Sugar and Spice, Everything Nice

So where have I been? Well, we did hit Monaco a week or so ago. The Grand Prix was going on, so as you might imagine, it was quite the zoo. It was the historical Grand Prix, so it was all of these old-fashioned cars, which was quite fun to watch, especially since I really knew nothing about the Grand Prix. I also gambled at Monte Carle - $10 on the slot machine. Yes, I'm on a serious budget and if you've ever played slot machines, these are very addictive. Anyway, I won $26 so that was nice - making a profit of $6 as they charged us $10 to enter the casino in the first place (btw, the Euro is approximately equal to the dollar). We also saw the homes of Princesses Caroline and Stephanie. Unfortunately, the angle and trees made it impossible to take a good picture, so I actually have a picture of the gardens en face, and you can see a bit of Princess Stephanie's home right behind the trees. At any rate, I believe Princess Caroline was home, as the garage door was open and there was a car in there with Hanover plates (her husband is the Prince of Hanover). Anyway, Monaco is very clean, very nice - I loved the train station. It's all dug through a mountain, as Monaco is less than one mile wide and about 2 miles long. But for being a subterannean train station, it was very elegant and of course, very rich looking. Also saw the changing of the guard in front of the Palace - though it wasn't with quite the pomp and circumstance of the changing of the guard in Londres, but it was still very cool.

Let's see... I also went to Cannes and no, I didn't see anyone famous, though I did indulge in some gratuitous stargazing - climbing up a fence in a skirt no less! Yes, that moment was immortalized on film because it was just so un-Seema. However, some other people who went on Friday evneing to Cannes actually saw Sandra Bullock. We saw some famous French actress, up close and personal, but alas, it was lost on us. I thought I'd throw out that the Cannes sovenier beach towel costs $57. Yes, you read that correctly - but it's a way cool logo though. And oh yes, the red carpet is very cool, even if you don't know who the heck is walking up the stairs. The other thing that is neat about Cannes is the way the crowd moves - it's like an undulating wave. There's a rumour that so and so is somewhere and the whole gaggle of people just go and run. So it's very strange and neat at the same time. People watchers will definitely have a blast.

Also checked out St. Paul de Vence this past weekend, which is a lovely little medieval village with a artistic bent. The pathways are very narrow and for the most part, the city walls are all intact. It's just very interesting and very quaint. Plus we indulged in crepes. Crepes with nutella. Yum. The view from St. Paul de Vence was very nice, especially since it's heading into the Alps, so we saw a lot of uniquely Mediterannean architecture, not to mention the step farming. Also enjoyed the profusion of flowers everywhere - the colors here seem so vibrant and alive, it's amazingly beautiful. And oh yes, cobble stone paths - but with actual design in the paths, so that's very neat to look at. Highly recommended town for those of you who may be in this area. Gorgeous.

Another stop was Gourdon, which is a hilltop village - and I think hilltop is an understatement. It's actually a mountain top. Way, way, way up there. I was sleeping in the bus and opened my eyes at just the moment when our bus driver, 'Crash', zipped crasily up the side of the mountain, not to mention the incredibly steep drop directly to our right. We all nearly had a heart attack on the spot, it was so high up. Anyway, this little village was another medieval one, complete with walls etc and given that it was directly on top of an Alp, it had a very dramatic view. We could see the surrounding mountains as well as the Mediterannean and Nice and Cannes. So it was quite nice up there, as long as you didn't look too far down. This type of village is very common in Southern France as the coastline was prey to invaders, so our intrepid settlers decided to hike to the highest possible place and build their lives there. But very intriguing, very beautiful - another must-see. Very similar to the city of Eze, if you have heard of that one.

As for 'Crash' - he is our stomach churning bus driver. To him, roads are an inconvenience. He likes nothing better than to blaze his own path, preferably with us in the bus. We cannot look anymore, it is so scary.He also likes to go fast and didn't quite understand why we objected to the speed with which he was a) climbing the mountain or b) the speed with which he was coming down. Nor does the bus driver care about what happens to the muffler or anything else on the underside of the bus - so we have a lot of scraping, which is interesting, to say the least. He just grins and smirks behind his way too cool sunglasses. We're not sure what we will do without 'Crash' or the N4- which is the night bus here. You haven't experience pure transportation fear until you've been on the N4, which barrels through the narrow streets and double-parked cars without care. It's very interesting, not to mention a slightly suicidal experience.

Tomorrow, we head to Barcelona and then to Madrid. I have never been to Spain - have been to all these other places I've talked about so far - so I'm very excited about this propspect. The weather, according to CNN (our only English media here), the weather should be fantastic.