La Belle du St Tropez

After experiencing a massive delay at JFK due to an AC malfunction on our aircraft, I finally arrived in St Tropez 10 hours later. And I hit the ground running, literally. As soon as I arrived at my friends’ house I jumped in the pool and swam for 20 minutes to wake up….got ready…and we were out the door an hour later. His family has a house there and they each have their own Vespa. After drying my hair the perfect amount to maximize the volume, he threw me a helmet and said “Let’s go!”
I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, “oh well! I’m in freakin St Tropez, I can survive with flat curls for the night.”

I hopped on the back of his Vespa in my mini skirt and heels and we caravanned to a house party. When there is a line of 30 cars waiting to have their names checked off of the guest list, you know you have arrived at the right party….and in the right style, as we scooted past all of the cars and had front door parking.

About an hour later we jumped back on the scooters and headed to Les Caves du Roy (the hottest and most expensive club….literally. You sweat before you even start dancing and the amount of money the Pakistanian table spends in an hour on alcohol could buy me my lavender Ferrari I’ve always wanted!!)

My friends set up camp at their usual table in the VIP section and I secure a seat to dance on. Twenty minutes later I strike up a conversation with the guy at the table next to us…whom my friends informed me runs the mafia in Amsterdam and killed 10 people this past year. Not normal. Although he looked normal! I danced on the tables of course and we finally left at 4 AM with my hair in a ponytail and my clothes drenched with sweat. It was a fabulous introduction to ST TROPEZ!!

I learned a very important tidbit during this trip: when traveling with others, make sure you have the same itinerary in mind….especially if you are sharing a villa together.
I moved in with my friends from Texas the next day, however, I was not expecting them to be so mellow. So unfortunately, I was rolling solo each night and met up with other friends with similar motives.

I went to St. T with 3 goals to accomplish:
1. Drink magnums of Champagne and Rose.
2. Shake my tail feathers on the tallest tables.
3. Find a husband.

I forgot to specify the details for goal # 3. As a friend of mine confessed his love to me of 4 years and said “If you were hoping to meet an Italian in St T. that will whisk you off to Sardinia, sorry, you got an American instead.”
Problem: I was not nearly as into him as he was into me.

There was a lot of love floating in the air! Theft is very prominent in St T so a security guard patrolled the villa every night. Of course I was always the last one in….cruising in solo around 4 AM because my villamates were already asleep. I didn’t have a key, so I would call out “Sebastian” and he would come out of the bushes and open the front door for me. I thanked him and went straight to my room. One morning I found a note under my bedroom door that read “I LOVE YOU” on a napkin. I asked everyone in the villa about it and no one had written it to me. My friend’s boyfriend found it hard to believe. I’m sure he thought I wrote it myself.

Well, the next morning I discovered another note under my door! This one was written in French: Je suis fou d’amour de vous. Je vous aime a la jolie.

I had no idea what it said until I asked my driver here in NY (who is French) to translate it for me. He laughed and said “Wow! He has crazy love for you.” It’s not everyday that a French security guard dressed in combat gear leaves you love notes under your bedroom door.

Crazy, right?

St. Tropez is crazy. Very decadent. Very showy. But hey, I can roll with the flow and get all dolled up for the beach and have 4 hour lunches at Le Club 55 and 3 hour dinners at Villa Romana. I’m not the one footing the multi-thousand EURO bills at the end of each meal….so pass me another glass of Rose and then we’ll hop in the tender and have some champagne on the boat and then have another glass of Rose at Sennequier in the port. The sun doesn’t set until 9 PM so honey, there’s a lot of time for Rose in St T!!

Villa Romana is my new absolute favorite restaurant ever! Just imagine: a gay bartender named Luigi dressed in skin tight pants and a vest with no shirt and diamond costume jewelry and a feather headdress. I affectionately called him my Indian Princess and he called me Miss Priss (of course). Rather than waiting for our apps and main course while seated properly at the dinner table, we jumped up on our chairs, hiked up the skirts and danced!! The music is so fun, even the stuffy gents unbutton their top buttons and let their hair down. And every 10 minutes the music is interrupted by the Star Wars theme song because Luigi is hand delivering a vase filled with a concoction of vodka punch with bamboo leaves, flowers and a dozen 5 foot straws spilling out. J’adore Luigi!!

It’s beautiful there…I love how salty the sea is (makes my hair blonde) and it’s so clear! One day I hopped on my friend’s boat for the day. It’s very chic to take your boat from the port and anchor it in front of 55. And you know the world is small when you’re chilling with the captain upstairs and you recognize a voice downstairs and it turns out a dear friend of yours from NY was crashing on the boat for a few days. And then we discovered that the boats anchored on either side of us were our friends! We took the tender over to one of them and had a glass of Rose at 11:30 AM….might as well start the day off right. Kid Rock and Pam Anderson’s boat was also nearby. The windows were covered and white balloons were everywhere as it was the day of their silly marriage.

My last night in town we skipped out on P Diddy’s yacht party because the guy I was staying with was craving Asian food. Not exactly what I was in the mood for, but I amused him and went along with it because I was extremely grateful for his hospitality. (My Texas friends had jetted off to London)

Although I don’t what is worse: being homeless in St T or crashing with a friend whose apartment was dirty and completely out of toilet paper….and he frequently asked if I wanted to make out with him in the bushes.

He is fluent in French. So I kindly suggested that he mention to our waiter that we did not have time for a 3 hour meal. It was already 11:30 PM and my driver was picking me up at 4 AM ~ time was very precious.

12:45 rolls around and I’m ready to hit Les Caves. We set up camp at our usual spot and I claim a seat on top of the booth. Within 10 minutes, our friends (whom had been partying at Diddy’s) arrive and to my surprise Wayne jumps over the booth and plops down beside me. I had no idea he knew this whole crew of New Yorkers…but it makes sense…they are all successful, very good looking and uber bachelors. I’ve known Wayne for almost 10 years now and he just gets more handsome every time I see him. He made a comment about girls in the club recognizing him now that he’s dated someone high profile. I looked at him and said “Honey, the girls are staring because you are gorgeous!”

So back to reality. No husband….but who knows, I’m off to cali in a few days. Maybe my prince charming is American after all.