An Evening in Monaco

With Fitz and Kayla still in town and our curiosity peaked about the infamous Monte Carlo casino, we decided to head to Monaco for the evening.  Kayla had chatted up a local shop owner who had suggested some amazing restaurants, one of which was in Monaco.  Alex and I took the coastal highway all the way to Monaco whereas Fitz and Kayla decided to leave earlier to tour the area on Fitz's BMW motorcycle he had rented.  There were some gorgeous views of the ocean and surreal tunnels cut out of the coastal cliffs.

We rendezvoused with the motorcycle duo at 8:30pm at a wonderful restaurant called Avenue 31.  We had appetizers of non and ordered enough sushi to feed a small army, but it was very delicious!  It made us miss our favorite sushi restaurant in Hickory, called Umi, and the Miyazaki family who has always been so very good to us (we miss you, Satoko!).  We were also delighted with the amazing desserts, I mean, who says 5 types of chocolate is too much in one dessert?!  We were all loving the music at dinner that the restaurant dj had created special just to set a certain mood in the place, but Kayla was having an out of body experience.  So, just before we left, she managed to purchase 2 CD's from him so that she could have the music to play when she is jamming out in her new Prius back in the states.  We also toured the bathrooms because Alex came back from them, telling us that they had golden "thrones" and golden walls...wow.

We were stuffed and ready for a nap but our curiosity had not been satisfied just yet.  We walked from the restaurant, down through the immaculately clean streets and alleys, past the yellow, red, and white Lamborghinis, past the black Aston Martin and Bentleys, and arrived at the Monte Carlo where a variety of all of the above plus some Ferrarris mixed in sat, daring us to enter.  And after doing the typical tourist thing of grabbing some other tourist to take our picture in front of the monstrosity, we entered the Monte Carlo. 

It was beautiful and very ornate, but we were very surprised over the lack of gambling tables.  It seemed like they had set out a few tables just for the tourists to get their experiences and leave whereas the real gambling was happening behind closed doors in the bountiful private rooms.  So Fitz came out on top in Black Jack and Alex and Kayla tag teamed the Roulette table for twice the profit.  It was a good night! We decided to call it a night at that before we took Lady Luck for granted.