I now understand Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Lindsey
Lohan…….in all the wrong ways. Arriving
in Monaco was pretty awesome, but we noticed that it’s really really
small. It’s approximately 2 square kilometers
total. That’s pretty small – like super
small…..as in you can walk the whole thing in no time at all. And walk we did. But back to that in a little while.
As we arrived in Monaco we noticed a lot of yachts. Large yachts.
Many yachts worth multi-millions of dollars. Let that sink in for a minute. In an area that is merely a couple of square
kilometers, there were a very large number of multi-million dollar yachts. Was Paris Hilton there? I have no idea, but we caught a glimpse into
their life. And it was sad. Really sad.
What we noticed right away were the things of status. If you didn’t have the right shoes, or the
right $2,000 dress, or the right purse, or the most expensive sunglasses or the
right imported car – you were overlooked as if you didn’t exist. How sad is that existence? An existence based off of what you have
rather than the person you are. Shawn
noticed right off the bat that the people driving around in the super expensive
cars looked miserable, truly miserable.
That begs the question, what is the meaning that we put on our lives? What is this all about?
We discussed some pretty heavy stuff during our time in
Monaco – something neither of us were expecting. But it was very enjoyable nonetheless.
As we got off the boat we decided that we wanted to go to
the aquarium and the palace. Both were
pretty cool, but nothing really to write home about. In fact, even though we had tickets to the
palace we didn’t go in because there was a 30 minute wait, and neither of us
were really interested in going there anyway, so we skipped it.
We then decided to walk around the town a bit and head to
the famous casino where some movies were shot including the Ocean’s
movies. Seeing the casino was pretty
cool, but I think walking around and observing the people there was more
interesting.
Women in their 50’s walked by with their much younger
boy-toys. The same for the men. Shawn and I must have repeated “wow, I hope
that was his daughter” or “I hope that was her son” a few too many times. Because really, this place might be
beautiful, but it was all about status.
Who has the best (fill in the blank)?
And that’s your worth. Far too
sad for us to fully enjoy, but we had a good time being on the outskirts in our
not-so-fashionable-clothing, cheap sunglasses (because I scratch the crap out
of them constantly), and workaday existence.
We realized that we are some of the lucky ones who truly still enjoy
being around each other, we like our lives for the most part and are able to
get out and do things like travel. We
will never be the people who are overly concerned with ‘things’, and that’s more
than ok with us.