Monaco "mah-NAH-ko"

Yet another nice view of cliffs and the blue Mediterranean. Last Friday night, there was a soirée Maghreb at the center for the all of the students and their French roommates. The aunt of one of the tutrices (who's from Algeria) made tons of couscous, vegetables, and lamb for everyone, and the tutors set up the classroom like a dining room of sorts. No pictures of that, but worth noting, and then the next day, a few of us went to Monaco with the Office of Tourism. This is the first picture I took after getting off the bus.
It was really sunny--even warmer than it's been in Provence lately.
There were sea gulls seriously everywhere. I've never seen so many or been around ones that wanted to get so close to people.
Here's the Cathedral. We didn't get to see the inside because it had closed by the time we came back by to do that.
The Palace. I was really surprised by the simplicity of the architecture of many of the buildings, but especially of the palace. I wouldn't have expected that from Monaco. We got there in time to see the changing of the guard, and then we took a tour of the palace, which was small but had some impressive rooms. The audio-guide wasn't very informative; I think there's got to be more history, but sometimes it would just say what the main piece of furniture in a room was made of, and that was it. Weird, but like everything I've done, I'm glad to know that I've been.
Cool view, made even cooler by tiny Elyse in the corner. All of these next few pictures were taken along a path through the garden.
Say whatever you want about the architecture, the ports are impressive.
A view from the other side of the plaza area in front of the palace. Patrick pointed out to me that you can see the Grand Prix track down in the bottom left-hand corner.
Turrets of the palace on the left. City on the right
They really do love Princess Grace there; these commemorative posts are all over the city, detailing her life in Monaco. This one with a photo and date of her wedding is across the street from the cathedral.
Not only are there many live birds, but there are bird statues everywhere too. I liked this one's bottle-cap feathers.
le port, encore
Proof they do have statues of things besides birds. I guess this is the favorite one to rub for luck before stopping by the casino.
The only colorful bird, I think, and Lindsay.
Casino Monte-Carlo. There was much traffic (of incredibly expensive cars, of course, except I couldn't recognize any of them), so this is the best picture I got. You can't take pictures inside, but it was just as ornate as expected, all black and gold.
View from the casino steps. Between the five of us, we gambled 5 euro in a slot machine...and Claire won 1.20. She offered to split it five ways with us since we'd all chipped in, but in the end we'd decided it'd be cooler to keep the ticket rather than have 24 centimes each.
Last stop was the Café de Paris, the restaurant across the street from the casino that you're supposed to check out, where we got this berry pavlova sundae to share. Patrick and Claire

On the way back, we drove through Nice, along the Promenade des Anglais, the road right along the beach, and through Eze. I didn't realize that was on the way, so I was surprised to recognize the perfume factory, and the cafe where Evan and I went, although Eze is tiny, so being able to remember where things are is not really that crazy.