Day 6 – Toulon, France – August 9th

Today was by far, our favorite day so far.  With all of the experiences we’ve had and places we’ve been so far, our hearts were glad but not yet full.  Today, our hearts were full.

A few days before we left for our trip we found out that a friend from about 16 years ago was in France with his family.  Interestingly enough, Sarah, Jerome’s wife and I have been chatting on Facebook for a number of years but have never met in person.  Shawn and I met Jerome when he briefly lived in San Jose and came to our church.  Jerome was pretty cool and quickly became a central part of our college church group. 

Shawn swears that we spent a lot of time together during his brief time in San Jose, and he still laughs about Jerome and I being very similar people in male/female form, respectively.  One of Shawn’s favorite stories is about walking into Jerome’s room for the first time – it was nearly the exact same room as mine at the time (same color on the walls, same central poster on the wall, and same desk)…. What are the odds?  He also notes that our personalities were pretty similar………to be honest, I don’t remember that our personalities were so similar, but I do remember that our rooms were almost identical upon seeing it for the first time.  I remember both Shawn and I getting along really well with Jerome, but then again he’s a pretty easy guy to get along with.  ;)  

Fast-forward until a couple of weeks ago when we found out we would be in France at the same time.  We chatted for a bit on FB about meeting up, and we were able to make it happen.  It’s funny because we live merely a few states away, but it took traveling halfway across the world to meet up.  

Jerome and Sarah’s cousin made reservations at a private beach so we could meet up.  They had to drive an hour to get there, and Shawn and I had to navigate our way around Toulon in order to meet up.  It was soooo worth it.  Sarah, Jerome’s wife is awesome, and so are their kids.  And I can’t forget his cousin Frederick – he’s amazingly patient, and has such a great spirit to him.  But enough gushing – you get the point.  They are all pretty cool. 

Back to the start of our day………

We got off the boat having not booked any form of transportation.  The cruise ship wanted around twenty euros per person to get from the place where we docked to the city center area.  I had talked to a person on the cruise ship earlier in the week and asked if we *needed* to book the cruise line’s private water taxi for a million dollars.  The woman we spoke with said no, but in order to get to the city center we would need some form of transportation.  I wanted to wing it, and talked to Shawn about taking a ground taxi if worse comes to worse. 

As we exited the boat we talked to an information center that gave us direction to a water taxi that costs merely two euros a piece – score!  So we walked about a mile to the water taxi stop and boarded a boat.  But not before meeting a very nice gentleman who is a member of the military in France (reserves) who was called back for a period of two years.  It’s been about a year and a half so far and he’s hoping he can move back to the United States where his 8 year old son is located.  He said that life in France is great, but he missed the US like crazy (my words, not his).  He worked along the Eastern Seaboard from New York to near Florida doing various sea-worthy things, and trying to find work in France was a bit difficult.  We also talked about the differences in our education systems and how he felt like the US was a bit more behind – I agreed.  Shawn agreed more.  But enough about that.

We exited the taxi and used our GPS to guide us the 2 kilometers to the beach where we were meeting our friends.  Since we hadn’t eaten that morning we stopped at a local bakery and grabbed a croissant.  It was crispy on the outside, and buttery and soft on the inside. So perfect.  We kept walking and passed by a supermarket, and walked in to grab a bottle of water.  Again, we continued on our way.

If I haven’t mentioned it before, the climate here is hot and humid.  But more humid than hot.  And guess what affects me more than anything (making me feel sick, and quickly dehydrates me)?  That’s right – humidity.  It’s always affected me poorly, but this is ridiculous.  So dang hot, and you sweat as soon as you walk outside.  

After grabbing our water we arrived at the location where we were meeting our friends.  We checked in and waited for a short time before our friends arrived.  They lathered up the kiddos with sunscreen, and off into the water they went.  Sarah, Jerome, Frederick, Shawn and I chatted for a while, trying to catch up after 16 years.  It was a bit difficult, especially since Shawn and I were a bit more reserved.  We were in another country, and I’ve been overly concerned with not offending anyone or being *that* loud American, so I’ve been a little held back on our trip.  I’m trying to be sensitive.  Perhaps overly sensitive, I guess.  But better to be overly sensitive than to be considered another loud and rude American.

We had a lovely lunch after playing in the water, then Shawn and I needed to find our way back to the water taxi so we could make it to the ship before it left us.  We parted ways, said our goodbyes and walked off.  Shawn and I immediately decided that we needed to go out to Colorado and visit Sarah, Jerome and kiddos because meeting in France for a few hours wasn’t nearly enough time to catch up.  So I sent Sarah a message and let her know that we wanted to come out there soon to visit for a long weekend.  She suggested an Air BnB, which we think is a fabulous idea.  We can’t wait to see them again.

By far, our favorite day so far on our trip.  Meeting up with old friends, their super awesome kids, and really cool cousin was a great experience.  Getting together stateside where we can be more of ourselves I think will be good…..and I can’t wait. 

Day 5 – Monte Carlo, Monaco – August 8th

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.

Day 4 - Livorno and Pisa - August 7th

Today started out fairly frustrating, but turned into a great day.  Most of the time when Shawn and I cruise we will fly by the seat of our pants.  We rarely make plans ahead of time and simply see what kind of trouble finds us when we leave the ship.  We’ve had some pretty cool adventures, and have even found spots at different locations that we return to year after year that we consider ‘our spots’ that are not populated by people from the ship, and that are mainly known to locals.  

Pisa was different! 

I wanted to get an early start like I normally do, but Shawn wanted to take things easy.  Working as hard as he works during the week, he tries to sleep in most weekends, and vacation is no different.  So he slept in until around 9am.  We got up, got ready and headed off the ship with no plans other than we wanted to stop by the leaning tower of Pisa.  

We figured we could take a taxi or figure out public transportation, but we were a little wrong.  Some of the ports that we’ve stopped at make it virtually impossible to simply hop off the boat and have trouble find us.  At a number of the stops you aren’t able to walk off the pier, rather, you need to be with a group, a bus tour of some sort, or gather into a group of people and have a taxi take you to where you want to go.  Easy enough, but with the two of us traveling without a group it has been virtually impossible to do that.  Livorno was no different.

After exiting the ship we were confronted with a few options:  1). Rent a car – Shawn has made it abundantly clear that he does not want to rent a car in another country until we can get an international license.  2). Grab a taxi, but with just the two of us this was impossible.  Not the kind of impossible that is metaphorical, no.  It was literally impossible since we didn’t have a group of 8 people, so that was out.  3). Hop on a last minute bus that took us to Pisa to see the leaning tower which cost around twenty five Euros per person.  We chose option number 3, but only after me freaking out because we didn’t get an earlier start to the day to possible join a group.  So with tears in my eyes and frustration in my heart, off we went to Pisa.  

Thankfully this bus trip worked out because booking a bus with the cruise line cost around $80 dollars a person.  Had we paid that, we would have been pretty pissed off, so all worked out ok in the end with getting to Pisa.

Once in Pisa we followed the walking trail about a mile in order to get to the area where the leaning tower was.  It’s a great park area where three buildings exist, and the historical and engineering aspects were pretty interesting.  But the thing is, they are just buildings.  I imagine it’s the same experience going to the Eifel Tower – it’s just a tower.  Thankfully both Shawn and I had proper expectations and were not disappointed.  In fact, we went to the leaning tower because we felt like it was a requisite stop.  We can’t go to Pisa without seeing the leaning tower, so that’s what we did.

After looking around at the buildings for about 45 minutes, we headed into town – the long way.  I wanted to see what the town looked like, and pass by some shops, so that’s what we did.  We headed to one of the Piazza’s in town to see ‘what’s what’.  On our way to the Piazza we stopped by a little café and had a cappuccino and just sat there for a while enjoying our surroundings.  Shawn had a coke, of course, since he doesn’t drink coffee.

After our respite at the coffee shop we then headed to the Piazza, passed a church with mass in service, and simply walked some back alleys of Pisa.  It was pretty cool with the cobble stone streets, restaurants, a bakery here and there, and coffee shops scattered throughout our walk.  We ended up at a local little restaurant and had some lunch.  We both ordered the menu of the day which came with an appetizer, pasta dish and coffee.  I had a plate of prosciutto and mozzarella, and Shawn had mozzarella and tomatoes.  We shared, of course.  Those were more than enough for lunch, but there was still the pasta course.  I had pesto and Shawn had the bolognese.  Both were amazing, and pasta was cooked perfectly aldente!   

My preferred way to eat pasta is aldente at home, but Shawn says it’s undercooked.  After our visit to the little restaurant, I felt vindicated.  It was perfectly cooked – chewy but soft.

While we were at the restaurant we noticed the chef come out to talk to some of the locals.  A little old couple who had to be in their 70’s came in to have lunch.   The older gentleman reminded me of my grandfather:  shorter, a little stout, and had on a white tank top with a button down shirt over it with the top maybe 4-5 buttons undone.  It made my heart happy to remember him while on vacation.  So a HUGE thank you to that older gentleman for coming in for lunch at the exact time we were there.  You took me down memory lane where I was least expecting it.

After lunch we hightailed it back to the bus with merely 2 minutes to spare and headed back to the ship.  For a merely 4 hour experience, this stop was well worth it.