Le France! Baguettes,
escargo, frogs legs, crepes, macaroons and grumpy Frenchmen (and women).
After flying around in the sky for 20mins- as the weather was so bad that Nice airport had decided to close- we were told that unless it opened in the next 10mins, we would have to land in Marseilles or the plane was going to run out of petrol. Great! What is it with me and travelling? I swear I’m cursed. I think I need to start wearing a St Christopher when I travel (or is it a St Patrick? Can’t remember...).
Antibes is beautiful- intertwining cobbled streets and vibrant and bustling cafes and patisseries on every street corner.
The smells of freshly baked bread and crepes fill the air. The buildings are old and classic and there is a fort and the Picasso museum (below).
Antibes is about 15mins on the train from Cannes and the beaches that stretch between the two are gorgeous. Our local hangout though is the one closest to the Yacht port called “The Toilet Basin” (God only knows why. I hope it’s not for the literal meaning).
I’m staying in a crewhouse, which is like a hostel, but only yachties (that’s what the people in the industry call themselves) stay here. It’s nice because we are all in the same situation and we give each other motivation and let each other know when we hear about jobs and there are often job opportunities that go up on the board. It’s mainly Kiwi’s, Aussie’s, Brits and the odd Swede. But generally most people in the industry seem to be Saffa’s. The hostel has 5 rooms and each sleeps around 3-4 people. I share a room with 2 guys and for the first 2 nights the one guy slept on the couch because my snoring was apparently so bad (I think it was an over exaggeration...).
My first night here was the day before my birthday so my friend Bianca took me out and introduced me to some saffa’s working on the boats who are AHSOME. We went to an amazing little pizza place and had a huge laugh when we realized not only were we all from Cape Town, but we were all from Hout Bay. So we had a little 7-9-0 reunion! Had a great night and loads of fun!
On my actual b-day I unwrapped a few prezzies that got snuck into my luggage and then decided to treat myself by going out and buying a box of macaroons. Oh. My. God were they delicious. The French really can do pastries. And you even get big ones the size of coasters!
I then had to go and sort out my laptop which had decided to break the day I left London- one week old and the screen had just stopped working. Well even though the French can be rude (everyone claims they can’t speak English or just refuse to and aren’t even willing to try and understand what you say as you make hand gestures and point at things. You just get a raised eyebrow and “Je ne comprends pas”) they are at least efficient, and after a call to Sony International, a courier arrived literally a few hours later to fetch my laptop. That night the boys took me out for a few drinks and turned into a pretty raucous evening.
The job hunt has been difficult and quite frustrating- it’s quite a tough time to be looking as most of the boats are cutting down on staff as they are going to the shipyards for winter. Others are going over to the Caribbean, but they usually want crew with at least one seasons experience and for you to have a B1/B2 visa. So the girls that have worked this season get placed firs.t The recruitment agencies haven’t proved to be that helpful and all pretty much said go home and come back in Feb if you don’t have any experience. There are still industry newbies getting work but it’s through dock walking- missioning up and down the docks every day, chatting to yacht crew and handing out CV’s. Sometimes you can get day work where a boat might just need an extra pair of hands for a few days. You get paid around 100 euros a day so it’s good cash and good to add to your CV.
Dock walking in Antibes didn't prove to be all that successful for many of us so we’ve been going up and down the coast to different ports each day to try and find work (or even some day work to keep us going for a bit longer)- Monaco, Nice, Cannes, Juan le Pin. Then even as far as Toulon, La Ciotat and Marseilles (they all have large shipyards) in France and Imperia and San Remo in Italy. To get to Imperia is 2.5hrs on train and costs 24 euros. So to travel for 5hrs a day to dock walk for 3hrs and spend 24 euros and then not get any work is really frustrating as you will see shortly.
Another thing that is incredibly frustrating is the French public transport system, which is about as reliable as Baldrick from Black Adder. So with that- added to my bad travelling luck- it was just more disasters waiting to happen. About a week ago I went to Imperia to do some dock walking and on the way back you have to change trains at a place on the Italian-French border called Vermiglia. Well that day of all days, the day I decide to go to Italy, the French decide to go on a train strike. I got to Vermiglia, tired and just wanting to go home and felt absolutely fucked off (there’s no other way to describe it) when I looked at the departures board and saw that every single train to France for the rest of the day was cancelled. I was pretty much stuck in Italy. Bastards. Lazy sods. How inconsiderate of them to strike!
I happened across a hippie Canadian backpacking couple, an Italian girl and another Canadian girl who has been living in France and speaks French, and we were all in the same boat. So between the 2 translators we managed to establish that there were no buses and the only way home was to get a taxi. Now a taxi from Nice to Antibes is about 15mins and 70 euros. Well we were 2hrs on the train from Antibes so I was having a mild anxiety attack about what the cost of the taxi would be. Well praise be to the Italians who are a shit load cheaper than the swindling French and we only had to fork out 120 euros between the 5 of us to get back to Nice. Still, about 6hrs of travelling in total and 50 euros later.
Then more fabulous luck- my blackberry decided to pack up and die, so I had to go and find a phone shop only to be told that I needed to replace the battery (better than a new phone but still...) and would have to wait 3-4 days. So I had to buy a shitty 15 euro Samsung that a caveman would even have sneered at. Seriously! I have the worst luck ever! What with travelling and technology all going against me, I started to feel like a pawn in some amusing game of the gods and could just imagine them all sitting up there hosing themselves at me and saying things like “No wait, wait, let’s make that chicken she just walked 2km to buy off now too!” (true story. It smelt like Ghandi’s foot). I prayed for better luck in the coming week and decided that it would be a fabulous idea to drown my sorrows by going out that night for sushi dinner and bottle of wine with B and Stu (Stu is ex world champion downhill skateboarder so the board comes with us everywhere!):
Surely my luck has to change soon- I mean it’s only a matter of time and so many things have gone pear shaped already, so things could only get better. I started to smile and felt better- the following week was going to be a good week!
Or not....
Look out for the next post about this week – to be released on Wed!
After flying around in the sky for 20mins- as the weather was so bad that Nice airport had decided to close- we were told that unless it opened in the next 10mins, we would have to land in Marseilles or the plane was going to run out of petrol. Great! What is it with me and travelling? I swear I’m cursed. I think I need to start wearing a St Christopher when I travel (or is it a St Patrick? Can’t remember...).
Antibes is beautiful- intertwining cobbled streets and vibrant and bustling cafes and patisseries on every street corner.
The smells of freshly baked bread and crepes fill the air. The buildings are old and classic and there is a fort and the Picasso museum (below).
Antibes is about 15mins on the train from Cannes and the beaches that stretch between the two are gorgeous. Our local hangout though is the one closest to the Yacht port called “The Toilet Basin” (God only knows why. I hope it’s not for the literal meaning).
I’m staying in a crewhouse, which is like a hostel, but only yachties (that’s what the people in the industry call themselves) stay here. It’s nice because we are all in the same situation and we give each other motivation and let each other know when we hear about jobs and there are often job opportunities that go up on the board. It’s mainly Kiwi’s, Aussie’s, Brits and the odd Swede. But generally most people in the industry seem to be Saffa’s. The hostel has 5 rooms and each sleeps around 3-4 people. I share a room with 2 guys and for the first 2 nights the one guy slept on the couch because my snoring was apparently so bad (I think it was an over exaggeration...).
My first night here was the day before my birthday so my friend Bianca took me out and introduced me to some saffa’s working on the boats who are AHSOME. We went to an amazing little pizza place and had a huge laugh when we realized not only were we all from Cape Town, but we were all from Hout Bay. So we had a little 7-9-0 reunion! Had a great night and loads of fun!
On my actual b-day I unwrapped a few prezzies that got snuck into my luggage and then decided to treat myself by going out and buying a box of macaroons. Oh. My. God were they delicious. The French really can do pastries. And you even get big ones the size of coasters!
I then had to go and sort out my laptop which had decided to break the day I left London- one week old and the screen had just stopped working. Well even though the French can be rude (everyone claims they can’t speak English or just refuse to and aren’t even willing to try and understand what you say as you make hand gestures and point at things. You just get a raised eyebrow and “Je ne comprends pas”) they are at least efficient, and after a call to Sony International, a courier arrived literally a few hours later to fetch my laptop. That night the boys took me out for a few drinks and turned into a pretty raucous evening.
The job hunt has been difficult and quite frustrating- it’s quite a tough time to be looking as most of the boats are cutting down on staff as they are going to the shipyards for winter. Others are going over to the Caribbean, but they usually want crew with at least one seasons experience and for you to have a B1/B2 visa. So the girls that have worked this season get placed firs.t The recruitment agencies haven’t proved to be that helpful and all pretty much said go home and come back in Feb if you don’t have any experience. There are still industry newbies getting work but it’s through dock walking- missioning up and down the docks every day, chatting to yacht crew and handing out CV’s. Sometimes you can get day work where a boat might just need an extra pair of hands for a few days. You get paid around 100 euros a day so it’s good cash and good to add to your CV.
Dock walking in Antibes didn't prove to be all that successful for many of us so we’ve been going up and down the coast to different ports each day to try and find work (or even some day work to keep us going for a bit longer)- Monaco, Nice, Cannes, Juan le Pin. Then even as far as Toulon, La Ciotat and Marseilles (they all have large shipyards) in France and Imperia and San Remo in Italy. To get to Imperia is 2.5hrs on train and costs 24 euros. So to travel for 5hrs a day to dock walk for 3hrs and spend 24 euros and then not get any work is really frustrating as you will see shortly.
 |
| Port of Imperia with super yachts |
Another thing that is incredibly frustrating is the French public transport system, which is about as reliable as Baldrick from Black Adder. So with that- added to my bad travelling luck- it was just more disasters waiting to happen. About a week ago I went to Imperia to do some dock walking and on the way back you have to change trains at a place on the Italian-French border called Vermiglia. Well that day of all days, the day I decide to go to Italy, the French decide to go on a train strike. I got to Vermiglia, tired and just wanting to go home and felt absolutely fucked off (there’s no other way to describe it) when I looked at the departures board and saw that every single train to France for the rest of the day was cancelled. I was pretty much stuck in Italy. Bastards. Lazy sods. How inconsiderate of them to strike!
I happened across a hippie Canadian backpacking couple, an Italian girl and another Canadian girl who has been living in France and speaks French, and we were all in the same boat. So between the 2 translators we managed to establish that there were no buses and the only way home was to get a taxi. Now a taxi from Nice to Antibes is about 15mins and 70 euros. Well we were 2hrs on the train from Antibes so I was having a mild anxiety attack about what the cost of the taxi would be. Well praise be to the Italians who are a shit load cheaper than the swindling French and we only had to fork out 120 euros between the 5 of us to get back to Nice. Still, about 6hrs of travelling in total and 50 euros later.
Then more fabulous luck- my blackberry decided to pack up and die, so I had to go and find a phone shop only to be told that I needed to replace the battery (better than a new phone but still...) and would have to wait 3-4 days. So I had to buy a shitty 15 euro Samsung that a caveman would even have sneered at. Seriously! I have the worst luck ever! What with travelling and technology all going against me, I started to feel like a pawn in some amusing game of the gods and could just imagine them all sitting up there hosing themselves at me and saying things like “No wait, wait, let’s make that chicken she just walked 2km to buy off now too!” (true story. It smelt like Ghandi’s foot). I prayed for better luck in the coming week and decided that it would be a fabulous idea to drown my sorrows by going out that night for sushi dinner and bottle of wine with B and Stu (Stu is ex world champion downhill skateboarder so the board comes with us everywhere!):
Surely my luck has to change soon- I mean it’s only a matter of time and so many things have gone pear shaped already, so things could only get better. I started to smile and felt better- the following week was going to be a good week!
Or not....
Look out for the next post about this week – to be released on Wed!
No comments:
Post a Comment