Travelday

In my introductory blog post, I mentioned that I consider one of my homes to be Cannes, a small city on the Côte d’Azur famous for its yearly film festival.

I applied to go to Cannes on a whim. I had been living at home and working all summer after my first year of college, and I was very nervous to go back: one of my best friends at the University of Toronto had been an exchange student, so he was headed back to Wales to finish his degree, and the rest of us were moving out of the dorms and into apartments. It didn’t help that my summer consisted almost entirely of working crazy hours at a local Italian restaurant for four months.

While doing some research on Junior year study abroad in Italy for my Italian major, I stumbled upon the website for a program sending students to Cannes for four months. My mother, who is a francophile herself, and who was sitting next to me in the kitchen, encouraged me to apply for the spring semester of my Sophomore year. I was fairly sure that I wouldn’t go: I had my heart set on spending Junior year in Siena, but I sent in the application anyway, and then I promptly stopped thinking about it.

By the time my acceptance letter came from Cannes, I was growing bored in Toronto. I needed a change, so I accepted. Just a few short months later, and I was spending the hardest months of the Toronto winter on the Mediterranean coast. Little did I know then that that would be the end of my time in Toronto.

I got to know Cannes very well in those months before the tourist crowds came. The city extends far back into the hills, but my favorite places to go were within the small city center.

My American study group lived at the Collège International de Cannes, a foreign language school right on the beach. Aside from our large American group, there were people from all over the world, and despite the language barriers, we all became fast friends. We had a favorite Irish pub, Quay’s, where everyone knew us and we could always find people to hang out with and a section of the beach where you were sure to run into friends. Most of all, though, I just loved exploring.

First, I explored the city. There were shops and restaurants to see, and the Suquet besides, which was a pedestrian street that ran through the middle of the city. I loved to walk the familiar streets and just listen to people speak: it didn’t matter what I was doing or that I had seen the same shops hundreds of times; I loved listening to people speak French. I loved being in France.

After I’d had my fill of the town, and especially once the weather grew even more beautiful, it became hard to stay away from the shore. Walking along the beach, you could head either towards Italy or towards Spain. In the Italian direction, you ran into Antibes and Nice before anything else, but towards Spain, the road twisted and turned to reveal some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. I would ride on the back of a scooter all the way up and down the twisting roads to find secret alcoves for swimming and picnics.

I’m back in Cannes again for the week, taking some time away from Paris before finals start. I love arriving here and seeing the same familiar scenery: palm trees slaying in the breeze, and the deep blue Mediterranean. It’s like coming home.