Tag Archives: work

May 06 2010
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Juan-Les-Pins

O.K., Let’s try this again

Today, Day 2.

Slept in (as in I slept from midnight to 11:30am), woke up, and tried to shake my shakiness from the day before. Still a bit uneasy, but managed to force down a croissant. I repeat – FORCE down a croissant. It was hot, freshly baked, and I had to FORCE it down. Didn’t taste it either. Hmm…considering this is what my mouth has been watering for all Spring leading up to this, I immediately know that I am still not quite up to par. I mean, BODY, get with the program! We’re in freaking FRANCE for crepe’s sake.

Anyway – I go with my body’s unwillingness to participate and say to myself, ‘go back to bed, young lady.’ So I did. Until 4:30 that evening.

I woke up to my beeping travel alarm alerting me to get my derrière into gear – as I had a scheduled time to meet our on-the-ground France correspondent, Namita, who helps out with the program with logistics and such throughout the year. I had to meet her at 5:42pm in the next town over, Antibes. Thankfully it is only one stop away via train – a total of 2 minutes on the tracks.

Seeing Namita get off the train brought a much-needed smile to my face. She gave me a suitcase full of things I need to set up my “personal office” back in my room (printer, cords, CD’s, about a thousand cell phones, etc). We sat in the Antibes train station for 10min before she had to continue on her way to Nice. After an express espresso with her and the suitcase now in tow – I hopped the train back one stop to my quaint little stomping grounds in Juan Les Pins.

Et voila! Here I am on my laptop — answering emails and taking names…

Saw this at the Antibes train station. Good ol’ Steve Carrell and Tina Fey. What if I just stuck it to the Cannes Film Fest and went to see this movie in one of the local theatres instead of one of the flashy red carpet premieres one night? Not cool? No? Alright.

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Jun 12 2009
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France, Travel

Stateside

Dan and I made it back to Atlanta last night from Paris. As with most things in my life, there is a story to be told about our flight home. I promise to write the details on it later, but let’s just say it includes old people, vomit, and a near emergency landing in South Carolina. It’s always interesting!

I know I haven’t done an update since we left the Riviera, but I want to update you on everything in sequential order. My plan is to attempt to pick up from where I left off with pictures and such in Juan-Les-Pins and continue thru to Paris and then our flight home.
I’m super jetlagged. Apparently I was overly ambitious in thinking that I could fly home on a Wednesday night and be at work Thursday morning. Dan convinced me I was crazy and needed to take a personal day to catch up on rest and get the body clock back on schedule. He was right……I slept today off and on until 5:07pm. Feels good.
I’ll try to update as much as I can before bedtime tonight. Back to work in America tomorrow!
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Jun 07 2009
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Juan-Les-Pins, UGA Students, Visitors

Last day in Juan

I already did one post on my last day in Juan-Les-Pins when I was checking all of the students out of the residence. Beginning with check-outs at 4:30am that morning, I was finally done with the last of them around mid-day. Instead of going up to bed to sleep, Dan and I made the most of our last day in the south and paid 15euro a piece to rent padded beach chairs in the sand. It was unnaturally windy this day so the waves were choppier than I’ve ever seen them on the Med. It was warm in the sun, though, and we soaked up every last ounce of our last day before Paris.

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Jun 06 2009
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Reflections, UGA Students, University of Georgia

Student Check-Out Day

Today is the official end to the 2009 Cannes Film Festival Study Abroad Program at UGA.  It is 8:26AM here in France and I have been checking students out since 4:30AM this morning.  All but three people have checked out of the residence and made their way to both the Nice airport for long plane rides home and to the train station for many post-program travels.

I am emotionless, but I think that’s only because I’m too tired to “feel” right now.  I’m sure this all will hit me (the students being gone, the fact that I have to leave my life at the beach) later on.  If it doesn’t hit me later today then I’m sure it will tomorrow as I’m on an Air France flight for a 3-day getaway in Paris.  And if it doesn’t hit me then then it’ll for sure hit me come Thursday morning when I’m back in the offices of Fletcher Martin a mere 12-hours after I’ve touched down stateside.  My mind cannot even begin to fathom what that morning will feel like.
For now, I want to soak up the rest of my time in this beautiful, quaint, dreamlike place.  I hate to leave it, but I can’t WAIT to come back!
I’m adding more pictures to my last post (which can be found below this one) as I wait for the last of the students to turn in their keys.  After those final goodbyes you can find me passed out from exhaustion on the beaches of JLP for one last day in the Mediterranean sun.  Okay, I think it’s starting to hit me…  I better go focus now so I can ditch this laptop and get out to enjoy this lovely, sunny, French life to which I’ve grown so accustomed.
A bientot!
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May 20 2009
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Cannes Film Festival, Guest Speakers, Red Carpet, UGA Students, Visitors

Slacking

I promise to finish writing about the last few days.  I have seen three new movies that I am dying to tell you about among many other things.  So I will include all of this when I finish posting later tonight (afternoon – your time).

For now, though, I’m going to take a break from this blogging business to take care of some REAL business over here.  I have to:
– Get back in touch with film critic, Michael Phillips (Chicago Tribune), about speaking with our students this Friday evening.  And since it seems like our good fortune has run out at the Hotel Victoria (their hospitality for our “free” meetings lasted only so long) I must book another place for us to meet with our guest speakers.  Luckily, I found a super swanky hotel right across the street from the Victoria that looks like it’ll work.  Need to get back in touch with the manager there and book a time/menu for us on Friday (they’re charging us in food/drinks instead of a base price….which I can appreciate).
– I also have two friends in town who arrived via train last night.  They have backpacked through 5 countries in the past week.  That makes me tired to think about.  So now they’re shacking at my place in Juan-Les-Pins to slow down their pace for a few days of R&R on the beach.  I think I may join them for a couple hours this afternoon.
– While sunning in the sand today I also need to jot some ideas down for my next article on athensexchange.com since I have left them hanging since last week.  I feel really bad, but the business of Cannes has consumed my life and left little time for solid, reflective writing.  I will give it my best effort later today, though.
– Tonight is the red carpet premiere of the in-competition Tarantino film, “Inglorious Basterds,” starring Brad Pitt.  The Croisette is going to be CROWDED tonight because everyone will want a glimpse of Brangelina.  Most of our students are going to beg the hardest they’ve begged so far for a ticket to tonight’s screening, I know.  While I would love to be in there with Brangey and ‘tino, I think the chaos would be more than I could handle in heels.  Instead I think my visiting friends and I will don some long-sleeve tees and flops to observe the red carpet from afar and then hit up the laid-back movie on the beach with a make-shift picnic on a blanket.  That is much more my speed these days.
– Then hopefully tonight I can muster up enough energy to finish posting about the last few days.  I’ll channel “The Little Engine That Could” as much as humanly possible (“…I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..”).
Until tonight, mes amis…   A bientot!
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