I Made It!

Bonjour! Bon Matin!

I had my first French crepe this morning as well as my first French train ride and my first French walk along the beach. I also chased my first French pigeon.

The plane rides were pretty awesome. One old man sitting next to me even gave me Juicy Fruit and showed me pictures of his son's wedding. I have to give props to Bryan for securing me the emergency exit row for the extra leg room on the flight from ATL to JFK. Since I last flew with Delta, they have installed personal touchscreen televisions on the backs of the seats for us to watch most of the Oscar nominated movies and also good television series like Dr. Who. They even had games and a much improved music selection, including the Best Hits of Yanni, of course it was under spa selections.

We landed this morning at the Nice airport and then made our way to the hotel by cab, which are fancier and cleaner in France. No creepy yellow buses or dingy taxis here! The downside was that it was a national French holiday today so the fare was hiked, or so they told us. We were sure that they were just trying to trick us for being naiive American tourists, but it turns out they were telling the truth.

Our group settled in, unpacked, and then found the train station so we could venture out to Cannes to scope our the territory and take advantage of some good photo-ops. I practiced my star-spotting and thought I saw Jennifer Morrison, Dr. Cameron from House, but she had red hair and wrong-colored eyes. Gotta stay alert. I will not miss the celebrities, in fact, I may see more of them than there actually are. Unless Jennifer Morrison really did decide to dye her hair and get contacts... which would mean I was right. I was probably right.

Besides seeing a famous actress, I saw a two-story carousel and Roman Polanski's hand print. There were a bunch of workers setting up stages and whatnot while getting ready for the festival (WHICH STARTS IN 4 DAYS! Ahh!), and so we watched while some men fixed up lights for the red carpet.

Most of us, finally feeling the effects of staying up for many consecutive hours, fell asleep on the short train ride back to JLP, but we're still going to fight to stay up until about 9 to try and avoid jet lag.

I'll try to add pictures to this later, but right now there are about ten of us all trying to connect to our intertubes and things seem to be running slowly.

REVIEW: Here is a Man...

We are so close to France. I can almost taste the croissants.
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Taxi Driver (1976): HERE IS A MAN...

Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) is a normal guy or, at least, he's trying to be. Not that he's really sure what it means to be a person like other people, but hey, E for Exterminating the Scum Effort, right?

From the get-go, Travis tries doing all the normal things people do. He gets a night job driving a cab and accepting seedy clientele, closely observes a girl volunteering for a campaign office, goes to the movies to see some XXX content, eats apple pie with a slice of cheese on top... but something just isn't clicking, and he can't explain why.

He thinks he sees something special in Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), Palantine enthusiast; she's lonely too, and he knows all about that. To soothe her pain, he invites her out, but when she stops taking his calls and he is forced to confront her at the office, he realizes that she is just like the rest of them.

Accompanied by a lonely sax calling out over the tumult of the city, Robert DeNiro draws us into Travis' life and reveals the rolling disappointments faced by a person struggling against the isolation that surrounds him. We see in Travis' character the desperation and disgust we often feel ourselves as we search for our place and purpose in the world, and though we could attempt to write him off as crazy and irrational, the straight-forwardness with which DeNiro portrays Travis leaves us with no other option but to confront the urges that we all face, with varying degree, to make our mark on humanity and change the world around us.

Travis' inability to connect with society fuels his need to eliminate the scum, the filth, the trash of urban culture and leads him to look for a scapegoat on whom to pin the problem. In his last and most dramatic rejection of society, he finally succeeds in catching the eyes and ears of the people who previously ignored him, but the veneration leaves him as lonely as he was before, if not more so.

Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, though some may complain of the slow pacing, succeeds in its encompassing the depth and focus of the isolation that many of us face at crucial moments in our life, showing us that only in these crucial moments do we know exactly what kind of person we have become and how much we are willing to take. With Travis Bickle, here is a man who would not take it anymore.

T-Minus 43 Days: A Bit on Passports

Hello readers!

I've started my first in a series (hopefully) of travel blogs since I'll be kicking it to France this May for the Cannes Film Festival through Grady's Study Abroad program at the University of Georgia. That was a lot of proper nouns, I know.

Since I have begun my serious preparation for departure on May 7th, I thought it would be appropriate to get warmed up for the trip by pre-blogging with travel tips and other general things of interest that I come across in the process.

things to know about... PASSPORTS

1. I know everybody says it but, if you are going to need a passport and you don't have one already, GO TO THE POST OFFICE NOW. Especially if you need it within a few months. Trust me. Don't assume that because the predicted time of your passport's delivery is 4-6 weeks, you can afford to wait until 6 weeks before your flight to go apply. It's not worth the stress of worrying whether or not you're going to get it in the mail on time. Same philosophy applies to renewals.

2. If you were under the age of 16 when your passport was issued to you, you are going to have to reapply for a passport (Form DS-11) instead of applying for a renewal (Form DS-82).

3. Cost of obtaining a brand new passport - $75, plus a $25 execution fee

    Cost of obtaining a renewed passport - $75

    Cost of getting your passport pictures made at the office - $15

4. Expediting your passport generally gets it back to you in about 2 weeks and costs $60 in most cases.

5. You can expedite an already-applied-for passport by calling the regional office and making an appointment or calling the National Passport Information Center (1-877-487-2778) for more information.

6. You need a passport number to reserve a ticket for international flights with some airlines (but not with Delta, I have found). If you are going to need to reserve your tickets anywhere in the immediate future, but you also need your passport renewed, it's difficult to change the passport number on your ticket reservations without having to pay a fee or re-reserve your tickets, which may also bump you to the bottom of the waiting list. So be careful and get your ducks in a row with the passport first if you aren't flying Delta or another airline that doesn't require a passport number for international flights.

Don't try this at home... or anywhere else:

Remember those bizarre beauty tips you used to read in magazines when you were still playing with Barbies and My Little Pony, like pressing your lips together to bring blood into them so they are nice and cherry red for your passport picture instead of pale, ghost lips like your mother frequently mentions you have? Well, it not only gets you awkward looks, but will also prompt the post office worker to ask you to stop so she can take your photo. Just bring chapstick. 

Fun Fact:

The Cannes Film Festival was forced to close in 1968 during the French Revolution when most major French directors withdrew their films from the competition and the jury resigned.