Travel: How To Get Kicked Out Of France In 36-Hours

Your flight lands at 6 PM.

In Biarritz, of course, because you only have 36 hours and you are not poor.

Not yet, at least.

Therefore you do not attempt to save money by flying into Bordeaux (1:45 min away) or Bilbao (2 hours away). Both cities are nice enough — Bordeaux for the wine, Bilbao for the approachable Basqueness — but you only have 36 hours. So you land in Biarritz, a 40 minute drive from Hossegor, and feel the sun warm the grease on your face as you step out of the airport and into your rental car.  

Welcome to Biarritz. Your beret is in the gift package.

You considered getting a room at Hotel Le Mercedes, because you thought it would make you more cultured, but you decided on an Airbnb instead. It was closer to the ocean — right near a beach called Les Culs Nus, which Google translates into “the naked asses” because Google doesn’t speak romance.

After settling in at the Airbnb, you head to Café de Paris and order a giraffe. This article will not explain what a giraffe is. You must go there and find out for yourself. And if Joan Duru is at Café de Paris when you order your first giraffe then you must buy him one as well, because you are a fan of surfing.

Your eyes wander the town as you enjoy your giraffe. This street would be quaint, you think, if there weren’t so many surf shops. You also notice that everyone is wearing a straw fedora. Men, women, grandmothers, little boys. All in straw fedoras. Strange.

You finish your giraffe and walk over to Le Touring Café. You order the Pierre à Feu and a pitcher of red wine, because it is cheaper than any of the bottles and you can’t taste the difference. Your food comes out — a raw piece of steak and a very hot stone. Do the math, then get a dessert.  

You then head to La Centrale, which is conveniently on your walk home, and meet a woman at Rock Food. (If men are your thing, replace the following description with any guy with this haircut and change his name to Jean.) She has seductive eyes and a smoky voice. You wonder if she gets naked on the beach.

Case in point: Stab’s favorite French baguette, leggy logger Victoria Vergara. Photo by Ben Potier. 

The night blurs. When you wake in the (late) morning, she is there, in your bed. You need a coffee, so you go to Waxed.

You are beginning to feel the culture seeping into your pores, but not yet cultured enough to avoid the only coffee shop in town that feels exactly like those where you are from. Beards, tattoos, large unironic hats, almond milk. They have it all.

Your newfound lover takes you to a pâtisserie for breakfast. Her name is Marine, by the way, and you’ll never say it right.

It is finally time to surf.

If you were here in winter, you could have been standing in tubes at La Gravière. But you also could have been staring at Instagram until your face hurts because it’s been 12-foot and 35mph onshore and raining for the past three weeks.

A risky bet sans the luxury of a strike mission.

Could(n’t)’ve been you.

But you are not here in winter. You are here in September. Right as the peak tourist season has ended and the Northern Atlantic starts to wake back up.

You could fuck around and drive north, into the forest, and try to find a good wave. Or you could see what’s cooking in Capbreton.

But you are simple. You decide to grab your board and head in front of your Airbnb. Marine comes with — she does get naked on the beach, by the way — and you marvel at how much the waves change as the massive tide swings in and out. You marvel at Marine, too, in a much different way. You surf six different times.

Then, the sunset. You go to the E. Leclerc and buy two cheap bottles of wine for it. One to drink on the walk back, because that is legal here, and one to drink while this section of the earth, which you’ve come to love so dearly, rotates away from the ball of fire. You let Marine choose the bottles. She says she likes Côtes du Rhône the best. You try to pronounce it. She laughs at you. The cost is 9€  total.

Drunk off wine, high off love, you take Marine for date at Chez Minus. You get the Moules. You don’t like them, but they make you feel more French. You know what else is French as fuck? L’Escargot.

Snails! It’s literally snails.

Not just the dish, but also the nightclub in Seignosse. It doesn’t open until midnight, so you kill some time by enacting your favorite sexual positions and maneuvers on the beach with Marine while the stars cast a glow over it all. Your flight is at 6 AM. You decide you won’t sleep.

It is now 4 AM and you are still at L’Escargot. You are drunk. And sunburnt. And on MDMA. Your rational mind is nowhere to be found. You decide that you will miss your flight, which will effectively cancel your entire trip home as far as whatever dickhead airline is concerned. You do not care. You have transcended.

Until you have not. It is now 1 PM. You wake up and Marine is gone — she told you she lives in Toulouse, but nobody has ever recommended that you visit (you shouldn’t) so you never looked it up and figured it was 15 minutes away. It is three hours away. And landlocked. Without mountains. Or anything good.

It is pretty but.

You spend the day in recluse then go back to L’Escargot because you left your wallet there. They tell you it is gone without a trail. That was a snail pun, but you do not have enough serotonin to process it. You are fucked.

A man approaches you and asks if you will help him deal cocaine. You oblige. You have no other options. You are very bad at this job and are easily detected by security. A large man takes you into his custody.

The cops arrive and they punch your face while they detain you, because you are a swine. They decide not to persecute you — they don’t want a disgusting person like you here, not even in a prison.

You call Marine to see if she can help. She just smokes a cigarette and sighs, because she is French and inherently has no fucks to give.

You get deported. You are now banned from France for the rest of your life. You will always have romantic memories of those 36 hours in Hossegor.