Ballin' ? ... in Monaco?

So I realize I’ve gotten myself into a blogging rut. I’m a day behind posting everything. Yesterday I posted about the day before, today I planned to post about yesterday, and tomorrow I would have to post about today. But that’s not happening. Today I break the cycle. Today I am posting about what happened today. This means that yesterday is getting the short end of the stick. I suppose I can squeeze in my story about the public restroom manager (an overly tanned and leathery fat man in a speedo who took my 35 euro cents and jipped me on TP…2 squares?!) at a later date. 

Today was a very exciting day. We went to Monaco...Unfortunately today was also the one day since I’ve been here that I forgot to bring my camera. Oy!

Monaco was pretty much exactly what you imagine. We left the bus stop and walked along the road, which was “clean enough to eat off of,” as one girl in our group said. To our right, the port full of fancy schmancy yachts, and to our left, fancy schmancy stores that I would never be able to afford in a million years. Our first order of business was finding lunch. We ended up at the famous Café de Paris, which is right outside of the casino. I wasn’t too thrilled to see that the cheapest thing on the menu was plain spaghetti for 13 euros, but in Monaco that seemed to be the going rate. All of the other restaurants had similar prices, so we all sucked it up and forked out the dough. We walked up to the host and requested a table for 7. We asked for outside seating, but they told us that there wasn’t a big enough table for our party, so he led us inside. Secretly I think we just weren’t dressed up enough and that they only let the rich and famous or designer clad customers sit outside. Those kinds of people probably attract more business than poor American college kids. When it came time to order, I momentarily let myself go a little crazy, pretended I had money to burn, and ordered NOT the plain spaghetti….but the spaghetti bolognese, which cost 3 euros more! Almost everyone at the table ordered the same thing, except for Paymon, who was feeling brave and ordered the steak tar tar. The waiter looked really surprised and confirmed with him several times in French “You know that it’s raw, right? Completely raw! That’s what you want?!” He assured them that he knew it was raw and that he did, indeed, want it. When they brought our food out, I was slightly underwhelmed by mine, but overly impressed by his. Kinda jealous, even. I got a rather small bowl of spaghetti, and that was it. He got this giant hunk of ground beef on a plate with some French fries (In France they are neither “French” fries nor “freedom” fries, but just “fries.”). Everyone in our group looked disgusted by the steak tar tar, but I thought it looked delish. Then I got to try it, and it was even better than I expected. It wasn’t just a boring slab of ground beef…it was perfectly seasoned with garlic, salt, and other spices and herbs. Maybe one day when I’m “ballin’” (Lori- is this the correct use for the word?) I’ll be able to order my own steak tar tar in Monaco. Lunch was pretty much the highlight of the day. It should also be noted that the bathrooms at the restaurant were awfully fancy, but that’s to be expected in Monaco, right? 

After lunch we walked around a bit and ended up in a mall. The stores were so nice, we were all afraid to go in any of them. Instead we huddled outside store windows like a bunch of weirdos and muttered to ourselves about the prices. We got bored with that pretty quickly and decided to check out the casino. We knew that it cost 10 euros to go all the way inside to the game room, so instead we walked in and took a quick tour of the lobby, which was gorgeous…crystal chandeliers and Rolex clocks everywhere, and a coat room bigger than my whole apartment. After sufficiently perusing/cruising (hehe) all the plaques and examining all the nooks and crannies and ornate decorations in the enormous lobby, we headed for the royal palace. After a million more stairs (By this point, I’m learning to expect to climb a million stairs to get anywhere.), we ended up at the palace. Though it was beautiful and the view from up there was fantastic, it wasn’t what I was expecting. Maybe I’ve seen too many Disney movies with overly elaborate cartoon castles. Maybe it was also because part of it was under construction…I can’t say for sure. I’m glad to have seen it, but I don’t know that I’d make a point of going back.

Word of the day:

parcourir (transitive verb) –to peruse. I’m not gonna lie…it’s one of my favorite words in English. One time at work, I asked a customer if they were still “perusing” the menu and I guess they misunderstood me because they replied “yeah, still cruising!”

It’s been a running joke ever since, and I really just wanted to use it today.

No pictures from today because I forgot my camera, but here are a few that I've been meaning to post anyway.