Goodbye Cannes

The winner of the “culture shock of the day” is the smoking habits in France. The reason why these people are so dang skinny is because they smoke all the time. I can’t even count the number of people that have asked us for a lighter since we’ve been here. Girls my age smoke here and the old geezer sipping on his coffee smokes here. Back home I turn my nose up at the smell of single cigarette, but the smoke has become my new friend here (even if people do blow it directly in my EYES!!!!) When everybody is smoking around you, you become more tolerant of the nicotine-enhanced flavor and have to accept it.

Anyway, the 58^th annual International Festival of Creativity ended yesterday and I’m sad to see it go because that means I too will be leaving soon. I only have 4 more full days in France! I wanted to make that most of my last day of the festival so I attended the 10:30 seminar on AICP Digital. I thought it was going to be a little more interesting but the seminars at the end of the week turned out pretty weak. One thing that did strike my interest was when the speaker said, “Digital is something everybody wants to be involved with but they freak out because there are so many different components.” This is an issue that many companies face because they want to be more digital, but also want to stay traditional in some aspects. The next seminar I went to was B-Reel: Digital Schmigital for 2012. I really tried to listen during this seminar, but I started focusing on my Nike Campaign project for our class. Everything that the speaker was saying could be related to the Nike shoes our group has to advertise. Then, I tried to think creatively at how to market the shoes we’re selling but my idea was a fail. The next seminar (after the one where I spaced out!) was Grupo Consultores: Brazil, Revealing the Secrets. I learned that Brazil is the 5^th largest country and the sixth largest in population. Also, the sales of smartphones have grown 274% in the last 12 months (so crazy!) So yeah those we’re the only “revealing secrets” that I found to be somewhat interesting!

After finishing up the last seminar of the festival, we headed back to Juan Les Pins to get ready for the film awards. We were indecisive on what to wear because we really wanted to be invited to the closing gala (invitation only & big party to wrap it up!) Rachel and I thought it would be smart to divide up from the group and try to mingle with everyone to get these coveted invitations. The guys sitting behind us...fail. The Chinese man beside me....fail. And then the golden prize. A lady and her husband were seated beside us. In carrying on a short conversation with them, we expressed interest in retrieving the golden tickets. They said that they were planning to attend and it really wasn’t all that great last year (in the mind of a 19 year old, any type of GALA is a big deal!) Anyway, about 10 minutes later the lady seated beside us handed their tickets to us and said, “We have a cocktail party to attend so enjoy.” I literally wanted to jump up and down and scream!!!! My new identity was Tayga Soysalturk from Turkey. I now know what it feels like to be in the witness protection program!!! After the film awards let out, we made our way over to the party (which was located across from the Carlton on Carlton Beach...so luxurious!) They had a dessert bar, buffet food line, and free drinks (I’ll take the orange juice please!) They also had fireworks and a DJ! We were the only two out of our entire group to actually get tickets (go us!) I would say that I successfully ended the festival in the best possible way! Goodbye to meeting cool people from random countries. Goodbye to going to crazy business parties. Goodbye to drinking way too many coke zeros and 4 euro hot teas. Goodbye to learning the most information I’ve ever learned in a week. Goodbye Cannes, France, I will truly miss you!