Now that the library is almost set to rights (and it is still an ‘almost’ I still have to run a full manual to see what went missing during those five days that there was no one watching it, and my best sellers section is backwards but that’s just way too massive a project to attempt) – I can actually start to come out of my haze and look about me a bit.
And lo, I found myself in Monte Carlo!
Seriously, Monte Carlo. This is not somewhere I ever thought I would be, it’s one of those places that you kind of thing of in hazy terms of imagination and Hollywood, it’s not…reality.
But there it was.
I can’t really wax philosophical about it being everything you ‘expect’ it to be, as things are never quite what you ‘expect’ them to be, particularly exotic destinations, but I will say it comes close. All dust brown and white buildings rearing out of the cliffs above the harbor, and the heat…my goodness the heat! I’m glad I packed light weather clothes, something I almost always forget to do as my normal cruises spent a lot of time in cooler rainy areas and only venture in to the baking zones nearer to the end of my contract.
Since I hadn’t thought to put in my contacts, I was without my sunglasses, which made really exploring somewhat difficult, thankfully we’ll be back here again (just like Alaska, this is a groundhog day run, just much more interesting!) so I’ll get another chance to explore.
It just feels so great to be seeing somewhere new. Somewhere fresh. Not that the runs I usually do are boring, far far from it (I adore my home ship and pretty much everything that goes with it), but if you do something often enough even the most exotic wonder can become almost every day. While there are still massive amounts of things I haven’t seen in the cities I’ve been so lucky to go to three or four times, it’s a really great experience to go somewhere I have never been. I feel kind of like a kid on a playground for the first time.
It’s very cool.
And that sounds so very not mature.
Too bad.
So sad.
Blame it on the jetlag 😉