Royal Wedding in Monaco

It’s been about a week and a half since the royal wedding in Monaco between Prince Albert and Princess Charlene and things have finally calmed down. The week of the wedding was the busiest I have ever seen Monaco. It was filled with so many people and there were events going on everywhere you looked. The main events started on Thursday night with a free concert put on by the Eagles. Unfortunately, I had to work, but the concert was held in the stadium right beside the Marriott so I heard the music all night long. I usually get off work at midnight and my walk home is always very quiet and with only a few people scattered along the streets. Thursday night, however, was different. When I left work, I could barely make my way past the crowd that just left the concert. Every restaurant I passed (usually closed at that time of night) was packed full of people. When I finally reached the train station it was blocked off by police who were only letting a certain amount of people through at a time because the crowd was so large. It was like this the whole rest of the weekend.

I worked on Friday night as well, which was BBQ night at the restaurant. Norman, the chef, prepares a delicious buffet filled with grilled vegetables, king prawns, lamb shank, shrimp, beef, fish, etc. In addition everyone receives a starter of potato salad and macaroni and cheese and a bread pudding topped with bourbon glazed bananas (delicious!). It is by far our busiest night of the week. However, last Friday, there was another free concert courtesy of the Royal Couple by Jean Michel Jarre in Port Hercule, which is right down from my apartment. The show was very visual complete with light and laser landscapes, HD video, and fireworks. I’m assuming everyone was at the concert because hardly anyone came to eat at the restaurant (more bread pudding for me)! I ended up getting off at 11:30 that night because there was absolutely nothing left for me to do. All the guests had left, the entire restaurant, terrace, and kitchen had been cleaned, the restaurant had been set for breakfast, and every single knife, fork, spoon, and wineglass had been polished…a minor miracle.  The concert was wrapping up on my walk home but when I reached my apartment I was able to looked down the mountain and see some of the amazing lights and fireworks.

Finally, on Saturday, the religious ceremony for the Royal Couple was held…what everyone had been waiting for (the civil ceremony was held the day before at the palace). I also finally had a day off so that I could enjoy some of the wedding festivities! The wedding was being held at the palace, where the ceremony would last approximately an hour, beginning at 5:00 p.m. Then, the couple would take a car down from the palace to Porte Neuve, then the Avenue du Port and the Boulevard Albert 1^st and finally will stop in front of the church of Saint Devota where Princess Charlene will leave her bouquet, as tradition. The church of Saint Devota is right down from my apartment and I pass by it several times a day.

Meghan and I headed down to the Port at around 4:00. There were giant screens set up all over the port so that everyone could see what was going on. The problem was, the screens were on the same side of the street that we were, so it was hard to really see them. There were people on the other side of the street but it was blocked off when we arrived so we couldn’t reach that side of the street to see the screens well enough. We finally decided to sit and watch the wedding at a restaurant that had a TV screen, and where we were also able to see to the outside street. The waiter came and offered us either champagne or wine…he said they were having a special for the wedding. Meghan and I decided on champagne. We sat back and enjoyed watching the wedding on the TV screen as well as observing all of the people in the crowd outside. It was funny how many people were dressed up like they were actually attending the wedding. The waiter came back and automatically filled our champagne glasses again. We continued watching the wedding and when the waiter came back and asked if we wanted one more glass we said, “sure, why not?!” The ceremony was about to end and the waiter brought us our check, which was, to our great surprise and horror 90 euros. It was definitely a lesson learned: always ask for the price of the drink, or better yet, just don’t order champagne in Monaco.

We left the restaurant to claim a good spot on the side of the street so that we could see the newly married couple drive by in their convertible on the way to the church. We stood on the side of the street and watched the couple drive by, which was really exciting to see! Although I have to say, Princess Charlene looked completely miserable. When we they reached the church where she would leave her bouquet, she started crying. Meghan and I both decided it was tears of sadness rather than tears of happiness. 

About a week before the wedding rumors had been spreading that Prince Albert may have a third illegitimate love child (he already has two). The rumors also said that when Princess Charlene heard of this she immediately went to the Nice Airport and tried to buy a ticket to fly back home to South Africa.  However, there was security there that stopped her and took her passport so that she had no chance to escape. Scandalous, right? It could just be Royal Wedding drama hype, but I have to say, after watching the wedding for myself and seeing how utterly depressed Charlene looked, I think I believe the rumors.

That night, Meghan and I cooked some pasta that cost 2 euros for dinner (because the champagne set us back a little, ha.) and went to hang out with some of our co-workers. Luckily the apartment we were all gathered at had a balcony which gave us an absolutely perfect view of the gorgeous fireworks that were set off for the wedding. They were some of the most amazing fireworks I have ever seen, and they seemed to go on forever! Meghan and I were secretly pretending they were for the Fourth of July, which was the next day, since we weren’t in America to celebrate and join in on all of the festivities!

The royal wedding of Monaco was an amazing experience to be able to see and take part in. It was so much fun being around all of the hype, and being able to watch the wedding for myself, knowing it was all taking place on the mountain right above where I was standing! It is something I will definitely never forget. Now I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if the marriage lasts…

Drinking champagne during the wedding

 Everyone lined up in the streets of Monaco for the big day

 Walking down the isle

I wasn't joking...

In the streets waiting for the Roayl Couple to drive by

 The Roayl Couple in their convertible (it was the best shot i could get!)

She just doesn't look happy to me...

work work work

The past two weeks I have spent getting used to my internship, living arrangements, and the country of Monaco in general. It hasn’t exactly been the easiest thing to do. I mentioned before that Steffan, one of the restaurant managers always takes good care of me and makes sure I’m doing well. When he is at work I get to interact with customers, set up for banquets, work at banquets….basically I get to do and learn what I like. Unfortunately, I was just told that Steffan won’t be back for two to three weeks. That means I am working with Stephane (I know, it gets confusing). Stephane is the polar opposite of my sweet, caring Steffan. Steaphane is another restaurant manager and simply doesn’t seem to care what I’m doing. When I am working with him I usually get stuck working in the kitchen polishing glasses and silver wear. He is very intimidating and probably the most frustrating person I have ever had to deal with. Here is just one story that explains why he is so damn hard to work with:

The other night at work he told me to eat dinner at 5:30 and be back by 6:00. I went to the cafeteria and the food had not been set out. When it still hadn’t arrived in 15 minutes I went back to the restaurant to tell Stephane that that food had yet to arrive. He told me he had told the kitchen to take the food to the cafeteria and snapped at me to go back up and eat. When the food still had night arrived at 6:00 I just decided to give up and go back down and do some work in the restaurant. I just hoped that Stephane would see me and realize that I hadn’t eaten (I was starving after all). When he saw me doing stuff in the restaurant he quickly snapped at me “Hayden, I told you to go eat I can’t afford to have you taking hour breaks, this is ridiculous.” I calmly told him that the food was still not out so I thought I would come back and help set up for dinner until it arrived. He interrupted me and told me the food was there and I needed to eat and come back. Well the food still wasn’t there, so I just decided to sit in the cafeteria until it came. Finally Stephane came up and guess who got yelled at again for sitting in the cafeteria not doing anything?? This is only one of many frustrating Stephane stories. He won’t listen to anything you have to say and constantly interrupts.

So for the past few days I have been in the kitchen polishing or doing other monotonous tasks that require no brainpower or skill whatsoever. I miss Steffan.

Things haven’t been all bad though. I like most of the people I work with….especially a German guy named Andre. He absolutely loves Americans and ironically hates French people (even though he lives and works in France)…so we have that in common, ha. He’s always super nice to me and laughing and joking around, which helps me tolerate some of the things I hate about work.

Also something positive: I got to work at a wedding last Saturday. I was super excited to be able to do something different…especially a wedding since I’m such a wedding fanatic! It was a very interesting ceremony to say the least. All of the guests arrived around 6:00 to the Monte Carlo banquet room upstairs where we served them drinks and hour’ devours. There wasn’t very much in terms of decorations in the room except for a large heart…thing….made out of fake red roses and red ribbon. There were bright strobe lights in every color imaginable provided by the DJ. Like I said, it was interesting. At around 7:00 the bride and groom walked in and had the actually ceremony, vows and all (complete with a full-on make out session at the end) right on the dance floor. To my surprise, they were a much older couple. The entire wedding party was French, which was nerve-racking at first but after a little while I was able to understand them, and be understood just fine.

They had a full five-course menu planned for dinner; however, I quickly found that not everyone was happy with it. One half of the room was very pleasant to serve, and the other half was not.  They weren’t happy with practically anything we served them and I can’t even begin to count the number of times things were sent back to the kitchen because “they weren’t cooked properly.” We even had a few guests asked us to make them something else because they didn’t like what was being served. It was kind of unbelievable that these people would have the audacity to ask for something other than what the bride and groom had chosen for them to eat.

That night I ended up getting off work at 3:30 am. I have about a thirty-minute walk home and in order to get to my apartment I have to walk through the train station. I knew that the station usually locks its gates to the entrance I am used to going in at around 2:00 am. So instead of walking my normal way I decided to use a different entrance, one that took longer to get to and had more stairs and hills to climb, but one that I was pretty positive would be open. After walking up the hill and reaching the door, I soon realized that it too was locked. It was 4:00 am at this point, my feet were killing me and I was exhausted. I had two options: I could either wait for the train station to open up in a few hours, or wander around until I found a new route home. I ended up choosing the latter. I just wanted my bed. So after another 30 minutes of walking (all uphill) I finally managed to find my way back to my apartment. I was pretty much dead. Thankfully, I had the next two days off so I had time to recover.

To my surprise and delight, I received a phone call as soon as I woke up the next morning from my cousin, Maggy. She was on a two-week trip exploring all different cities and countries of Europe, and Monaco happened to be the one she was in that day! I knew that she was coming but I wasn’t quite sure which day it would be, so I was excited to hear from her. I met her right outside the palace of Monaco and joined her and her friends as they finished up lunch. It was great to get the chance to see her!

The next two days I spent reading and napping on the beach and just enjoying my time off.

Over the course of the next four days was when I had the news broken to me that Seffan wouldn’t be back for a while…which made work not real enjoyable to say the least.

I’m hoping that I will receive some news about Steffan returning sometime soon when I head into work today….keep your fingers crossed for me!