Day 21 – Sunday December 26th 2010 (Nice, France – Monaco, Monaco)

After arriving at nice we threw our baggage into the consignment and ran to the beach. It was really peaceful and relaxing seeing the sea and skipping stones and running back and forth into the waves, trying not to get wet. I was almost swallowed by one as I tried to take a picture. Luckily some French sailors saved me. We also saw a man paint interesting things with spray paint and then took pictures of all manner of buildings. We were scammed by a Nigerian scoundrel and then we were dive bombed by seagulls. Eventually we ate a load of Chinese food and then headed back to the station to catch a short train to Monaco. It was a relatively short wait but we did get a chance to sleep a bit and chat with some nice American girls who told us some valuable traveling secrets. Nice was a beautiful city and had tons to do. I really enjoyed the fantastic colors they painted the houses. When we arrived in Monaco we found a surreal city built right on the side of a cliff. The roads were all super steep and we had no where to put our bags due to the fact that Monacoans are super paranoid and hate lockers… grrrrrr. So we lugged them about everywhere. The coastline or rather dock line was chock full of yachts and lacquered sailboats. We made our way to the ritzy city center where we would find the famous Monacon Casinos. When we got there, after 5 miles of nearly vertical climbing, we were so stunned by the glitz that we just stood there for a straight hour watching all the rich people with their fur coats and benz’s. Eventually we hatched a plan. One person would wait by the packs while the other would tour the Casinos. When I went into the slots casino I was real thirsty so I traveled to the bar. I felt very james bond. I ordered a coke, but then I thought I better ask how much it is. It was 7 dollars. I left cokeless. I did however try my hand at gambling. My first time ever. I went to the Star Wars slots (of course) and immediately won! I was so excited I wanted to cash out but I accidently pressed another button of some kind and lost and then lost again. OH NO! I thought.. its ok I can win it back right?! So I gambled away all my savings right then and there… not. I only but in two Euro, I figured I would gamble it away and then leave but somehow when I only had 20 cents left I won again and my total went back up to 2.10 euro! I was 10 cents over! Yay! I carefully cashed out and left with my ten cents. Afterward we went into the big casino, the one that had a dress code and I watched the rich crazies loose oodles of money on the tables. The bathroom was pretty high tech though. It had a self cleaning toilet seat. It was like a robot toilet. Anyway, after the casinos we walked by the water and saw some statues by Botero and then we decided to go back to the station considering everything in the town center was 10x the normal price. We found a nice cozy place in the station and bunkered down for a nice long night of restless sleep and being awoken every half hour by the police and or random people begging for money or being weird. We entered our train to Italy at about 8 am the next morning.