Antibes Antics

Antibes is like a hazy hub where all walks of life, from doosh bag to hero, come together to discuss yachts until their tongues fall off and drink until their stomachs explode. Its magical. No for real, you don’t get better than Antibes and Juan Les Pins during the summer where the sun is shining, people are smiling and there is an adventure around every corner. Although take caution because this time of year also seems to attracted quite a lot of retards and fools.

However, when you’re in the town with your friends something crazy always seems to happen and this was definitely the case when Daisy, Rach and I rocked up to visit Ilz Ilz!

Ilze and I had booked a hotel room, for 2, because we knew this was the logical thing to do. Rach, for some unknown reason, actually thought she was going to catch the last train back to Monaco – at 11pm….um yeah, that never happens because the Hop Store sucks you in, spits you out and then in your confused drunken state you hear the falsely sweet luring whisper of L’Ekinox. You go, and when you come stumbling out at 4am, you have no idea what happened but you know it was epic.

Daisy was sorted with accom at another friend so it seemed all good.

So the night starts off with us getting caught sneaking a bottle of rose into Hop. Pretty standard. Fast forward through dozens more drinks, abdominal workouts and more chatting than my ears could handle, we found ourselves inevitably stumbling into Ekinox.

The Hop Store

More drinks, dancing and more laughing later, we decided it was time to go home. So Daisy, Rach and Ilze armed with some fresh meat headed back to our – 2 sleeper – hotel room, while I walked another friend home.

The alluring sign of L'Ekinox

When eventually I got back to the hotel room I found said fresh meat in the double bed, Ilze K.O. and Daisy and Rach on the floor. I then got told by Rach that I need to :”Turn off the light because people are sleeping”. Well that got me. “EXCUSE ME, but I actually paid for this room you squatters and I will turn on whichever light I please!!”. At this point the fresh meat was smart enough to take his exit.

After things calmed down, we all passed out again. And when we awoke, we realised we had a huge problem. And when I say “we”, I actually mean “I”, because you see, Ilze had snuck out very early to get back to work so I was left with Daisy and Rach, the two stragglers. I decided to have a shower and they left for breakfast – clearly still dressed in their clothes from the night before - which left me with the issue of explaining to the concierge why, in a hotel room booked for 2, 3 people had emerged.

Daisy, Rach and me

I came down and the woman at the desk commented: “Ah zere were srhee of you in zee rhoom zis morning, no?”

“Um yes, we uh, had a very early um…..business meeting?” I replied.

“VERY early.” She said with a smile playing around her lips and a knowing glint in her eye.

“Yes lots to do!” I said already halfway out the door, cringing. A business meeting? Seriously? Why I let Rach put these idea’s in my head I will never know!

After I told the girls, they howled with laughter of course. But our adventure didn’t end there. Due to past experience and our hangovers we couldn’t be bothered to buy a train ticket so off we hop on the TGV and settle into a carriage. As soon as we sat down, still chatting of course, a woman to our right immediately began to sush us. Granted we might have been a tad bit leery in our state but it was the middle of the day and no-one was sleeping in the carriage, a point that Rach brought up after the lady told us to have some respect and that “this is France, not a rubbish bag” (?).

This conversation all happened in French of course so I had no idea what was going on when the girls got up to move and I just followed obediently. It was in our new seats when we caught a glimpse of the train ticket guy one carriage away. So instead of playing it cool, in which case we might have gotten away with it, we all stare at him wide eyed, jump up and literally run for the bathroom, where we shut ourselves in, giggling hysterically and whispering about what we were going to do.

Two seconds later (he must have actually sprinted after us), we hear knocking on the door and we all freeze. “Madams, please come out, madams, I need to see your tickets please.” We all freeze and start gliggling and whispering frantically again while I try and press the right pedal to flush the toilet saying: “Just a minute” (obviously trying to make it seem legitimate that 3 grown woman were all squashed into a tiny toilet together). After incessant knocking, Daisy  and I emerge and inform the man that Rach is getting ill and we were merely looking after her – a fact that she is not aware of- when she emerges yelling “Alright alright man, we don’t have any friggin tickets, gosh!”. We then had to pay a €35 fine each, which was also tedious because we tried to pretend we didn’t have any money for ages until we were threatened with jail.

So when we eventually got back we were nothing less than exhausted but couldn’t stop laughing at everything that had happened in such a short space of time. It just goes to show, you never know what to expect and Antibes is always full of surprises ;)

Sunset