Yak... I've been coughing for five days straight. This is the root of all my current evils. The constant cough, its sound and ability to contract my body have prevented me from sleeping and given me a splitting headache. Then, in an injury worthy of the Three Stooges, I think I pulled a muscle in my neck tonight during one particularly nasty fit. The cough also has generated this lovely burn in the back of my throat that doesn't seem to go away for anything. Not fun. Your guess is as good as mine as to what's causing it. Popular hypotheses have ranged from dust to the fact that there was lots of sun last week (yea, got me on that one, too; the popular French epithet 'Ey, c'est la vie,' used in all cases ranging from a questionably bitter cup of coffee that you complain about to thermonuclear war, has been replaced in my mind by a slightly different phrase: 'Eh, it's the French�' I say this because I've sort of stopped questioning the maddeningly odd responses the French give sometimes and instead substituted a shrug and a 'Eh, it's the French' for any analysis.) Anyway, the cough has to go. It's killing me. Monaco I've been thinking a lot about Monaco, lately. Especially, today, since Lauren and I ventured West along the coast to Cannes. Going West from Nice is a little like Dante's slow route down into hell. The scenery fades from the lower side of modest to structurally questionable, the graffiti from sparse but noticeable to quadruple-layered. It is the exact opposite of going East to Monaco. A Journey to Monaco One leaves Nice-Ville station surrounded on both sides by decent-looking apartment buildings. These fade into decent-looking houses. One looks down at a magazine for a minute and before one knows it one is surrounded by beautiful houses and a gently arching coastline, cozy harbors with medium-size sailboats and, weather-permitting, the odd collection of old-men sunbathing on rocky beaches. The hills of these towns, Villefrance, Breagne-sur-Mer, Eze, etc. seem vertical, their houses somehow carved into sheer cliff wall. One gets closer as the train snakes around the harbors and they seem less steep but higher than one had previously estimated, the calculated views all the more breathtaking. Magazine forgotten, one wonders, regardless of current economic condition, how much a summer place up there would be. A few minutes later, a tunnel one could not be bothered to see appears and covers the Mediterranean bliss. Lights flash by like the beginning of Half-Life, getting ever farther apart as the train slows. As one follows the 'Sortie' signs to the exit, one is drawn, naturally, to the natural light coming in from the right and one realizes that one is in a train station that is entirely self-contained inside a mountain. A few escalators later, one rounds a corner and sees, down a pass beautifully layered with orange-topped houses, a small harbor ringed by a small curving peninsula. Above, one sees a sign 'Bienvenue � Monaco.' The policeman to ones immediate right, the first of many, tips his hat and says 'Bonjour,' with what might be a wink. Welcome to Monaco. Signs The first thing Lauren and I noticed upon arriving in Monaco, were the cleanliness and the police presence. Upon passing an Aston Martin dealership a few minutes later, we soon added 'beautiful cars' to the list of things immediately visible (While I was gawking through the window at the hand-crafted Vantage, a Ferrari of some sort, too fast to tell, passed right behind me). Like many things, these three immediately visible things are all the result of economics. High Rollers and History One of the reasons the principality of Monaco is so popular a residence of the mega-rich is that there are no taxes. When Menton, a neighboring region, was ceded to France in 1860, Monaco was deprived of the revenue from its extremely profitable lemon and olive crops. The government (i.e. the Royalty, Prince Charles III and his family), needed another convenient way to fill its coffers and they decided on a Casino. The returns on this investment eventually became so large that the Prince saw that he really didn't need to tax his subjects at all. Nice guy. Here's where the economics come into play though: while Casino owners and operators love and cherish the quarters that you give them in the slot machines, you are really probably only just paying for their overhead. The big money that they make is with the high rollers: rich dudes with plenty of money to burn. High rollers are the most important people in a Casino, to a Casino owner anyway, so they must be kept happy: � High rollers do not want filthy sidewalks, graffiti, or begging homeless people. Monaco is small enough (smaller, all told, than Central Park) that this is easily accomplishable. Everything, every public sidewalk, every park, every handrail, has a look to it that could be described as 'spit-polished.' My understanding is that the public works people in general are very well compensated. � High rollers also do not want to have to worry about their Ferraris being keyed, their wives mugged in the street, etc. so not only is there the pervasive and extremely visible police presence, but the Big Brother-like creepy mystery of the hidden cameras. Apparently there are 150+ of these buggers hidden across the principality, recording and ready to catch any possible grievances. It's quite a system they've got there, if a little crimping on what I as an American view as my god-given civil liberties. The idea of hidden cameras in public places controlled by a government entity makes me jittery. But hey, I don't live there. Unrelenting The observation that may not strike immediately about Monaco, but will undoubtedly rise at some point during anyone's stay there, is its unrelenting, never-disappointing, jaw-dropping physical beauty. A huge mountain slopes down to the sea, a wave of orange topped houses splashing to meet it. A palace sits atop a jutting peninsula with vertical cliff walls on three sides. A horseshoe-shaped harbor on the Casino-side houses boats ranging from normal 26-foot outboarders to boats so big they could double as cruiseliners in neat lines, their polished ivory color daring the blue-green water they rest in. The other side of the palace sees another harbor with still more sparkling boats, an elevated garden � la Hunterw�sser, and a boldly angled stadium. The other side of the Casino, to the east, sees miles of houses built into hills, high plateaus with small white dots of observatories perched atop, the coast drunkenly swerving in and out to the beauty that is Northern Italy. It's a gorgeous place. Voodoo Economics One practical but interesting note is that Monaco, home of the worlds rich and elite, is cheaper than Nice! Nice, the red-headed stepchild of a beautiful civilization, dares charge more than Monaco! How is this possible? Literally, it is cheaper for me to get on a train to Monaco, eat lunch there, drinks and all, get back on a train to Nice for my afternoon classes than it would be to eat in Nice itself. I went to Monaco with extra money, as I expected to have to pay 8 Euro for a bottle of water, but it ended up being the least expensive day I've had in the Riviera! A Lead-in During our all-day, self-navigated tour of Monaco, Lauren and I also make like race-car drivers and walked most of the Formula 1 Grand Prix route. It's quite a route. One of the smallest in Formula 1, but one of the most intense: great scenery, stunning turns, plenty of overtaking opportunities. Lauren is an F1 nut, so I had countless F1 trivia thrown at me throughout the day. The Grand Prix, this year, is a day I'm really looking forward to. --Where are my seats? you ask. --Oh, haha, I laugh. I don't have tickets. --Oh� you trail off. Friend's got a hotel room to view from then, eh? --Uh, nope, I respond, cracking a smile at your eyebrow-lowering confusion. --Well, you say, in a last ditch creative effort, do you have someplace cool to watch the Grand Prix from? --Nope, I laugh. --Well, dammit, where are you going to be on May 28th that's so great? --Paris, I say, smiling from ear to ear. Picking up my Mom, my Aunt Nancy, and my Liz from the airport. You didn't think it was possible, but my smile just got broader. --I'm really, really, really looking forward to the day of the Grand Prix, but I could not possible care less about who wins. :)