Being Adventurous

Hi there...yea, remember me? I'm the girl that used to blog here every once in a while...

Please, just ignore my two week absence, and pretend like nothing really happened (I mean, OBVIOUSLY you all noticed, right?) In my defense, I have been otherwise occupied with things that were simply too much fun to take time out to blog...

The trip was absolutely fantastic...I loved every minute of it! Munchkin had a great time, Frenchie's family are super great hosts, and MA did absolutely awesome. She had one super meltdown on about Day 7 because she was tired and missed her Daddy and Sissie, but a little Skype and an early bedtime took care of that and she was back to 100% the next day. Frenchie's Mom kept encouraging me to leave her so that she could babysit:-)

I'm gonna spare you the day-by-day details, but I am going to give you two stories about being an "adventurous traveler". I don't mean this in the sense of doing crazy things, but more in the sense of making an effort to meet people and do things that might be considered socially awkward.

We arrived on Thursday, and Frenchie's Dad, who always looks out for me;-), informed me that he had asked two younger women that he works with if they would be willing to take me out on Saturday night, and they had enthusiastically agreed. Hang out with people I have never met who may or may not speak much English? Sure...why not...I told him I was game, and asked him to find out what I should wear:-). The answer came back "Club clothes"...

So, come Saturday, I tucked MA into bed, hopped in a cab and went to some random apartment to meet two random girls for the night. They had a couple more friends over (because the French pre-game just like we do!) so we hung out for a bit, had a couple of drinks and then headed to a ridiculously Euro-trashy thump-thump dance club. They, and their friends, were really nice, and found the whole situation as ridiculously awesome as I did. From their perspective: "Our boss' boss' boss randomly dropped by, told us that his son's girlfriend was visiting from the States with her older sister in her late 20's (he even lied about my age!!!) and asking if we had any weekend plans could she come with us. What's not to love?"

Never mind that I didn't understand a single word that anyone said to either me or anyone else while we were at the club, and I was exhausted all day on Sunday...it was super fun, and just the kind of thing that I love to do. I mean, when am I ever gonna do that again? And now, I have my own Parisian friends...win!

Skip ahead four days now, and we were spending our first day on the beach in Nice. MA was walking around exploring and I was following her, just kind of enjoying the day. We came across two girls, slightly younger than me, one of whom had on a super cute bikini. Being the overly-social creature that I am, I asked them if they spoke English, which they did, and then told her I liked her bathing suit and we just started talking. Before MA got away, they told me that they were going to be at a certain bar for cocktails and that I should meet them there.

So I did, along with another girl and two boys that they were with. Kind of a weird group, very much of the "nation-less European aristocracy". As best as I could tell, they were basically Italian and Spanish, but there also seemed to be a lot of talk of residences in Switzerland and Germany and France. There did not appear to be much talk of having jobs, or the need to have jobs. But they all seemed to like the idea of having an American around, and while the word "arrogant" would not be inappropriate, they were pretty fun and I had a good time with them.

And then I mentioned that I was hoping to go to Monaco, they all jumped on board immediately, and an adventure was born! Fast forward a day, and miraculously there appeared a black stretch Mercedes and we rolled in our best movie-star style. The Casino was, frankly, a disappointment...at least as a casino. It's a spectacular building and worthy of looking at, but it is a whole lot smaller and emptier than the Vegas casinos, and is positively dwarfed by the Connecticut casinos.

We stayed there for a little bit because one of the boys wanted to play some roulette, and then we had dinner, some more drinks, danced a bit and just basically hung out. I probably drank too much, but it didn't get too out of control;-). The company was fun, even if it was a little "different" (you'll definitely want to ask me in private for the rest of this:-)).

The moral of of the story is, I guess, when traveling, do random shit. Everyone knows where the museums are, but the stuff you will really remember comes from meeting people that you can only meet if you get a little bit socially adventurous!