Monte Carlo

As we'd been "docking" in the harbors, we took the Rough Rockin' tenders into Monte Carlo. It was a hot day and as Ellen desperately wanted to blend in with the rich and fabulous she would not allow me to wear shorts or any of my        "Hobo Baggins" clothes. To appease her I donned a navy blue dress that I later found out may as well have been made of plastic.

I liked the looks of this place. Very clean with crisp edges and abundant greenery. I didn't like the snooty air about the people there. Designer clothes, expensive cars. Ellen was in heaven. I heard her mumble, "I need to be rich" in between her reoccurring announcement, "Monaco baby! Yeah!"

I did not stay so long in this place. As we were forced to climb uphill to enter the city, I became quite hot. My plastic dress created an incubator of the worst kind and I became very mean and cantankerous. We walked around a bit, saw the touristy spots, and rode the bus through town. I happily taxied it back to the boat with Dad and Dave, who apparently had seen enough.

After another amusing dinner we headed back up to the only "late night" spot on our geriatric tour of the Med and continued our incessant squabbling. Jared and I became most amused at Georgia's sassy comments. We also enjoyed that she consistently bummed cigarettes from the piano man who seemed to always be around to witness the families peculiarities. This particular night Panos had a pesky female admirer following him around and sitting uncomfortably close to his face. She was the ships guest jeweler and on account of her Romanian features and wooka-wooka hair, aunt Georgia nicknamed her the "Sea Hag."

We watched them sit, with their backs to us as she inched ever closer and Panos politely scooted away. Mom began her nightly dancing ritual and was caught by the Sea Hag singing wildly to Kool'n the Gang. Panos kept insisting we join them however his new fan seemed much too enthralled to disappoint. Our night went on as usual and when everyone went off to bed I was still very much awake. I mistakenly accepted Panos's invite and plopped down on the sofa next to the Sea Hag. Boy was I getting the Stink Eye. That woman was very put off by my presence and slyly insulted my naivety given my age. After less than 20 minutes I dismissed myself. I was struggling to ignore the Hags blatant glares while filling the awkward silence with ramblings of wombats and Carolyn's story of Panos's miraculous ability to play the piano after waking up from a 2 week coma brought on from an Alps Rescue Mission gone awry. I went for a solo night walk around the ship before falling asleep in my party dress.