Paradise on Earth
My biggest and actually most euphoric moment during my High School days happened in 3rd year during a one week excursion trip through southern Europe. Now this trip was a big deal since before that I and most of my classmates have never left our home country known as Macedonia. Our first stop was: Monte Carlo, Monaco.
After a whole set of 24 hours filled with non-stop traveling via bus, we were informed that we are about to enter the state of Monaco and the city was just 20 minutes away. Now you can imagine how a group of 17 year olds who’ve spent their entire lives living in a small town populated with just 50,000 citizens where the tallest building was a 13th floor apartment would feel like after being told that they are about to enter one of the biggest, wealthiest and most beautiful cities in the world. Our hearts were pumped with adrenaline.
When we finally entered and sat foot in the town square we couldn’t believe our eyes. It was paradise on earth. Every single spot in the city was absolutely gorgeous. One moment we saw the Adam and Eve garden to our left, the next moment was the Prince Palace to our right, next was a viewpoint of the city’s amazing buildings accompanied by over 50 yachts docked by the beaches on the seaside that blossomed by reflecting the sunlight. It was a view that I’ll surely remember for the rest of my life. Finally, we head down to the town square where we had a 360 degree view of fancy hotels and even more fancy casinos.
Oh, and the cars. Don’t even get me started about the cars that roamed the streets. Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bugattis, Audis, BMWs. The cars looked like they were freaking spaceships. Not a single car that was build before the year 2010 was seen.
Actually there was this one guy, he was probably a tourist, who we saw driving by with a 1991 Volkswagen Golf 3 and every Monaco citizen had this weird look at him, like his car was made in the Stone Age.
There was this other Monaco citizen who drove his Ferrari in front of a Casino and asked the doorman to park his car. He gave the doorman a tip of 200 euros. 200 EUROS!!!. I could only imagine how much cash he was going to spend in the Casino itself.
by David Mathers for Orangry
