Europe! Days 1-4.

Bonjour de France!

Je suis en France avec mon ami, Liz, qui habit en Monaco.

And that is enough French for today. My French really isn't great. I find reading and writing it comes back to me, but trying to string a sentence together on the spot when a French person is speaking to me is just embarrassing. Luckily, Liz's French is pretty good so that's been helpful. I'm also findi that Quebec French is really different from France french and that expressions I learnt in grade 10 French make all the French people laugh at me...

Anyway, my flight was very long, but ok. I was on an A380 for the first time from Sydney to Dubai - it's huge. It felt like being in an apartment complex which is trying to become airborne.

The most eventful part of the flight was when they turned the lights on 2 hours out of Dubai to feed us. The flight attendant comes on the PA and says, "ladies and gentlemen, while you've been asleep we've had a serious mechanical error. We've contacted ground staff but cannot seem to correct the problem." Obviously at this point everyone is looking around at each other and starting to freak out. She then finishes the sentence with "the refrigeration unit has broken, so we will be unable to serve you a second meal as the food has been compromised." She probably could have worded the whole thing a bit better, but maybe that was her plan; scare the shit out of everyone so that when she told us there was no food, we would not be mad.

I got to Monaco around 4pm, so Liz and I went for a walk along the coast line and into town. It's a very pretty area - everything is very clean. What surprised me when we got into town was how quiet it was on the streets. It was Friday at 5pm and it was just dead. Apparently it's usually like that - not many people about. I guess that's because most of the population are wealthy foreigners who don't spend that much time in town. We met Liz's fiancé and his friend for dinner and drinks in the city (and of course had a few too many).

On Saturday Liz and I took the train to Aix-en-provance which is a fun old French town. It took about 4 hours door to door. The train ride was nice as it allowed me to see all the different towns in the region and figure out what I want to do next week while Liz is at school. Once in Aix, we had traditional crepes and cider at a little cafe, which were delicious. I'm loving the French food; cheese, baguette, wine, crepes, cider, pain au chocolate, etc.

Aix is a cool place; the kind of place where you just wander and get lost and look in the stores and so on. So that's what we did for most of the weekend. We found a square to sit in in the evening that served little glasses of wine for €1 each which was fun. The very enthusiastic French waiter (note: sarcasm) had white, rose and red label-less bottles of wine in a plastic basket and came around and topped everyone up when empty. The wine was very good for €1. Liz has a theory that the better the restaurant or bar, the worse the service - so far it seems to be holding true.

Sunday we came across a chocolate exhibition which cost €3 entry but allowed us to taste about 20 different chocolates from local chocolatiers. It was good, but I'm pretty sure none of my clothes are going to fit by the end of this trip. At least the food is crummy in Eastern Europe I think, so maybe that will be a bit of a diet.

One thing I forgot about France is the presence of dog shit everywhere. The French don't clean up after their dogs, even if they poop right in the middle of a busy side walk. It's not as bad in Monaco, but wasn't great in Aix.

I finally had a bit of down time on Monday and spent the day in Monaco. Went for a nice run in the morning along the water (see previous comment re: weight gain) and then spent the day doing the tourist thing. Monaco is small so mostly just walked everywhere and looked around. Had a nice lunch of spaghetti carbonara with shaved truffles and a glass of rose. It was excellent, as you would assume. Monaco is really in prime food real estate. Right in between France and Italy. You really can't get much better.

In the afternoon I went up to "the rock" which is the fancy area of Monaco on the hill/rock overlooking the harbour and city. The royal palace is there and it's a very pretty area with a great view of the city and harbour. All the buildings are immaculate, as is the palace, which is still in use. Monaco actually reminds me a bit of Disneyland; expensive and so well manicured that it looks almost fake. The palace for example, looks like it's made from plastic rocks - it bears more resemblance to sleeping beauty's castle on Main Street USA than any European castle I've seen before. As Liz pointed out though, it's because it's still in use. Back in the day, in their prime, I'm sure the other castles around Europe looked similar.

The king (king Albert) wasn't in, as the flag was not raised. He, of course, is the eldest son of Grace Kelly. Monaco souvenir shops sell 3 things. Lavender products, Grand Prix/Ferrari merchandise and things with Grace Kelly on them.

After that I walked up to the casino to look around. Was thinking of playing some blackjack or roulette (when in Monte Carlo....), but the minimum bet was pretty steep. So I settled on the slot machines instead and promptly lost €5 on the penny slots. Didn't win once. Not a single round, so gave up at €5. The casino itself was gorgeous though - unfortunately no pictures allowed inside, but it was all very fancy and ornate.

I've noticed that the Monegasque (which, believe it or not, is what you call a person from Monaco), really like the colours of their flag. EVERYTHING is red and white. Perhaps it's exaggerated by the fact that Ferrari is also red, and there is presently Ferrari merchandise everywhere due to the Grand Prix in a few weeks.

I would also hazard a guess that there are more yachts in Monaco than the population. And when I say yacht, I mean "boat worth more than €1 million". It's insane. 100 foot yachts everywhere. I'm looking at one right now with a hot tub on the upper deck. Although quiet in the evenings, its been quite busy during the day because there is a tennis tournament going on at the moment. Lots of the big name players are here, so people seem to be coming in for the day which means the trains and buses are rammed around 10am and 4pm.

Today I took the train into Italy and am now in Monterosso, which is the first (northern most) town of cinque terre. I'm going to spend two nights in Italy and hike between the 5 villages. The nice thing about staying with Liz is that I could leave my luggage with her and just take a day pack. Some of the trail may still be closed for winter, so hopefully I can do most of the sections.

That's all for now. I'll write again in a few days when I maybe have something more interesting to talk about.

SH

 

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