So, where did I leave off? Okay. So Friday morning. We decided to go to Monaco for the day, and Yoshi joined us. We left around 10 am and made our way down the hill. ("How bad was this hill, Renée?" you may ask. "It's a HILL. Come on, it couldn't have been that bad, you complainer." Well, to give you an idea of how high up we were, here's the view from our hostel's porch.)
Okay, so it's not the most picturesque photo of the view, but it shows you how high up we were. We walked down pretty much to the coastline. Granted, we walked to the part directly in front of the hostel, not that bit off in the distance. But still.We headed into Monaco and walked up the hill to where the palace was not so much to see it but to watch the Grand Prix qualifying race that was going on. And man, was it LOUD.
Coastline of Monaco with the Grand Prix circuit all set up. You can see a car if you look at bottom center/left-ish.After doing that for awhile, we looked a a couple cute tourist-y shop streets in the Old Town near the palace and I simultaneously got ripped off and bargain shopped (5 € for a baseball cap, 1 € for a postcard that the shop next door was selling for 30 centimes). We headed back down into the city and walked around a bit before taking the bus (free because of the Grand Prix!) to the beach, where we got lunch from a little bakery/sandwich place before heading to the beach for a picnic lunch. Poor Nayab was so exhausted that she literally fell asleep as soon as she laid down on the beach, still clutching her sandwich. It was actually rather adorable.
Funny thing about the beaches in Monaco, though: they don't have sand. You'd think they would and that it would be the super luxurious, super-fine white stuff, but no, Monaco's beaches are made up entirely of pebbles. True story. It feels really weird to walk on at first (kind of tickled my feet), but after awhile you get used to it.
The lovely coastline in Monaco. (I miss it in this cloudy, cool British weather!)Anyway, we ate and relaxed in the sun. I read a bit of Pride and Prejudice before walking along the shore and then finally swimming in the Mediterranean! It was absolutely lovely. After that I laid out in the sun again and, inspired by Jake's Phi Delt sunscreen tattoo, attempted to give myself a Kappa Delta sunscreen tattoo, which was an epic fail, especially when I forgot it was there and put my shirt on over it, thereby smudging copious amounts of sunscreen all over both my arm and my sleeve. Oh, well.
We played a bit with Wilson, the volleyball the others had purchased the day before, and after we were beached out we headed for the Monte Carlo to see about doing some gambling (since the legal age is 18 in Europe and hey, wouldn't it be awesome to say you gambled at the Monte Carlo? I think so.). It didn't open until 8, though, and it was only like 5 or 6, so we decided to get dinner and then come back. We went to a little sandwich shop/cafe-type place. Unfortunately there wasn't anything vegan for Kelly, but the really nice cafe workers made her a sandwich that was essentially a hamburger without the actual burger - lettuce, tomato, veggies, etc. on a hamburger bun. It was really nice of them, especially since it was one of those places where everything is pretty much pre-assembled. And then as we were finishing up eating, the workers came over and gave us four free fruit cups to split between the six of us, since they were getting ready to close and otherwise they'd just have to throw the fruit cups out. Like I said, they were really nice. We took a picture with them (the workers, not the fruit cups...although, actually, both are true I guess) before we left.
We returned to the Monte Carlo to find out that they'd pushed the opening time back to 9 pm instead, so we went to Häagen Dazs and got ice cream beforehand and Amanda taught us how to play Chinese Poker (which I still don't really understand...I have no idea why card games are so hard for me, but I just cannot wrap my head around them. My Card Game Repertoire consists of War, Go Fish, Slapjack, and building card-castles only two tiers high.). We went back to the casino at nine, managed to get in despite our decidedly un-classy manner of dress (beach clothes...everyone else was in suits, tuxes, cocktail dresses, and evening gowns). Seriously, these people were rolling up in super-expensive cars and were obviously quite a different sort from us. Regardless, we paid the 10 € entry fee, and then looked around. It was amazing (no pictures though, because cameras sadly were not allowed in)...so fancy! I set a 5 € limit for myself and played a slot machine. I was up about 2 € at one point, but then I lost it. =( It was a good thing I'd pre-set a limit for myself, though, because gambling really is addictive, especially when you see other people - ahem, Jake - winning all kinds of junk. I was super-jealous, haha.
The Monte Carlo at nightWe headed back to the train station, checking out all the yacht parties going on in the harbor, took the train back to Menton, hoofed it all the way up the Giant Hill of Death, and went to bed. Well, first, I tried to get a train ticket back to Lyon. It wasn't looking good. I finally found one that would get me into Lyon around 10 pm Sunday night after leaving me in Avignon for like 7 hours, but at that point the wifi cut out and I was still ticket-less. It ended up being a good thing, though, because the next morning - and I have no idea how this happened or what I did to get so lucky - a ticket miraculously opened up on the 8 am TGV that went directly from Cannes to Lyon, the same train my friends were taking. EXCELLENT! I jumped around excitedly about that for literally about ten minutes. Getting back to Lyon at noon was soooo much better than straggling in at 10 pm. SO MUCH BETTER.
We said goodbye to Yoshi at the train station and headed off to Juan-les-Pins, where Kelly had heard about a bread festival. It ended up being a.) actually in Antibes, a 15-minute walk up the road, and b.) not much of a festival, as it consisted of one tent in the square where some people were selling like 6 different bread products. Oh, well. We got lunch from various places around town, sat on benches by the water, and ate, and then we went to the beach in Antibes (sand, no pebbles! Yay!) and hung out there for maybe a little under an hour.
Me, obviously super-psyched to be in Antibes. Props to Kelly for getting this on the first attempt.
A more panoramic view of Antibes, the sea, and the surrounding landscape.After a quick ice-cream pit stop, we went to Cannes, which was insane because of the film festival. We went to a museum on a hill above the town since it was the Night of the Museums in France and all the museums were open for free until midnight, and we were hoping to check our stuff there. The scary mobster-esque guys running the place had a good laugh at that, and we went on our way. We got dinner at a yummy Indian restaurant in Cannes which played Bollywood music videos on a screen in the dining area, and then we set off on a Night of Adventures, since we had no lodgings for the night, nor did we expect or even attempt to find any. (Cannes books up MONTHS in advance for the festival.) First we wandered around, then we attempted to watch the red carpet for awhile (no celeb sightings that night...boo). Then we watched a film screening on the beach, where we sat in beach chairs and were supplied with blankets. Everyone else got little naps in during the movie (which was in Italian with French subtitles), but I couldn't fall asleep, partly because even with the blankets it was freaking COLD on the beach.
When the movie finished we hung around the red carpet some more (still no celeb sightings) and then just sat down near the Festival Pavillion, looking distinctly hobo-esque with our multiple layers (I was wearing pajama pants as a scarf) and stolen Cannes Film Screening blankets. (I couldn't bring myself to do it, but I was rather jealous of those who had, since those blankets were fuzzy and lovely.) Anyway, as we sat there, needing only some fingerless gloves and a fire burning in a barrel to complete the picture, a screening let out and all these people walked by in tuxes and evening gowns. It was a pretty ridiculous picture, as you can imagine. Two guys stopped to chat with us - they were Americans living in France and they'd been attending the festival for the past several years. They gave us a bunch of tips on how to actually get in next time, and told us that if we'd been wearing cocktail dresses and suits, we could have been partying on a yacht right now, which was simultaneously exciting and disappointing to think about.
Festival Banner
The red carpet after the festival was done for the night. It's still heavily secured, though, as we found out when a drunk guy tried to run onto it and was stopped by a police officer and a dog.We wandered a bit more until at around 1 am, we stumbled upon a Godsend - a cafe that was open until 4:30 because of the festival. We sat at a table outside under a heat lamp in a back corner and managed to stay there for the next three or so hours, making sure to sip our drinks or nibble our food every time we were within the waitress's line of vision. It was actually quite fun, partly because it was pretty late (pretty early?) and we were all pretty punchy by that point. At 4:30 when they closed we trudged to the train station and waited for it to open at 5 (it actually opened at 5:30), at which point Jake and Nayab stayed with the stuff and Amanda and Kelly and I went off to watch the sun rise over the ocean (turns out you can't actually see the sun rise over the water in Cannes). Amanda went back to the train station and Kelly and I checked out a market, and then we returned to the station, where everyone was fast asleep on benches. We caught the 8 am train back without any problems, and that was that. It was a wonderful weekend. I mean, we were sooo lucky in our choice of weekend: the Grand Prix and the Cannes Film Festival! People plan out trips for months without getting that lucky.
And although I was absolutely exhausted after staying up for like 24 hours straight (I took a two-hour nap on the train home) and then going my entire Sunday until 11 pm without a nap, it was totally worth it. What a fantastic life experience. =)
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