Ile Sainte Marguerite

Day 3

Jay’s alarm went off for him to get ready for the business session this morning and I did NOT want to get up, again.  This time had more to do with the tequila than the time change I think.  I didn't get up and go with him to breakfast, but I did get up, answer some emails, do some work and write up some of yesterdays blog while I waited until a reasonable time to text Mom and see what time she and the girls wanted to meet for breakfast.  It was about 9 o'clock when I asked her to wake the girls at 9:30am and bring them up for their clothes so that we could head down to eat.  It was just after 10am when we went to breakfast and happened to meet Jay in our travels so he came for second breakfast too.

After breakfast we made a quick detour up to the room and turned around pretty quickly to head out.  I looked up the times to go to Ile St Marguerite today, an island about a 15 minute ferry ride from the Port of Cannes.  There is a fort on the island which houses a museum, I had seen an ad about an exhibit they currently have with a photographer and UNESCO sites so I thought that would be cool and also there were walking trails.  Something fun to kill a few hours in an otherwise very shoppingcentric area.  We walked the 20 minutes to the Port quickly and made the noon ferry, which was nice so that we didn't spend too much time waiting around for it, though it did depart every 30 minutes. 

On the way there we saw this cut out, they’re all over the place here. 

Sullen Sophie. 

We got on the ferry and it took off, Sophie was getting a little upset about the motion when I said "Look, dolphins!"  She looked at me and rolled her eyes - like, yeah right Mom, I'm not 4 anymore, you can't distract me.  Paige said "Where?!"  Just wait, they'll surface again in a second...there! "Wow, are those REAL dolphins?"  No, fake ones, yes real dolphins - there were 3.  Very cool and did distract Sophie for the rest of the ferry ride.  We were sitting at a table, so Mom, Paige and Jason were sitting backwards while Sophie and I were sitting facing forwards.  I said to Paige "so are you going forward or are you going backward"  Mom said they were sitting backward while going forward...but that's really going backwards...hmmmm.

We got off the boat and I saw a sign that said we could either take the ramp up to the fort or walk a little ways toward it and take the stairs, so we chose the stairs option.  It was a pretty walk over, and it seemed that everyone else chose to do the ramp so very few people on our way.  When we came to the stairs Mom said she didn't think she could make it all the way up 60 steps without a break at 30, so when we started climbing I started to count - she made it to 56...but there were 96 steps, not 60.  False advertising.

The stairs at the end of the road. 

Entrance to the Fort. 

There wasn’t a good photo in the 3 I took of the girls on the cannon. 

So I cropped Sophie out. Lol. 

Sophie was taking a selfie of herself with the museum sign. 

Part of the museum contains the jail where the Man in the Iron Mask was held.  The cells were extremely large, but I'm guessing they didn't normally hold only 1 prisoner at a time either.  

After we wandered through the jail we continued on to the museum which held mostly old pottery artifacts with the exception of the UNESCO exhibit which I found extremely cool.  These were some of my favourites:

Algeria

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, Sophie and I decided we should go here. 

Madagascar

Istanbul



After, we wandered around the rest of the fort and up onto the walls.  

The water is extremely clear here, crystal clear.  

We walked back down to near the launch area via the ramp and went down to the water where Jay and the girls did some rock skipping and sat with their feet in the water.  From this angle you can’t even tell he’s checking his phone. 

The girls were starting to get hungry as we waited for the return ferry, which didn't leave until 2:15pm (but we had breakfast at 10:30am), so I offered Sophie a granola bar and Mom offered her some trail mix, to which I said she would have to share it with Paige, so she declined.  I had two granola bars in my bag and while they ate Sophie said "I did want the trail mix, but I didn't want to share it"  Paige piped up "Sharing is Caring Sophie" - "I don't want to Care"...she's still a little surly.  Mom and I walked back up towards where the ferry would depart because I wanted to get some water and sit down, my lower back was hurting, likely from standing yesterday on the gyropods for so long.

Once we disembarked the ferry back in Cannes we walked until we found a place we liked the look of for lunch, it was called New York.  On the way we had found Paige's bag full of Eiffel Towers so we picked that up for her as well.  At lunch Mom and I shared a club sandwich and fries, the girls got mac n cheese and greenbeans, Jay got a pizza and a lava cake. lol.  Lunch was delicious and hit the spot, but it was 3pm when we sat down to eat so I said to Jay "treat it like dinner and get a big meal and we'll just go out for sushi later".  We'll skip the Sunlife dinner tonight which is at a Chateau in Cannes since we just ate and hang out with the girls and Mom instead.  In the square outside the restaurant there was this cut out - Sophie went to put her face in and I said "You're not tall enough".  Paige said "Maybe I am"...uh, ok - you're the same height, like exactly, but you can try!"  Sophie gave her a boost up so she could get her face in and then Paige did the same for her (not to be nice, to see if she was strong enough to do it because Sophie told her she wasn't!).

From there we walked back to the hotel, Jay immediately went to have his vacation nap, I took the girls up to the pool and texted Mom, she met us up there but it was too cold for them (its on the rooftop), so I suggested they could have a swim in her ginormous tub,

 so we all headed back down to her room to fill up the tub and while they did that I went back to my room and grabbed my laptop so I could sit on her balcony and update the blog for yesterday and do some work and make some calls.  As the girls were getting ready to go up to the pool Sophie had just her swimsuit bottom on and said she wished she could go topless.  I said we could take her to St Tropez if she wanted, which is a topless beach but then everyone was topless, even the old grannies.  She didn't like that idea.  I told her that its not illegal to go topless in Toronto either, and she said that she would do that.  Paige looked at her and said "I would be embarassed...for you"  Sophie said "The good thing is that I can just tell everyone it was you that did it!". LMAO!

So far today I'm at 12,139 steps and its currently 7:11pm (I'm just waking Jay up from his 2 hour nap, he only has 10,833 haha) - we still have sushi we're going to walk to and from as well.  Yippee!  That's one awesome thing about European vacations, there's so much walking that I generally don't gain anything even though I'll eat and drink - though Mom and I are sharing every meal really and haven't had anything to drink other than last night (which I'm feeling pretty well considering!  No Advil or anything).

For some reason my blog from yesterday isn't loading with all my photos, which is a pain in the ass.  If I have to do it all again with the photos later I'm going to be pissed. (It loaded finally)   

We went to Yoda Sushi which has 4.9 ⭐️ on Google and TripAdvisor. 

But when we got there, there was no real seating it was a take out restaurant so we didn’t go there after all. So I found another sushi restaurant on TripAdvisor and we walked over there. 

Dinner was delicious and we all had an amazing time, even Sophie (not really). 

Mom and I shared Tuna tartar with Avocado, salmon avocado cheese rolls with crispy onions on top, tempura and spicy tuna sashimi. Jay had gyoza and shrimp

Tempura rolls. Paige and Sophie had cucumber rolls and edamame. 

Paige has a two day ban from any treats because Jay told her not to eat a chocolate at lunch and she did anyway. He told her he would wipe out her ban if she tried a piece of the tuna tartar. She did but she couldn’t make herself swollow it so we cut the ban in half for her. I asked Sophie if she would like to try it and all she did was lift her head, place her head on her hands and reply “barfing face” 🤢 hahahaha!

Tomorrow we leave Cannes and drive to Lyon on our way to Paris. So Sophie will have a mostly restful day since it’s a 4 hr drive tomorrow. So I made sure the iPads were charged up and we mostly packed up so we could get on our way by the time Jay is done his morning session around 10:15am. The car rental place is only a few minutes walk away so we will just wheel our luggage up when we’re ready. 

Cannes - Day 2

Jay's alarm went off this morning at 7:45am and woke me from a dead, dreaming, sleep.  I did NOT want to get up and go to breakfast with him before his business session started this morning.  Luckily, for me, Sophie was still sleeping in the living room and, poor baby, is still sick - so like any good mother would, I suggested that perhaps we should let her sleep and I would have breakfast with Mom and the girls a little later.  Success!  I didn't get back to sleep, but after texting with Mom we woke the girls up at 9:30am so that we could go down for breakfast.  I was concerned that my breakfast I would have to pay for because I wasn't eating with the conference, but they asked if I was part of the conference when we arrived and so my breakfast was covered in the regular restaurant as well.  Bonus.

By the time we were done breakfast Jay was done at the business session.  He just went until the morning break and then left - the sessions are every day until noon, but they break at 10:00am.  He saw the reps from Maui Jim (did I mention that we each, everyone here actually, got Maui Jim's as our conference gift?!  Thank You Sunlife!) packing up so asked them how long they would be there for and they were just finishing up.  So he chose a pair of Maui Jims for himself and I.  The only thing is that, for me, he went safe and got me the same pair I already have!!  In his defense, he knows I love them, but seriously.  Mine are prescription and custom with the brown lenses.  I also had a pair like these without prescription for when I wear contacts, which is never because I hate them, which I gave to him.  Anyway, I'll try to see if there is any way for me to switch them up somehow to get another pair when we get home because now we have 3 of the same pair.  He chose a sportier option for him which are also very nice.

We met Jay up at the room and I did a little googling to figure out what we would do in Cannes today, Paige read her book with Jay (always an event as she pushes his buttons on purpose, so I finally said to her that she's wasting his time and if she doesn't finish the last 5 lines of her page in the next 2 minutes that every minute after that was going to cost her a euro so she read it) and Sophie had a nap :( . 

I found a gyropod tour (like a segway) that kids age 8+ can go on - So. Much. Fun.  I booked a 2 hour tour for 3pm, Paige finished reading, we woke Sophie and made her take some Tylenol (she doesn't mind the Advil but for some reason doesn't like the Tylenol at all, even though they're both grape flavoured tablets) and we set off to do some exploring by foot. This is the beach directly across from the hotel, which we can see from our window.




View from the window.

It was about noon, so we walked around for a little over an hour before we sat at a cafe and had some lunch. We came across another L'Aduree shop and Paige pointed it out and said "Can we have one?"  Sure.  "I love vacation".

In one of the shop windows Sophie saw this Panda and loved it, so I took a photo.  She's been pretty good today - I think she only had Advil once, cough syrup once and Tylenol once in the morning, then nothing all day until bedtime.  She's definitely still not feeling well though, tired and droopy is the best way to describe her.  Poor muffin should probably be resting in bed.






The store next door to the restaurant patio was a little junky souvenir shop, so I told the girls to go in and take a look around while we waited for food.  Sophie found a cute necklace with her name on it which was 9eur and so I gave her a 10 and she went to go pay and then turned around and came back and said "Does this count as my souvenir?"  No.  "Ok, good".  lol.  Paige then came over, she had eyed a bag full of Eiffel Tower keychains in bronze, pewter and brass colours in a previous store and it was also 9eur, so asked if she could go back and get that without it counting as her souvenir.  Sure, one for everyone you know. lol.

After lunch we walked down to where we would meet the tour guide. 

There was a beach across from the parking lot where we were meeting our tour guide so Paige took off her shoes and went down to test the water. 

Sophie was beyond excited when we arrived and she saw the gyropods.  Its the first smile and animation we've really seen from her in the last few days, so it was really nice because I was hoping she would enjoy this.  She couldn't wait to get on.  

But once she did she was a little hesitant and it made her nervous - but she kept asking for one for home, so we know that she loved it. lol. 

 By the end she was a pro, but in the first 30 minutes she jumped off it about 10 times.  The tour guide was so calm and soft spoken though and was great with her.  But she was SO soft spoken that we couldn't hear anything she was telling us through our head sets for the tour so I know nothing about Cannes even though we did a full 2 hour tour and she told us all sorts of information.  We also ended up the only 5 on the tour which was really nice.  Paige kept complaining that Sophie got to be first after the tour guide, finally I said “Paige, if she were better than you then you would be in front” that got me a big grin. 

At the end of the tour we walked the 20 minutes back to the hotel with a quick stop in a public toilet, one of those ones that self-cleans after every use.  Sophie and Paige came in with me, Paige just wanted to see it but Sophie had to use it as well.  It has a 20 minute maximum time allowed inside and Sophie got a little gun shy and couldn't go because she was concerned it was going to lock and we were going to be sanitized!!
















When we got back to the hotel I wrote up yesterdays blog, the girls had a little iPad time (the photo from yesterday in their part of the room), Jay did a little work and we had about an hour before it was time to get ready to go out to dinner.  Tonight is the dine around dinner, where they split the big group into smaller groups and each group goes to a different restaurant.  We ended up at L'Ecrin.


 As we were walking from the bus Jay introduced me to Daniel and his wife, from PPI Jay's MGA.  I had noticed that everyone seemed to be wearing their atrocious name badges which hang from your neck in a vinyl and nylon pouch so I brought ours in my bag.  I said to Jay maybe we should be wearing ours so took them out.  I passed him and said "Here's yours, Jason Middleton, Producers Group - and here's mine, Dana Middleton - maybe I should have put Mortgage Intelligence on here, right now it basically just says Mrs. Jason Middleton".

We sat down at a long table with a few people from Sunlife, including Natalie O'Toole (Hoover, from high school) and her husband, Chris, who is Jay's Sunlife Wholesaler.  I sat down and the guy beside me was talking about the menu, I reached for a folded sheet on the table and said "Oh, is this the menu?"  He asked 'Do you like fish?' Not really. 'Well then you're screwed' lol.  We had a lot of laughs over dinner between us, his business partner and the other couple they were sitting with at the table of 12 before our party of 8 joined them.  Dinner started with salmon tartar with arugula and lemon, followed by monkfish in a cream sauce, mashed truffled potato and a small tenderloin.  When the main arrived one of the guys said "Oh look, they managed to cut a steak into 400 pieces so we could all have some" lol, it was pretty small.  I ate my steak, a little piece of fish and none of the potatoes.  Jay and I ate about the same of the salmon tartar, maybe a third of it.  Dessert was a small mousse, also not the best, so I skipped it and filled up on wine instead.

After dinner we walked back to the hotel, about 10 minutes, with Nat and Chris and then joined them for a drink (or 3?) in the lobby when we got back, which we never do at these conferences.  I had a glass of wine then Chris asked me if I wanted another drink and I said to surprise me, he asked with what (not good at surprises maybe?) something with tequila and not too sweet.  He brought back Patron on ice with a lime.  lol.  Chris went to University with Steve and Julia - he was Steve's roommate one year - very small world.  We ended up closing the bar at 12:30am, which again, I never do.  I managed to avoid being Addgioed because of that closure, but not before I had two glasses of tequila on ice and some of Bob's gin.

Off to Cannes

Jay has a conference in Cannes with Sunlife, since the girls are in French Immersion we decided to take them with us on this trip.  As an added bonus Mom said that she would like to come as well, which is a big help to us since then I don't have to skip the conference events and meals because I can go with Jay and she can stay with the girls.

We flew Air Transat to Paris.  Our flight didn't leave Toronto until 11:45pm so it was a long day and I was really hoping that I, and the girls, would be able to sleep on the plane.  Sophie has a terrible cough and fever that she's had for about a week.  I took her to Emerg yesterday morning at 6am when she woke up and said she had upper chest pain because I wanted to get her checked out so that if she needed antibiotics we were on top of it.  The Doctor said that it was just viral and to let it run its course so now we're dosing her with Advil and Tylenol alternating every 2 hours to keep the fever down and keep her attitude in check.  She's been a trooper, but she's also a little cranky.  She's also getting a natural cough syrup every 6-8 hours, especially before bed and we brought Vaporub and Gravol..we have a pharmacy packed just for her.

The flight was awesome, Air Transat didn't have any of the 'comfort packages' with the ear plugs and eye masks, but I had packed the girls eye masks (Sophie's is a plush brown bear with a bow on its head) and Sophie fell asleep without it so I dug around her, found it, put it on and went to sleep for about 5 hours.  Not a great sleep, but a good sleep.  Jay and Mom both took a Gravol to help them sleep and both complained about twitchy legs and not being able to sleep because of it.  Very weird, and unfortunate because neither of them got a very good rest.

We got into Paris about 30 minutes ahead of schedule, got off the plane and walked FOREVER to Terminal 2, where our next flight departed from.  We weren't in a rush as I had booked with a 5 hour layover - - I didn't really have a choice, when Jay originally gave me the conference dates he made a mistake.  I had already booked the flights to Paris (the plan was to fly into Paris, stay for 5 nights then fly to the conference for the last 4 days and fly home) and the flights to Nice.  I'm not sure why I googled the conference and I figured out the dates were wrong - luckily they were still within the window of our flights from Toronto to Paris, but I had to change the flights from Nice to Paris to different days and the only flight that worked with the same airline left us with a 4hr and 45 min delay.  Anyway...we had time for a sit down lunch and the information kiosk didn't seem to think there was anything near our gate so we walked to a different gate area in the terminal and came across L'Adurée, which Maria had said have the best macarons. 

We ate baguettes for lunch, mine had ham and swiss cheese - the bread here is SO good.  The girls never fare well with airplane food or most airport food, but they wanted a hot chocolate.  It was delicious, but it was real cocoa so a little bitter for the girls and they didn't like it.  So I made them each pay me 2eur for it since that's what it cost and they didn't drink it.  I'm so mean sometimes!  Paige pulled it right out of her pocket when I gave her that option, I had given her my change from the macarons!


Walking through the airport we could see part of it has a green roof, and not only that they have a natural lawn mower, or 3.  

As we were waiting Paige said "Isn't there a lounge in this place?!"  Mom thought she shouldn't even know to ask that, they don't realize how lucky they are sometimes!  They really wanted to get their own luggage carts, so we let them (they're free) and they pushed around their single piece of carry-on luggage on a cart.  lol.  We all managed to pack in carry-ons for the week, it helps that we have laundry when we get to Paris so we really only have to pack for 4 days and then we can wash and wear everything again.


We managed to kill the 5 hours and got onboard our EasyJet flight for a quick 90 minute flight to Nice. Paige was aghast that the flight didn't have a business class.  'It has just regular seats? No Club Class at all?!' They really don't know how lucky they are! We know exactly how lucky we are and Thank You Sunlife for the transportation allowance!  From there we were met with a driver I had arranged to drive us the 40 minutes to Cannes to the conference location.  We're staying at the JW Marriott Hotel, which is right on the water across the street from the beach.  

We got all checked in, we had upgraded to a suite for the 3 nights we're here because its the only room that would accommodate the girls.  Mom got upgraded to a Jr. Suite when we checked in, which was great because two of the nights we have a dinner and she was either going to have to wait in our room until we got home or have them bring a cot into her room for the girls to sleep there (one with her and one on the cot).  Now she has a King bed and a pull out as well.  I booked the girls, officially, into her room when I booked it because they would be covered under her Bed and Breakfast package, where they won't be covered under our Sunlife conference package.

I didn’t get a photo of the girls half of the room before they messed it up - here’s a photo of them resting (this is now tomorrow after our full day)

We got settled in our room and Jay decided to stay in with the girls and order room service while Mom and I went down to the restaurant for dinner.  We skipped the welcome dinner because we had been travelling so long and didn't arrive to the hotel until about 9pm.  Mom and I shared Caesar salad and each had a french onion soup and a glass of wine in the hotel restaurant.  The salad and soup were both very good and hit the spot.  By the time I got back up to the room it was about 11pm, Jay was finishing dinner with the girls and I suggested Paige go down and spend the night in Gram's room rather than sharing a pull out sofa with Sophie, so she put on her pajamas and we went down so she could 'check it out' and make sure it was suitable for her.  OMG.  She stayed and shared Mom's King size bed rather than sleep on the sofa. lol.

Sophie was out like a light after her final dose of Advil and cough syrup before bed, and we were out really quickly too.  Here's to being on France time, about 6 hours ahead of home time, in the first day - one benefit of sleeping on the red eye.