards we wandered over to the beach and played fooseball at the outdoor arcade. Adam and I dominated. Naturally. We came back to the dorms after that to play ping-pong and also naturally, Hayley and I passed out within half an hour.

We woke up earlyish the next morning and reconvened to see a re-screening of On the Road, the premiere we ditched out on the night before. We were all so glad we waited, since the movie was 2 hours and 40 minutes- WAY TOO LONG! We had heard mixed reviews going into it, but the movie actually turned out to be very enjoyable and interesting. Literally starving after, Hayley, Rawson, Adam, and I returned in the daylight to the restaurant where we got pizza and fries at 1 am many days ago. We got pasta and salads for lunch, and sadly came to the conclusion that salads just are not good in France. Like at all… Oh well, more pastries/bread/meat for us then I guess.

Wednesday was the first day that we were able to reserve invitations to the movies inside the Grand Lumiere rather than have to beg for them, so although all the premieres were of course sold out, there was an afternoon film, Post Tenebras Lux, that had tickets available. We were excited we got to actually be legit enough to do this ourselves and eagerly reserved them. We hurried home after lunch to quickly change into our premiere attire so that we could see this film and then immediately go start begging outside for tickets to The Paperboy. Well, I won't even go into the details of this film because, to be honest, Hayley and I only stayed for 40 minutes, 35 of which I slept through. It was literally the weirdest/worst movie ever. Not that it will ever make it to American shores, but if you see this on the theater roster, RUN THE OTHER WAY. The exhaustion of the trip hit me and Hayley allll at once and we bailed on the movie to instead go to one of our personal fav restaurants in Cannes, Cookies and Coffee. It literally has exactly what it promises/exactly what we needed: cookies and coffee. We had our first actual-American sized lattes and chocolate chip and kinder bar cookies. Heavenly. (However, after we were halfway through our coffees, we discovered that they actually had iced coffee there- almost on the brink of tears.) We came to the mutual decision that the caffeine/sugar rush put us at 65% working capacity, so we got up to start begging. Luckily (but at this point really not surprising to us), we all got tickets to the movie. I was SO EXCITED. As I mentioned yesterday, the film stars Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack, and Matthew McCoughnahey.

Our crew was particularly excited to see them on the red carpet, because they're all so fabulous and amazing. Since this was our ninth (yes, 9 ;) ) red carpet experience, we knew how to time it so that we could see the cast on the red carpet just as they were closing it off to the public. Last night, though, we were about 3 minutes too late and they closed the balcony access to the red carpet so we were al huddled behind a gate watching the carpet from afar as the cast descended down it. At first, I was furious, because I wanted to go inside, but it actually ended up being a blessing in disguise. Rather than see the cast on the screen inside the theater, we saw them with our own eyes taking pictures on the stairs/on the carpet. We also saw Heidi Klum and Antonio Banderas. It was pretty cool. Then, though, we were scared it meant we weren’t going to get seats since they let the people huddled outside in at 7:27. K….

We RAN, literally, RAN, the red carpet. Forget about walking it, we’re so past that- all about the casual jog in heels up those famous stairs. Turns out, they had closed the Grand Lumiere (LITERALLY THE PITS, as Hayley Brooks would say) and so we had to see the movie in a smaller theater called the Buzin inside the Palais. At first it was sad, but then the movie was so fabulous it didn’t even matter. AS SOON AS IT COMES TO AMERICA, SEE IT PEOPLE. SO WORTH IT!!!!! Set in the 1960s, it tells the story of a journalist trying to get a man off death row, and the friendship and affair that forms between the convict’s lover and the journalist’s younger brother. Fabulous, absolutely fabulous. Definitely one of my top 3 favorite movies.

Since I wasn’t in the main theater, Adam took a video of the cast leaving the theater for me, and I should point out on this blog that Nicole Kidman PERSONALLY thanked him after he told her she did an outstanding job in the film as she left the theater. Way to go Adam! Cloud 9 after red carpet number 9 must be a great place to be!

Afterwards, we broke our number one rule never to return to the same restaurant twice—“why should we because there are thousands to choose from and we need to experience as much as we can?” has been our mentality—which turned out for the best. Our second meal there was equally as incredible and we had another bottle of “magnum”-sized rose wine. A special thanks to Sophia, the hostess/waitress who’s name we finally learned last night. And to the chefs, who continue to make the best chocolate mousse on earth. We were all so tired though, so we came back and PASSED OUT. More to come tomorrow… Hayley and I discovered that there has been over 2,000 hits on the blog since I started it up. Thanks so much to everyone who has read and keep on reading!!!