Day 2 - Still LOVE London!

What an amazing city this is.  It is so rich in history and architecturally stunning.  Its clean, safe and one of the only cities that I've traveled to that I would come back to in a heartbeat.

This morning we woke up late, since we arrived into London on a Sunday and didn't realize that the local supermarket (a Tesco Express a few blocks away at Notting Hill Gate station) would close at 6, we didn't have any food in the apartment for breakfast.  So we set off for a small cafe for breakfast on Portabello Road, a little less than a 10 minute walk.  Once again the travel stars came in handy as Paige's bacon wasn't bacon, or ham, or peameal - but it was good and she ate most of it, along with the wet scrambled eggs - lol!  I told them the story about how my Mom used to make me coddled eggs (wet scrambled eggs) every day on toast when I was a kid until I announced one day that I no longer liked eggs and I wouldn't eat them.  From that day forward my favourite meal was hamburger on toast!  Which some time later (I think months and months later) I realized was still coddled eggs on toast, my Mom just TOLD me it was hamburger!

After breakfast we tackled the TUBE.  So first, I bought too many Oyster cards (the London transit card) because the kids are free until they're 11 and I didn't realize until afterwards.  I bought 4 with 10 GBP each on them - each ride is 2-3 GBP depending on where you are going, so I think that we'll still use them up while we're here anyway, and if not I'll leave what we have in the flat.

So we took the tube 3 stops from Notting Hill Gate to Marble Arch to catch the hop on hop off tourist bus that I always make fun of but I always go on because its the best way to see a city!  3 tube stops doesn't seem like much, but the GPS on the phone said it was about a 30 minute walk.  We caught the hop on bus and started on the tour on the top of the double decker bus.  The weather was nice today, not too cold.  I had on jeans and my lulu sweater and brought my jacket with me since Jay announced this morning that there was a 30% chance of rain...he just said the exact same thing right now (its now 9:30pm..."weather for tomorrow...hmmmm...30% chance of rain" - so I'm not so worried.

We saw all the major sites:

The London Eye with "Big Ben" framed inside of it  - even though we were reminded during the tour that Big Ben is the nickname for the bell within the tower and not the tower itself.

Sophie, with London Bridge in the background

The Girls with Tower Bridge

Big Ben and tower at Westminster Palace.

Parliament Building.

After doing the loop we decided to get off on Regent Street (one of London's High Streets) to do some shopping and have a late lunch.  We ate at a little restaurant that was yummy and then went to Hamley's a 5 storey toy store to let the girls redeem the 5 travel stars they had earned for a little treat.  Paige chose these awesome markers that change colour and erase and where you can colour black and then put light pink, etc overtop...fun and we'll get a lot of use out of them.  Sophie chose a stuffed rabbit - we completely avoided the 3rd floor which housed Build-A-Bear workshop because that would have been a disaster.  We also went into Esprit and bought a few things for them and a shirt for Jay.

After shopping we took the tube back to our stop and Jay took the girls home while I went to grab a few groceries - we had a quick and easy dinner at home, I bought bread, ham, salami, chorizo, cheese, strawberries, oranges, bananas, water, a Magners and a Kronenbourg for dinner, yogurt drinks, 2 blueberry muffins and 2 chocolate croissants for breakfast tomorrow and pringles for a snack for 25 GBP...and thanked my lucky stars I wasn't in Monte Carlo where it would have been like 100 EUR for the same basket full of stuff!

Tomorrow I think we might go to the Aquarium and the Museum...and we need to see Buckingham Palace because on the tour bus you have to get off the bus and walk around the front to see it and we stayed on the bus.  We are right near Kensington Palace so we'll probably go there too and take the girls to the park again.

We really are in the perfect location - its been so awesome being so close to the park and to the underground stations.  Tomorrow is our last full day here since we fly out at noon on Wednesday.

Off to London

We took off today from Monte Carlo to the airport in Nice in a private transfer arranged by Manulife - we are not sad to say goodbye to Monte Carlo.  While it was nice to be treated to the trip, we found it was too small and too expensive - it just didn't offer enough for the vacation part of the trip.

We're hoping that London will be better.  We flew Easyjet, an inexpensive European airline charter that is so cheap its ridiculous.  Its only an hour and a half flight and then we took the train into the city center of London and then a cab to our flat we've rented.  All in all a fairly uneventful trip here.  On the train we bought a couple of waters, a bag of crackers for the girls and Jay got a Mars bar and it was 5 GBP.  I said to Jay, the good thing about coming here after Monte Carlo is that everything seems cheap!

We got into the flat and were met by Gus a rep from One Fine Stay, where I booked the flat through.  He showed us around the apartment, gave us some advice on where to eat, gave us the keys and left us to settle.  The rental company gives you an iphone to use while you're in London - so we have an iPhone with 3G to use for maps, etc while we're here!

Once we had a few minutes to just gather ourselves, we went out to go to the park.  Our flat is just down the street from Hyde Park, only about a 2 minute walk to the entrance off of Notting Hill Gate - and from that entrance only a 3 minute walk to the Princess Diana memorial playground which (in addition to the private garden) was one of the reasons I booked this particular location.

After about 20 minutes of playing it started to rain a little bit so we went and found a place to eat and had a great meal.  At dinner Paige started to whine because her eggs were served on top of the ham on the plate...while Sophie just had a bite of her ham.  So I said to Sophie - "Oh, wow - well you just earned a travel star"  (Anyone remember our imaginary check marks that we used to give the girls?  Well just like the check marks the travel stars are frickin' awesome).  We had no whining during dinner, they both ate their entire meal - they earned 2 travel stars each and another half of one later when they didn't complain during their bath and hair wash...such a nice meal and evening with them behaving like angels trying to earn the stars.  We'll have to figure out how much a star is worth and what the prize is - but I don't even care, its so worth it to bribe them to behave - especially when it works so well!  (they even tidied their room and emptied their suitcases without being asked!)...

So far we love London - Jay wants to try to convince the girls to go to University here...haha - until he looked in a real estate window and saw the prices!

Now I'm all caught up on the blog and off to bed! 

Activity Day

So, part of this conference was that you got an activity to do while you were here.  Jay and I chose to do canyoning, which we both enjoy doing and have done in Arizona and Scotland before - but because of Jay's crazy ear infection last week (which almost caused us not to be able to travel at all) the Dr recommended that he didn't do the canyoning trip.  So we changed our activity to an ATV and Buggy tour...what we didn't realize (because of the last minute change we didn't get the card that told you all about the tour) was that after the ATV and Buggy thing there was lunch and that you were going to be gone from the hotel from 9am until 3:30!  The original activity brochure said that it was going to be a 2.5 - 3 hr affair.  Anyway, you can imagine Jay when we thought we would be back at 1pm and we weren't back until 3:30pm!  Especially when everyone was done lunch and we were making our way to the bus at 2pm and the owner of the restaurant we ate at recommended that everyone go up into the small walled village (they are literally everywhere) and up to the 'trophy' which is a ruins at the top of the hill.  And everyone else was ok with the timing because, of course, they had the itinerary and knew they weren't supposed to be back to the hotel until 3:30pm.

Anyway, the buggying and atving was fun and the views were great.

And the little town was cute too :)

We got back to the hotel that day and the girls were completely wiped out - Gram had had them up by the pool all afternoon.  So we rested for a little over an hour and then my parents came to the room for 'happy hour' before we went to a restaurant called Stars and Bars down in the marina area that I had read a review on that it was great for kids.  Boy - this place was awesome.  It has a kids area with a glass wall so that you can see in and a supervisor inside who is getting the kids to do crafts and colouring...it was the best family meal we've had so far!  And the food was good too!

St Paul de Vence

Today Mom and I decided we would rent a car and drive into France to a little picturesque walled village called St Paul de Vence which is inland from Nice, about an hour drive from Monte Carlo.

We met just after breakfast (one weird thing about the conference, Mom and Dad have breakfast included in their room but have to have it with the girls up in the restaurant while we have to eat breakfast with the conference on the lower level - this has just been for the last few days since the main conference started).

Mom and I and the girls went to the concierge and asked where he would recommend we rent a car.  He walked us down to a car rental place in the hotel that is a limo service but will rent cars without a driver as well. The rep called a rental place and said we could get the smallest car, a BMW 1 series hatch back for 270€. I said no thank you and went back to the concierge to ask where the closest car rental place was within walking distance. He said "but Madam, I just took you down". Yes, but he was too expensive. "How much was he charging?"  270€. He made a face and said "phew..oh yes that is too much, let me make some calls for you". He called the same place and spoke to the rep in French on the phone. He said "yes, she is in front of me now.  I am calling from the concierge not the limo..if the price is right she will come now.." Then I realized he called the same place and I chuckled, he leaned over and said "I called the same place" and I nodded "oh, you understand?" I nodded again. He took 3 steps back so I couldn't hear him anymore and came back and said "same car - 164€". Still a total rip, but way better than 270€!!

So we took a cab over to the car rental place and picked up the car.  It was supposed to be an automatic transmission, but we got in after everything and it was manual...guess I was going to brush up on shifting quickly!  Monaco is very hilly, but I managed not to stall the car at all. Though, at one point on the hills I said to my Mom after I had put it in 3rd and had a hard time getting it going that I was afraid to put it into reverse because R and 1st were so tight - but that I probably had to push down to get it into reverse anyway so I didn't really need to worry about it.  So the next stop I rammed it over to the left into 1st not worrying and hit the gas and jerked into reverse - not a huge deal, I quickly braked, clutched and pushed it into 1st, but the guy in the Ferrari behind me had eyes the size of saucers and gave me a bit more room for a while!  Every other car here is a Ferrari and Lambourgini - he probably had 3 more at home in different colours.

The car had a gps, so we put in St Paul de Vence and were on our way. 

St Paul is a very beautiful little town, but very commercialized. Every doorway was an expensive little shop that catered to the tourists visiting.  But again, we looked for the back roads and got some nice little photos!

Right at the entrance to the village Sophie said "Can you take a picture of us?"  she was the only one standing there.  I said "By take a picture of us do you mean take a picture of you?"  She said "yes".

But Paige got in anyway!

After we were done at St Paul de Vence we decided to take the coastal road through Nice and back to Monte Carlo.  We had lots of time, but I had to be back by 5:30pm at the latest to be able to have a shower and get ready for the gala awards dinner which had a reception that started at 6pm.  Jay didn't come today because he had a half day business planning meeting to go to and Dad didn't come because he's 'wandered through enough old towns in the last month'.

We ended up stopping in Nice for the girls to use their last carousel ticket (since we were driving literally right past, we decided to park at the park and let them ride for a break).  After that short interruption we continued on our scenic drive up the coast to Monte Carlo.

Its important to note at this point that we can't figure out how to put Monte Carlo or Monaco in the GPS, so we're really following the sea and know we will eventually arrive.  Now, finding our way back to the hotel to drop off the rental car might be a bit of an issue, but again - its on the water, so if we can stay on the water then we'll find it.  But, you can't stay on the water and Monaco streets are windy and hilly and every street inland is about 20 ft higher elevation than the one closer to the sea.  So we did end up driving right past the hotel, but at about the 4th floor, so as we watched it go by I said to Mom - "well, eventually we'll come to a round about and we'll try to get down".  So a little over a km later we got a round about, watched for a down street and made it to the hotel to drop the car, took a cab back to the Fairmont and got ready for dinner!

Jay didn't technically win an award, which is reserved for the Top Advisor in each of four categories - but he was recognized as the 2nd place in one category and 3rd highest overall Advisor in Canada!!

It was a good night - my feet were killing me!  Juls, I need to borrow some better shoes for Dubai and Lynz, I looked great in my bridesmaid dress - - which I did, indeed, wear again!  (And will likely wear again in Dubai in 2 weeks!).

Italy!

We took the train into Italy today, the plan was to go to San Remo which is about an hour and 10 minutes away with a train transfer in Ventimiglia.   We got a late start this morning though and Paige had a total meltdown on the way to the train station because she wanted shorts on and she was wearing a dress - the whole episode transpired because she said something about going to the beach in Italy and I asked if they packed their swimsuits (which was the only thing I asked them to do, twice).  She very nearly didn't get to go today because Jay would have happily stayed at the hotel with her for the day.  After she finally calmed down I told the girls that I had a set of 'spare' clothes that I have been carting around everywhere in my bag that included a shirt, shorts and a spare pair of undies and that if they wanted to go in the ocean they could go in their undies and then one could wear the new undies and the other could wear the shorts as undies.  On the train later Sophie said "Mommy, does everyone swim in their undies in Italy?  Because if they do then I'm ok with that.."

 Clearly she was fine...right after this picture both girls said they had to pee.  So they took off their undies and were going to pee in the sea...but remember the water is cold...so they stood up to their ankles, jutted out their pelvis' and peed standing like boys into the ocean while Mom and I laughed and kept saying to them "go right in the water, squat down - oh my god".

Earlier we had bought the tickets to Ventimiglia at the train station (we had to wait to get the second ticket because San Remo is serviced by Trenitalia and not SNCF).  We asked a group of SNCF officers on the platform if we were in the right spot and they said yes, we would get the next train - so we got on the train and at 11:15 and it took off...in the wrong direction.  Because the train seats face both ways you can't really tell which direction the train will go - and so when we ended up going the wrong direction we got off at the next stop, which is in France - and then we crossed over and got on the next train traveling in the right direction, went back through Monaco and into Italy!  So we were telling the girls that they were in 3 countries in one day.

We got into the Ventimiglia train station and at the kiosk we couldn't buy a ticket to San Remo for a time sooner than about an hour delay - even though there were trains to further destinations that stopped in San Remo.  We would have to wait in line to see a ticketing agent - so we just decided to stay in Ventimiglia and walk up into the old town and wander.  While we were figuring this out there was a little vending machine in the train station that sold Barbie toy cell phones for 1 EUR, so we got the girls each one.

Later, on the way home on the train the girls were playing with the phones pretending to take photos of each other and send them to one another.   Paige said "Gram, say cheese" - Gram said "Cheese" and Paige looked at the 'screen' said "Ok, I'm sending that to you now...Grampa, say cheese"  - Grampa made a growling voice, a little face and said in a low voice "CHEEEeeeessseee" and Paige said "Grampa, I'm not taking a video you know, I'm taking a picture"!  Hahaha.

Back to the original story - When the girls were finished with their dip and pee in the sea we walked up to the old town, which is usually an elevated, walled village - and this one was typical.

I like to get photos off the beaten path and with no people in them...but I have a camera whore for a daughter who has to get in every shot.

Not this daughter..I said to Paige "oh just wait Paige, let me get a photo without you in it - ok, just stand there and I'll take your photo and then move out..." and so Paige does and then I'm about to take the photo I want and Sophie runs in and said "Is this ok?  I'm ok here?"

And this is the photo without the girls.

We hiked up through the streets to a little church and went inside.  At the back and down an old, stone, circular staircase was a baptism area.

Paige said "I think this used to be a hot tub" and then she went over and looked inside and said "Yup, definitely".

Here are a few other photos of the town..

We went back to the hotel on the train, got changed and went out to dinner at Budda Bar...it was AWESOME!!  Amazing rolls, so delicious. And I got a flaming cocktail - lol, but I was in the bathroom when they served it and so missed the flames. Bummer. 

Monaco Day 3

Again we grabbed the girls from Mom and Dads room this morning and all went up to the restaurant for something to eat.

After breakfast we went to the beach, which is a man-made beach maybe a KM down from the hotel.  The girls had fun playing down by the water and feeding the fish some bread off the pier.
The beach is made with small stones, not sand - which is weird, but the girls didn't seem to mind.  The water in the sea is FREEZING!!!!!!!!!

Jay and I wanted to go back to the hotel for the lunch they were putting on because of the 'dine around' sign up (ok, I wanted to go back because in Hawaii 2 years ago we got totally shafted with a 9pm sign up time at a restaurant we weren't super interested in).  So we headed back to the hotel while Mom and Dad took the girls for a little touring walk the long way back.

We got back and hit registration and weren't super excited about the dine-around options (4 restaurants with set menus that included chicken paired with a fish of some kind), so once again (just like Hawaii) we decided to skip the dine-around - - which means we have tomorrow completely open! 

I texted Mom that we would be up at the pool and that I have the girls swim stuff and they met us shortly.  We decided that tomorrow we'll take the train into Italy for the day, so we're going to visit 2 towns, San Remo is about an hour and 10 minutes away and we'll go there first and then on the way back we'll go to Ventimiglia and stop which is about 25 minutes from Monaco by train. 

Mark, Jay's business partner, decided to skip the dine around too - so we made a reservation for the 3 of us to go to a restaurant next door called Budda Bar that is an asian fusion place and looks awesome.  Plus they serve flaming cocktails..totally cool.

Funny story from yesterday...Mark brought his daughter, Jordana, to the conference and last night she was introducing everyone at the table. (She left this morning to go back to Toronto, she couldn't stay the whole conference because she spent a few days first in London visiting a friend).   She said "I'm Jordana, this is my Dad, Mark and his partner Jason and this is Dana".  I said motioning between Jay and Mark "Business Partner" and then between Jay and I "Wife"...the woman said "Ahhhh, ok, I was wondering but I thought...that's cool".

Jay's just gone on an 'adventure walk' with the girls somewhere in the hotel.  My plan of working out every day has completely gone out the window - but we're walking lots.  And, because French wine sucks, I'm not drinking!  I'd rather drink nothing than drink French wine...so sad - that's what 90 days of little to no alcohol will do to you...if I'm going to drink it, its gotta be good!  Mom and I almost ordered a pina colada today at the pool until we got the menu and it was $20 EUR ($30) a glass! 

I'll order wine tomorrow in Italy - it will be totally worth it in Italy - its only 2 km away, but it seems like an ocean away.  At least the trip is free :)

Monaco Day 2

The girls had a sleepover in Gram and Grampa's room, which is a floor above ours - so in the morning we called up to find out if they were up and ready for breakfast.  We got together for breakfast in the restaurant on the 7th floor, the roof of the hotel, and then headed out to grab a tour of the city on another little train trolley.  Monaco is the second smallest country in the world next to the Vatican, so our tour was very short!  In addition to being very small, it doesn't have a very long history since really it was just built up in the 1900s, before that it would have been very small and very isolated.  Its been especially rejuvinated since becoming such a tourist destination.

We took the bus (public transit) to get to the train tour and it gave us the highlights.  The weather is much nicer today - we are in short sleeves and capris or shorts today and enjoying being outside in the fresh air.  The Oceanographic Museum looked really cool and the girls wanted to go in, but Jay and I have a tour and dinner there later today with the conference attendees (now the top 60 are here with their guests and the remaining 180 and their guests arrive tomorrow), so we didn't go into the aquarium.  We went back to the hotel on the bus and while my Dad and Jay went up to have their 'quiet time' my Mom and I took the girls over to the mall to grab a bite to eat (because soup in the hotel restaurant was the cheapest thing for lunch and it was 17 EUR, which is about $27!)

Monaco is NOT a good place to have a family vacation!  First, as I've mentioned, its very small and there isn't a lot to do or see and second, the kids have hardly any options for eating and a lot of places don't even have a children's menu.  If you do order them something inevitably there is something 'odd' about it - like a weird sauce or something.  A lot of the sandwich kiosks are pre-made and then they press them in a panini press - so there is no customizing the sandwich for the kids.  Plus, its expensive.  My Mom and I shared a burger ($25) and it didn't come with a side dish, so we split a salad ($20) and got the kids a club sandwich ($20), which they wouldn't eat. 

After we got back we went up to the pool and the girls had a swim, then we dropped them at Gram and Grampa's room and got ready for our tour of the Prince's Palace and the Oceanographic Museum and dinner.

 The aquarium was really cool, they had it closed for our event.  We had appetizers and cocktails down in the main viewing area and then dinner up in a conference room.  After dinner they allowed us to go in to an area with a shark touch tank and touch the small sharks - then we took the charter bus back to the hotel.

My Mom sent me a text when we got back that said - Don't tell Jay, but we found a McDonald's for the girls for dinner.  Sophie got off the elevator and saw the sign and said "Finally, some place we can EAT!"

Monte Carlo

This morning we got up, had breakfast and just lazed around the apartment until it was time to leave to go to the train station to Monaco.  We printed our tickets at the kiosk and made our way to the platform and waited for the train to arrive - which it did, right on time.  The trains are exceptionally prompt here in Europe in my experience.

We got on the train and it was standing room only, we had our luggage and were crammed in by the doors so had to shift and shuffle at every stop to let people on and off.  Thankfully it was only a 27 minute train ride.  When we got to the train station we were supposed to have been met and brought to the hotel only there was no one there.  So we walked to the Fairmont, where we're staying, and got checked in.  Our room wouldn't be ready for about an hour and a half, so we went to get some lunch and the concierge recommended we go to the mall just up the street.  We went to the mall and sat in a little sandwich shop - its like a food court restaurant only they're spread out throughout the mall with some nice little tables inside a sitting area and other small bistro tables out in the mall corridor.  Only in Monte Carlo can you order 5 sandwiches, 2 bags of chips, 3 diet cokes, an apple juice and a cappuccino for 70E ($105 Cad)!!  Well, that's not true - you could probably do that in Nice too - its so crazy expensive here.  At least the sandwiches were all delicious!  And the girls got to drink out of a can for the first time - it was so funny.  They don't drink pop (or beer) so they had never had a drink out of a can - Paige didn't know how to open it and then they were cute drinking and then slurping the extra off the edge!  Sheltered children apparently.

After we were done lunch we still had a little bit more time to wait for our room so we walked through a park and there were pigeons there and someone had thrown bread down for them, so the girls picked up some bread and were feeding the birds.  One of them said to me "Momma, what types of birds are these?"  Oh wow - sheltered again..I said "they're called pigeons..they're very rare" (haha, I'm so mean - but it made Sophie get a big grin, she loves rare things and is always asking me "is this rare?")

As we were leaving the park we saw this sign - again, seriously?!?

I said to the girls "no skateboarding, no walking on the grass, no picking the flowers, no picnics, no bikes and no cameras equals no fun!"

We went back to the hotel and got our room, this is our view off the balcony.

The girls wanted to go up to the pool for a swim.  Now, its NOT WARM here, its not cold, but its not warm by any stretch.  So they put on their swimsuits and I put on a long sleeve shirt and jacket and socks and runners - - but the pool is heated and they swam for a long time!

After the swim Jay and I needed to get ready for our dinner out with the conference group.  Today there are only the top 20 people here for the two days in advance of the big conference, so it was a nice small group.  We went to the village of Eze which is only about 15 minutes drive - its a very small medieval village, only 20 residents year round and this time of year about 50 residents.  Bono has a home in the village and so does one of the members of the Coca Cola family.

We had dinner at the Chateau Eza at the top of the village high above the coast, its a Michelin star rated restaurant - very fancy shmancy.  This is the view from the terrace where we had a welcome glass of champagne.

Dinner was very good, it was a 7 course meal and stretched over at least 2.5 hrs.

After dinner we headed back down through the village and to the hotel.  The girls are having a sleep over in Gram and Grampa's room so we'll meet them for breakfast in the morning!