Monaco and Monte-Carlo

This morning came too early after the craziness yesterday. I slept like a rock though even through the storm. I felt weird sleeping without putting my blog up or being able to say hi to anyone in the world back at home. My internet is NOT liking it here right now so I don’t know if because of the storms something is off or what but it is really annoying! I woke up and had breakfast and then left. It was a pretty easy get out the door day but once I started walking I decided to take a more educated short cut to the hotel where the buses meet at. It still was not shorter. Note to self: stop doing that. Not to Self: Actually listen next time to the last Note to Self! But I still got there with plenty of time which was good.

We got on the buses and I was a bit worried Cassandra wasn’t there yet because I hadn’t seen her. There were a lot less IAU kids on this trip and I’m not really sure why. Maybe because everyone went farther away for the weekend? I don’t really know. Cassandra showed up after a bit though.

The bus ride there was pretty quick considering I let myself sleep the way there with my noise cancelling headphones and iPod. Usually I don’t listen to my iPod because I use it to take pictures and then it dies really quickly because of the iOS 7 update. I should have never done that… Maybe I can go back. But it really kills my battery super fast. But I was like nope I need to sleep. I brought Thads camera as a backup but the thing is so annoying. It thinks all of my pictures are blurry and says do you want to take another so I’m like sure and then it says it is blurry again. I cannot figure out how to take a non-blurry picture! So I gave up on that pretty quickly but just tried to take less pictures and try and save the battery more on my iPod. Beggers can’t be choosers though.

Monaco is the second smallest country in the world next to the Vatican City. It has 35,000 inhabitant (Because everyone tours and it is expensive) and they are ruled by a Prince sort of. Princes Grace is buried in the Cathedral who I guess is Grace Kelly and was in some movies or something? And then died driving her car off of a cliff in town that the bus was on today? I don’t really know much about her.

We got to Monaco at about 11:30 and then had until 1:30 to walk around the Palace, Cathedral, and Museum area. This is in like the real Monaco part of town not the Monte-Carlo part of town. We first got there and everyone was hunting for the bathrooms. Luckily my group found them first so we didn’t have to wait in line. But it was pretty comical for everyone to be looking. The sign said they were on that floor but they were like in the parking garage section of the building and not in the interior part so everyone was like running around.

After we went to the bathroom Cassandra and I tried to find our way out of the garage part and into the town part which was a lot harder than anticipated. We ended up going in a big circle first. We eventually found our way out, a bunch of stairs later. Why so many hills and stairs? WHY!? France, well I guess today Monaco, must hate me! But we got out. We looked at the museum from the outside and then walked through the garden area to get to the Cathedral. It was a pretty gorgeous view and all of the building in Monaco are really pretty. We went by the Catherdal at first because there was a wedding going on (I would so get married there. If I was Catholic.) and went on to see the Palace. We got there right before the changing of the guards so we got to see the little ceremony. It was pretty cool. I don’t really know how to describe it other than being very military like. I kind of thought it was a bit silly… But that’s only because I think having guards who walk around is weird when you also have police who do the same thing. It must be a tradition thing.

After we watched that we went to go look for some lunch. We walked down these very narrow streets and along the way I found a cool gift for someone. I think she will like it. Then we bought paninis. Or rather Kean and I did but Cassandra wouldn’t like step up to the counter to be helped but just like waited for the guy to notice her in a group of like ten people standing in front of this sandwich place so she just gave up. I was like just go up there and she was like no my mom would kill me if I did that, and I was like well she isn’t here and that’s how they do it here. So she didn’t get one but she had a sandwich in her bag that she ate.

We ate in front of the Cathedral and then split up because Kean wanted a picture in front of the Palace and I wanted to explore the Cathedral in depth so we split. I really like going through the Cathedrals. They are really pretty and usually have some cool art of sculptures. This one was no different. They had like tombs though in the floor in this one which I found interesting. Some had flowers so I think that those were for the most recent Prince and Princess. It was cool but I finished before Kelan and Cassandra came back so I decided to go look in the tourist shops. I found couple things and now I have crossed off a few people on my gift list which is good. I looked at a polo shirt for dad but then decided it was cheap and would probably shrink or be weird so I said eh. Sorry dad I will find you something.

I was in one shop debating between a gift or not when Kelan and Cassandra came in. They were like oh hey that worked out well and I was like yeah I figured you would look here so we were good. After that we were pretty much out of time so we headed back to the buses via the garden but took a different path this time. I was cool and we stopped and took pictures. When we got back to the bus we were right on time! We climbed on and were waiting to leave. Usually these trips with George are really prompt about when we leave. I noticed though that with more IAU kids they don’t listen to George or anyone else in charge when they say “don’t switch buses”. How hard is that? Hey stay on the same bus how hard is that? Apparently too hard to grasp. So we all had to wait for fifteen minutes for some idiot to first come forward that he switched and then get in a tantrum argument with the person in charge. I was like really we are doing this now? How old are you? And of course there is the fact that he is holding up everyone else for this and we can’t leave to go to the next place until he sits down and shuts up on the correct bus. I feel like some people are so inconsiderate.

After that finally happened, we went and to Monte-Carlo! It was pretty cool. It was also a very expensive part of town/country so they had told us not to buy anything. Really 5 bucks for a can of soda? I thought I should buy that! Just kidding. But we walked up a bunch more stairs to get to the famous Casino. We had been told on the bus that to go into the casino was 10 euros and then you had to be 21 to gamble. The other bus was told you had to be 18 so we went to go check it out. It turned out that they were doing like a special or something so two of the rooms were free to go in and you only had to be 18! So of course we went in!

We walked around and we couldn’t take pictures but it was seriously like a museum or something! The walls and ceilings were seriously gorgeous with gold and ivory and big rocks and it was just really awesome. Probably the most swanky place I have ever/will be in. I was surprised by how few like machines that they had in it for how famous it is. I thought it would be more machines but it is like more swanky machines instead and just everything more swank. All of the machines were like 3d and the chairs were like memory foam. They were a bit expensive but for that fancy of a place I am not surprised. Kelan and I decided we wanted to do 5 Euros of slots just to say that we did. So we did. I totally lost but I played a few different machines. Each was like 40 cents each. I won a few times but never more than the game cost. But Kelan actually WON and won 5 Euros more than he had originally bet! WOW! That was pretty cool so he was like yep quitting while I’m ahead. I said I must have my mother’s casino luck where I just lose all the time. But that’s okay it goes to like helping Monaco or something, right? Yeah probably not.

We went to the bathrooms while we were there and it was weird because there was like a lady in charge and you were supposed to like tip her for pointing you to one of the two stalls. I was like umm I have no money and all you are doing is telling me where I was already going to go sooo…. Yep. It was awkward. Also the toilet had like an automatic toilet seat cleaner thing so that was a bit odd. After that we went and sat and just watched one of the guys we know play Blackjack at a table. He like bet 100 Euros and ended up winning like 200. So that is cool for him but I would not be able to just walk in and bet that much money. I would definitely lose it. We were watching and then this like little Asian lady like literally pushed me out of the way. Which I found kind of rude because she didn’t even like say anything because then I would have moved. But no okay whatever! After we got bored of blackjack we went and sat on the edge of the room on a bench and just looked at the room. It was pretty gorgeous. We were talking and this like Lady next to us who was probably in her 50’s started talking to us. She was from Paris and stays for vacations in Nice which isn’t far up the road. We actually passed it and Eze on the way to Monaco. They are pretty close together. But she was cool and we just talked about school and Americans and stuff like that. She was nice.

After that we had about 45 minutes until we needed to be on the bus. So we headed outside to see what was in the world. We walked through another little park thing and then walked by the Chanel and Louis Vuitton swanky places. Oh also there were some swanky cars outside of the casino. I guess there was a lot more to the Casino than we saw but it is mostly like private rooms. It definitely would not have surprised me though if there were like people there in private rooms betting millions of dollars. It felt like that fancy of a place.

We walked back toward the bus and ran into a Japanese Garden in the middle of like nowhere in particular. We decided to waste the rest of our time there. It was really pretty and the Koi fish were HUGE! Probably as big as my arm! There were also ducks and bridges and waterfalls and it was just very pretty. I wouldn’t mind going to Japan sometime as long as I don’t have to eat fish. It was pretty and I liked taking pictures of it.

Before we got back on the bus i bought an orange juice out of an orange juice squeezer machine it was soe dang good orange juice! After that we got back on the bus to go home. Someone had taken our seats near the front so we had to sit further in the back. We soon figured out why. The English girls behind us were talking SO loud and there were people playing music without earphones. The English girls though… I had my noise cancelling headphones in and playing music pretty loudly and on the way here I was able to block out an entire airplane worth of noise. But this girl was like so loud that I could still hear her. I thought about turning around to tell her to be quieter. Inside voice but I didn’t. I feel like some people are so inconsiderate.

I read and slept and listened to my iPod. Cassandra slept the whole time I though. When we were abut an hour out it got stormy outside and the lightning started. It was pretty cool. There is a lot of lightening here. And then Cassandra woke me up to show me a rainbow. I was like great we get them all the time in Oregon. But it was cool against such a dark sky. When we were about to get off of the bus Cassandra told me the guys behind us had been stereotypically American and then complaining about how everyone has American stereotypes. She was annoyed, I said yeah but that girl and she was like seriously be quiet! It was funny and we laughed.

We got back and parted ways. I came home and Madame was on the phone. I uploaded all of my photos and had to pretty much delete almost all of the ones from the camera because they were blurry. But I did get a few good ones from it and my iPod worked the whole way home so I accomplished my goal! Madame got off the phone and I showed her my pictures. We had dinner of sausages and mashed potatoes and zucchini, as well as bread and cheese and ice cream. It was very good and I was definitely starving for it. After that she did laundry and I did homework until I gave up and started writing this. We talked about different things and I told hr about how you can get a cats claws removed and she was like elated at the idea and had never heard of that. Beebow scratches at everything and it drives her nuts. She told me that Paul is going to stay the night tomorrow because his parents are going somewhere so that will be interesting.

I have a test tomorrow in Translations on parts of the body and some other vocab. I am a bit nervous so I will have to do lots of flashcards tomorrow and then I have another in that class on Wednesday with even harder vocabs of the different verbs for all five senses and the nuances between them. Eek! Also I have to turn in my paper on Tuesday and I have a test in Monuments on Wednesday. Busy week ahead! And not really looking forward to it… Probably I won’t be able to put this online tonight with the internet we have been having but I will sort of try!

Goodnight!