Antibes...the story so far

PamPam for Andre's Birthday
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We arrived in Antibes on Andre's birthday - 2nd of April 2008. Was a beautiful day, it's been so sunny here which is a real change from drizzly Amsterdam. We had a lovely evening out, birthday drinks at PamPam (wicked cocktails) and had a dinner at a French restaurant lots of pasta and pizza hmmmmm....pizza.

The next day we went exploring the town and to find a crew house to say at. We spend a good 3 hours walking around with our backpacks on (that have miraculously got really heavy, we haven't been shopping that much...truelly), and couldn't find any crew house, they are all fully booked up (not to mention pretty scummy), so we got another hotel for the night - not the cheapest option but we really didn't have much choice. The next day we found a cheap hotel called Hotel de la Gare (which means hotel near the train) and it certainly lives by it's name, the train zooms by every 30 minutes from 6am-midnight every single blimin day...oh the joys of living cheap. It's been an okay little home, although it's very dusty and Andre's getting a bit hayfevery with all the dust, and I had a shower with a cockroache this morning (I couldn't bare to close my eyes incase it jumped onto me) so I put up with soap in my eye, and it's really not very clean, and there's no tv, computers or anything, so we bought a packet of cards yesterday and spent the arvo playing Last Card.

Antibes (can you see the yachts in the background? they are the big momma's)
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We've had a pretty hard time getting work, since Friday when we started visiting agencies, everyone's told us it's near impossible for two "new comers" to the yacht industry to find work together on a boat. Apparently a lot of people don't want to employ couples, coz they "gang up" on people, and if one decides to leave they lose 2 crew rather than just one, so for an employer it's a real gamble. We have tried to stress to agents that we won't be trouble and are flexible and easy to get on with, so hopefully this helps. We had 2 interviews yesterday which both went well, but it's hard coz we're up against about 50 others, not your usual 2 or 3 competitors - it's a hard industry to break into as a couple, individually would be a sinch for both of us, we could get a job tomorrow. But we aren't willing to separate, it's blimin hard work like 18 our days with no time off (4 weeks a year and only out of season) so it's not great work, so we would rather be together doing the hard yards, rather than work a crud job and not being able to talk/see each other for months on end. We have a back-up plan if it doesn't work, but we'll give it a bit longer to find work. Watch this space....

Local beach at Juan les Pins (you have to pay to use the loungers)
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As for Antibes - a beautiful place, went to Cannes yesterday (where they have the famous Film Festival) so that was fun, did a spot of shopping and had some lunch. You can see a bit of Antibes from the photo's - lots of deli shops, chocolate shops (oh boy oh boy), and really cute little french stores. It's very expensive here, food and accommodation is high but the life is heaps of fun!! There are heaps of small dogs here (that poo on the footpath coz there's no grass anywhere), and everyone smokes, and all the ladies dress hard out and wear heaps of make up, I feel like such a blob in my casual slacks and no make up hehe.

Hotel de la Gare
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Hope you all are keeping well, and you haven't killed the cats Dad!? Especially that Leo, oh I miss them so much:(

Talk to you soon

Love Katie and Andre