First evening in Monte Carlo

After our lunch at Le Tip Top, and walking the couple of blocks back to our hotel, we started looking for the place to "register" and get name tags, choose our entertainment and Tuesday evening restaurant for supper, etc.  We'd earlier been told it would be on the ground floor, near the hospitality suite.  We went there and, no registration table.  Nobody there at all, in fact.  Walking back to the elevators, we finally noticed the signs that said, "Best of IBM Registration, rooftop lounge."  So, we finally found it.  We got our nametags (on silly glittery neck badge holders.  Except Greg asked if he could just get the tag and no glittery hanger, and was given a clip instead.  After that, all the guys in line behind us asked for clips instead of glittery hangers  :)  )  I chose a blue one, since my gown for the formal dinner Wednesday night was blue.


We decided to go to the Car Museum and Monaco Old Town and Palace as our entertainment.  The other choices were mostly all booked up since we'd waited til the last minute to choose.  The restaurant choices were also mostly booked up, but we decided on Cafe Paris.


There was a buffet after the long registration line, so we got some food and sat down for a quick bite.  We were mostly exhausted and jet-lagged, having been awake for 30-something hours straight by then.  After we had eaten we went back to our room for a nap.  Dinner was from 6pm to 8pm, but once we were asleep we were out for the night.  

Two seagulls hanging out on the balcony outside our hotel room.  

Ocean shallows underneath our balcony.  No coral or fish or anything alive to be seen.  Wonder why?

View of our balcony with other Monte Carlo hotels in the background.

View of Monte Carlo, including the beach, from our hotel balcony.

Greg on the hotel balcony.  Our guardian seagulls were right there with us.  

Arrived in Monte Carlo!

We left Huntsville, Alabama around 12:15pm Central Time, give or take some time spent on the runway before taking off.  We landed in Nice, France Monday morning the 14th, around 8:55am CEST (Central European Summer Time).  The runway/landing strips at Nice Côte d'Azur Airport are...  interesting.  They aren't very long, and both sides end in the ocean.  Here is a view of them from the air:

Our pilot had no problems landing, but we heard from another Best of IBM attendee that his pilot missed the landing the first time around, and had to circle around for a second try.  Luckily they got safely on the ground the second time.

And here is the airport as viewed out the airplane window, safely on the ground:

Once off the plane, we went to baggage claim for our luggage.  Then, we sort of stood around, lost.  There weren't any obvious signs for BOI attendees, as we'd expected.  There were a couple of people standing around with a generic logo on small signs, so we went over to ask if they were there for BOI.  They said yes, they were.  Hurray!  We weren't lost any more.


We followed one of them to buses parked outside the airport:

We were apparently among the first to arrive, so there were only 3 or 4 other couples on the bus with us.  Once they had everyone they expected to arrive on the bus, and had sorted out who went to which hotel, we were off on the 45 minute bus ride through Nice to Monte Carlo.

Toll Booth on the road from Nice, France to Monte Carlo.

Nice, France as seen through the bus window en route to Monte Carlo.

Nice, France as seen through the bus window en route to Monte Carlo.

Nice, France as seen through the bus window en route to Monte Carlo.

Nice, France as seen through the bus window en route to Monte Carlo.

Almost to Monaco!

Our hotel for the event was the Fairmont, Monte Carlo.  It is right next door to the Monte Carlo Casino, as well as on the race course for the annual Monte Carlo Grand Prix Formula One race.  

Entrance to our hotel.  The stacks of tires are part of the safety barricades being put up for the Monte Carlo Grand Prix.

Our bus driver was quite the character.  His names was Gilles (Pronounced like "zheel").  He told us amusing stories and interesting facts about Monaco and Nice during the 45 minute ride.  He was also our bus driver for various entertainment ventures over the next couple of days.  I wish I'd thought to have a picture taken with him, or at least gotten a picture of him.  I think I may have a picture of the back of his head in the bus, but that's all!


As we were pulling in to the hotel, Gilles pointed out several antique cars being driven out of the hotel parking lot.  He explained that these were from the Historic Grand Prix race that had been held the weekend before.  This is a race held every other year on the Grand Prix course, but the cars are all antiques from the era of the beginnings of the race.  

Antique Grand Prix cars leaving the hotel parking lot.

Once in our hotel, we checked in and got to go to our room.  We both had quick showers and changed into clean clothes.  We later found out that we were very lucky, as a lot of other Best of IBM attendees had to wait quite a long time to get their rooms.  


We were both hungry, so we walked around the hotel trying to find out the day's schedule of events and how to get food.  We were told conflicting things.  One person said the "hospitality suite" would open at 11am with refreshments.  Another said 1pm.  One person said registration would be at 1pm on the ground floor.  We later found out it was at 4pm on the top floor.  Very confusing and frustrating.  We went back to our room to check the room service menu, only to find out it cost €40 ($50 USD) for just a hamburger.  No fries, no drink, just the burger.  Um, no.  


We went back downstairs to ask the concierge where to go for food.  We were given a wonderful map, and recommendations on the best food within walking distance.  Finally!  We walked a couple of blocks uphill alongside the race course, to Le Tip Top restaurant, and had delicious hamburgers, fries, and bottled water for about  €28 ($35 UDS) for us both.  Expensive but, we were in Monte Carlo.  While there I tried to keep count of the Ferraris, Boxters, Jaguars, etc., that drove past but quickly gave up.  There were far too many!  


After our meal, we walked back to the hotel.  We noticed a conference room with many many pieces of luggage in it, and a lot of people sitting around the hospitality suite nearby.  We later learned these were the people that had to wait for their rooms to be ready.  One such person was half of the entertainment for the second business session - Bernadette Peters.  She was NOT happy to have to wait to get a room.  I overheard her telling the staff, "I stay in hotels all the time, all over the world, and I have NEVER been treated so badly."  And later that evening, when we were back in the hospitality suite, she again had a complaint - she and her companion (husband?  I'm not sure) had been put in a room with two twin beds instead of a king size bed.  And the hotel personnel had the nerve to tell her, "You can just push them together to make a king size."  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  I thought Ms. Peters was going to slap them.  Fortunately someone from the Best of IBM staff ran over and apologized profusely and promised to make everything right.  Whew.

Day One: May 13th. Happy Mother's Day!

We stayed up really late Saturday night, packing.  We still didn't completely finish packing but were too tired to stay up any longer.  We decided to sleep a few hours, get up at our usual time of 6am, and finish packing then.

Bright and early we were awake and back to packing.  Our first plane ride of the trip was scheduled to leave HSV Huntsville International Airport at 12:15pm.  We had to make the 40 minute drive to drop our 2-yr-old son William off at Grandma and Grandpa Dake's house, then make the 15 minute drive to the airport from there.

We made it to the airport and through security with an hour to spare.  HSV had the full-body scan machines going, so for the first time we had to go through those.  While we waited in line, we watched the TSA employees do a full pat-down search on a grandmotherly-looking lady who was in a wheelchair.  I thought they were unnecessarily rough and rude with her.  :(  Thankfully neither I nor Greg had to had the full pat-down.  But I thought for a second I was going to get one.  After going through the scanner, a TSA employee told me, "I just have to pat down your bun."  I had my hair up in a bun to keep it out of my eyes. So all she did was pat my hair.  But what I *thought* she said to me was, "I just have to pat down your bum."  Bum, as in the English term for bottom or butt.  I was very glad to find out it was really just my hair at issue, and not my buttocks!

Once we were on the plane, the pilot announced that there was bad weather at our destination (Atlanta) and take-off would be delayed because of it.  We were about an hour late taking off, I think.  There were many unhappy people on the plane.  The actual flight took half as long as the waiting on the runway - 30 minutes from wheels up to wheels down.

After we were off the plane at Atlanta airport, we realized our flight to Paris was already boarding.  Luckily we had time to make it to the gate before it was too late.  We had to wait a few minutes to board because they had already given our seats to standby fliers then had to tell them to go back to the gate again.

Once in the air, Greg and I tried to sleep, since it would be 8am local time when we arrived in Monte Carlo and we would have a full day ahead of us.  We did sleep some but not much.  A family two rows ahead of us had a toddler that screamed 6 1/2 of the 8 hours.  The entertainment system on the plane was glitchy, so every time a flight attendant tried to use the PA, a loud blare of music came out and woke up everyone.  The food was edible but not very tasty.  I *was* amused by the fact that we flew very near to Iceland, since we have just recently bought a horse of a breed that originated there.  And, even though we didn't fly nearby, we could see Belgium on the map as we flew towards Paris.  We also own a Belgian horse.  :)  We flew over Ireland but couldn't see anything but a few lights since it was still 3am there.  But in the end, we made it to Paris CDG airport with just enough time to make our last flight, to Nice, France.

We had to go through customs at CDG airport, then go through security again.  I forgot I was wearing a money belt and so got the full pat-down from security.  The flight from Paris to Nice was short and uneventful.  I had hoped to get sunrise pictures out of the plane window because we left Paris at 6am but we were seated over a wing and facing the wrong direction.  Greg did manage to get a few pictures out of the plane window though:

Blurry sunrise over Paris out of the plane window

French countryside out of the plane window.

French countryside out of the plane window.

Thus the tone was pretty much set for photography and sight-seeing for this whirlwind trip - not much time or opportunity for either one.

Thus ended one very long, busy, tiring day of flying from Huntsville, Alabama to Nice, France.

Our trip in review

Internet access was spotty and unreliable for our time in Monaco.  Therefore I am posting in retrospect instead of day by day updates.  There was wireless and wired internet access offered at our hotel, but it cost €20 per day.  That's about $25 a day which we weren't willing to pay.  The event coordinators had wireless internet available in the hospitality suite, but with more than 1000 people using it, there was very little bandwidth to go around.  I finally just gave up on getting connected because it was too frustrating.

We also had very little free time, between morning business sessions and evening activities.  This was, after all, a business trip and not a vacation.

My next post will start relating the details of the trip.  Right now I am still jet-lagged and exhausted, and still have goats to milk and chores to do.

Packing for Monte Carlo

...is what I *should* be doing, instead of starting a new blog for the trip.  But I really enjoyed blogging about our trip to China 6 years ago (has it really been that long? Wow), so I am determined to blog about this trip as well.  It's a much shorter trip, only 6 days.  But I am really looking forward to it!

Now, back to packing!