We were under a bit of time pressure earlier today because we had to ensure we were back early enough to get ready for the Monaco casino trip. So shopping and seeing the beach were on the agenda!
Walking out towards the shops, we knew that we had to change money for the next day's journey to Switzerland. One problem, we got to the exchange and we hadn't brought our Aussie dollars with us! Damn...back to the hotel. Unfortunately when we returned, we learned that it was going to be a double dip on the fee, as they wanted to exchange the Aussie into Euro then into francs! No go!!!! Too expensive and a waste of time going back and forth to the hotel! Oh well, another learning experience. We also realised that the Travelex were expensive for the one transaction and so we opted not to go with their crappy rate anyway!
Tan: Back on route and shopping was at the forefront of my mind! Rich bought nothing today, but I managed a dress, a top and of course some new heels! Yay!
We ended up making it to one of the local beach areas of Nice. The Riviera itself spans many kilometres long and is quite beautiful, except for the pebbly shore line. It didn't seem to worry the large amount of people down there sunbathing. However, the water must have been quite cold, because hardly anyone was in! We noticed quite a few 'mi scusi' types down there too, which gave us a laugh (a reference to the movie Eurotrip).
Heading back towards the hotel in the middle of the day, we located a sushi restaurant and take away called Sushi Planet. We had seen this last night coming back from the pub. It was nice to have something so fresh and super healthy. We also found a much cheaper exchange place! Screw you Travelex! Blatantly ripping off tourists is not cool!
Most people made an effort tonight to dress up for the Monaco trip. This was even noted at the perfume factory by the guide there. Apparently the tour buses often visit there in the mornings and people are often hung over! Yes, that would be a different look.
Anyway it was a good experience going to the perfume factory. My god it takes a lot of flower petals to make the essential oils required for perfume. Their fragrances were divine and so we purchased a cheeky pack of 5 concentrated bottles of 60ml each. That should last a while. If it doesn't, then it's back to the south of France we go, we go!
Next stop, Monaco. Given that the Grand Prix only occurred there a couple of days ago, there was quite a bit of packing up still to be done. We felt sorry for our friend on the tour who is a mad keen race car nut! Getting so close and missing the race must have been rather painful.
Anyway, it was off to happy hour cocktails with quite a few of the crew. We thought that this might have been a safer option, rather than gambling the whole time and we were loving the happy hour cocktail prices and stayed on for a few. This helped to ease the pain of the money spent today on shopping, the perfumery and a bit of a loss at the casino! Oh well, a once in a lifetime experience is something that must be done, so this was easily justifiable and fun!
Rich: I was not involved in the shopping mention above! In relation to the perfumes, I only have a 20% share in the overall buy. Come to think of it, I spent the least of the duo at the casino. No Tan it is not easy to win back the cash! Hahahaha!
No comments:
Post a Comment