Today was one of the only days where i knew exactly what we were doing. I think it was because everyone was so excited about going there that we found out prior to arriving.
The morning started early, you could feel there was a buzz, people were throwing around �100 notes at brekkie for bottles of Dom and Cristal, the limo picked us up, and we were off. Ok so i made that up, but it almost felt like it, because later that day we arrived in MONACO!
There is only one way to describe this place: filthy, but soooo cool! It is just a really cool place. When you watch Bond movies and you see the villains hanging out in their villas and then going to the casino that night, well you can so easily place them in Monaco. We werent even in Monaco when we saw our first Ferrari, which was the start of a tally that would reach more than a hundred by days end. I dont know if its the people there, their clothes, the casino, or the fact that the streetlights are guilded in gold, its just a place that is really cool. You can almost smell the dosh flying around the city. And for a day, i love it!
Justin and i worked out that today was the training and weighing day for the Formula 1, and so we had a good chance of seeing some of the cars and the drivers. We walked down to the track and there was a Porsche race on. Boy, that was cool! So loud, hot and fast, awesome. We checked that out a while, and managed to sneak into the stands and watch a bit. We really had no idea how we got in, because everyone else was getting asked for passes. They must have seen our class and sophistication, and not worried about checking that (haha!). Just as a point of interest, we decided to hit up Monaco in our pluggers and boardies (for everyone else, translation is flip flops and board shorts!), we thought we would really class it up! But we walked around for a little, before discovering the race was over and the track was clear. So we got on to the track and walked the whole thing. It was awesome.
We got the the end and saw the Formula 1 pits. There was a crowd of people, but we seemed to work our way through and got somewhere near the front. I started on my photo bonanza! I snapped everything, Schumachers car, Trullis pit, everything! I ended up taking about 100 photos. But the best was yet to come. We walked up to the market to get something to eat, and then came back down to the pits to discover a bit crowd. We looked in, and discovered that it was Mikka H�kkinen giving an interview. There was such a big crowd that we knew we were going to get nowhere near the front, so we sufficed ourselves with staying close to the edge.
However, all of a sudden, as though the crowd knew of my Moses like crowd splittng powers, everyone almost stepped aside or walked off, and so Justin and i were right next to him. We watched him give his interview, and then i stood next to him, with my camera very visable! He asked if we would like a photo, and so Justin and i told him, if he could get in the track and the casino it would be a great shot, what a nice man to offer to take a photo for us. Nah, we both jumped and quickly snapped the shots. I think that was the coolest thing we did all day.