The best laid plans: pear shaped in France

Things have been a little more stressful these last couple of days, and it all started with our arrival in Nice and the realization that we had zero plans since our car rental was voided. Mu wrote a great post on this, and we did a nice (pun sort of intended) job audibling on the fly to have a really fun time in the Cote d'Azur. Since the initial screw up was my fault, it has felt suboptimal as things have been a bit harder, more expensive and the like.


However, i thought my life raft would come yesterday as we would get on the plane to Barcelona and get on with the tour de force through Southern Europe. This leg of the trip was of particular excitement for me because i had tickets to the champions league game at the famed 95,000 seat Camp Nou (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Nou), where Barcelona FC plays their home games. Watching Messi, Xavi and the gang on their home turf was something i had been looking forward to since i got the ticket over a month ago.

However, it was not to be. Upon arriving at the airport in Nice yesterday we went to check in, and found that our flight had been canceled due to a labor strike around the pension system. It was quite surreal, as the strike only affected a handful of flights and the rest of the airport was buzzing. It is very weird to haver a (budget) airline tell you that your flight is canceled when there are dozens of flights taking off from the same airport, and i thought on more than one occasion 'why is this happening ton our flight versus all the others?'

We tried a number of options, including other carries (cheapest flight that (sort of) got me to there in time game was well over 200 euros a pop), our travel insurance (not valid for french air strikes, bizarrely), our British Airways exec club memberships (no dice), rental car with other stranded travelers (very pricey and not going to get me to the game), and bus/train (both take about 12 hours from Nice to Barca, so no dice). Slowly the realization and acceptance crept over my cosience, i was not making it to the Nou Camp, we were not going to be in Barcelona tonight and we had to find a way to kill/enjoy the next 24 hours. I tired my best not to think too much about the apartment we had already secured in Barcelona for the night, and how much i was looking forward to getting settlted before the game.

This was a difficult realization, as i really had been looking forward to the Nou Camp for weeks. However, i am acutely aware of how lucky we are to be traveling to all these great locations, and if one day was traded from Barca to the French Rivera, that is certainly not the worst forced trade in the world. Sounds pretty nice in the abstract, honestly. Still, it stung.

After we had exhausted all options we could muster, we grudgingly conceded to the reality of another day in France and headed to the bus station. On a whim, we went to Cannes as opposed to back to Nice, arriving near sunset. Of course, there was a convention in full bloom and the first 5-6 hotels were totally full, until one of the booked hotels took pity on Mu and called another place that offered a discount to stay a few blocks from the port. We got tucked in our cozy little room and then headed out to see the town. It is not as cute as Nice and Monaco, more functional than those quaint gems, but we did manage to see an amazing sunset from the fort on the bluff protecting the south end of the city. It was one of the best sunsets on our trip, amazing and subtle color over the rugged country and the Med.

We also had one last meal of moules frites (i will never, ever get tired of those feasts), with the obligatory 4 euro bottle of still water, which was quite delicious. I watched the Barca game from an irish bar on the main pavilion of Cannes. It was quite hoping and enjoyable, Cannes is a city that is active and cosmopolitain at all hours of the day and night. It would have been great to be at the Nou Camp for the epic thriller of a game (Jordi Alba with an injury time winner: http://espnfc.com/uk/en/report/355670/report.html?soccernet=true&cc=5739), but since it was not to be we made the best of it and had a really nice night out in famed and beautiful Cannes.




I write this from that same apartment in Barca, just one day late and looking across the twinkling city after midnight here. It has not been the greatest couple of days, but that is travel sometimes and we have had a very nice time despite the challenges. Again, we are so aware of how fortunate we are to have adventures in Nice, Cannes, Barcelona and the whole host of special places we have been to over the last 50 days. Letting go of the attachments to an imagined future and enjoying the moment may not come entirely natural in times of frustration but it greatly enhances my actual present and future. It is a personal goal to strive for being present and happy in most every situation, and an ongoing internal journey that i got a nice little lesson in over the last several days.




Check out the full album of pics from the French Riviera here: https://picasaweb.google.com/107842809281323581448/TheDreamCoteDAzur