Magic on the Mediterranean Saturday, August 7 Day 4 On the Road with MaggieMay...  I
was SO thankful that nothing had been planned for Saturday morning!
I don’t think I could have made it. It was great just to sit on my
balcony overlooking the Mediterranean, drink coffee and Bailey’s (I’m in
heaven!) and watch the boats. Saturday morning saw a lot of activity
on the water. There were three large cruise ships within our view
and zodiacs going back and forth to shore, yachts, pleasure boats, even
a police boat. Gabe took a guy’s interest in that and stood up for
a better view. “You’re not going to believe this” he said, “but some
guy is SWIMMING in front of our hotel and the cops in the police boat are
yelling at him.”
The phone rang and plans were made for the day, the Big Event set for 8:30pm Saturday evening at Stars ‘n Bars. Blueglow offered to *do* the pool with me. I have a number of delicate-skinned redheads in my life and they scream in terror at the mere mention of the word “pool”.  Blueglow,
however, is a Florida native and made of tougher stuff. The pool
was on the rooftop of the Grand Hotel, next to Le Pistou. There were
a number of people there, but we found a pair of chaises on the seaside,
next to the clear wall. The view was amazing; the blue Mediterranean
lay sparkling on our left and the city and the mountains were on our right,
small white clouds were overhead like saucers on a bright blue tablecloth.
Breathtaking! I had left my camera in the room – such a shame.
(Ed: Yeah, what a shame. I guess we'll
just have to use photos of what the rest of us did that afternoon
;-) ) We talked quietly, just reveling in the moment, had
a little lunch, and greeted a few friends that stopped by. They had
just come in from the airport and wore that familiar glazed look.
The row ahead of us was occupied by people speaking Italian a little more boisterously than I would prefer. It occurred to me that there was something “odd” about the group, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I was only half-noticing them.  One
of the boys walked over to the pool (I was still thinking something was
odd about him), turned around and I realized exactly what *was* odd.
It wasn’t a guy! LOL No one else seemed to mind, and I certainly
didn’t care. A brief survey of the pool area indicated that topless
sunbathing was more the exception there than the rule. Did we?
Uh, no. I can’t imagine anything worse on a vacation than to join
in on the native custom and burn one’s breasts to a crisp, making each
enthusiastic hug a moment of agony. I got a little more sun, particularly
on my face than I should have anyway. Besides, while I can’t speak
for Alice, mine are as white as the driven snow and would have GLOWED in
all that sunshine. I thought it best to keep a low profile.
Our fellow tourists were friendly at the pool, a young gal from England sitting behind me offered her menu and the woman on my right from San Francisco struck up a conversation. It was a lovely afternoon! I felt quite ready for the evening’s festivities.  A
little after 8pm we gathered downstairs for the quick taxi trip to Stars
‘n Bars on the nearby marina. We pulled up and I asked the driver,
"Com bien?" I hoped that meant “How much” and it did. I was
always stunned when anyone understood what I was saying. French spoken
with a Hoosier accent must be a horrible thing, but every time I gave it
a try, I was only shown kindness. : ) It left me quite
encouraged! Linda Bernier, the organizer of the fan gathering, met
us at the door. She also had a glazed look and confided that she
had now been up for 24 hours. We were ticked off her list and turned
to discover another old and dear friend, Mr Bob Bradshaw, who cracked our
ribs with enthusiastic Texas hugs and doled out kisses in his usual generous
manner. ; ) I was astonished to see a very familiar Moody
couple walk up – Graeme and Amanda! What an unexpected pleasure it
was to see them.
Linda did a fantastic job with the arrangements, getting us a large room with bar for the gathering. I had wondered about Tex-Mex in Monaco, but everything was very good. Sixty-five fans were there! There were a lot of unfamiliar faces, but it was offset by the amount of good will and camaraderie. I greeted and was greet in turn by people I had met at concerts, both in the UK and in The States and I appreciated those who reminded me of concert evenings we had shared. I enjoyed talking to a fan from Vancouver who had sat next to me at The Queen Elizabeth Theatre and one gal going through the buffet line told me that she had been one of the attendees in formal dress at the Denver concert that I had written about last fall. It’s a small Moody world!  There
were quite a few people wearing the same glazed look at the Stars N Bars
and despite my quiet day I was on the tired side, too. I tried to
say Hi to as many people as I could, but once I sat down at our table,
it was hard to get back up to circulate. I did a lot of waving, though!
The highlight of the evening was Graeme Edge. It was simply fantastic
of Graeme and Amanda to choose to spend their evening greeting the people
that had come so far. While Amanda spent the time chatting with fans
who came up to her table, Graeme worked the room, visiting EVERY table
and posing for photos. He could not have been more gracious or obliging.
We waited impatiently for our turn, but he finally reached our table after
going thru a long line for photos. I know when he and Amanda left,
they were over an hour and a half late for their own dinner reservations.
It was very generous of them both, and absolutely LOVELY. They both
looked fabulous, too!
 The
festivities wound down after the Edges left. I had a chance to have
a catchup with Will, an old friend from the UK tour, and about 11pm, waved
goodbye to several people and carefully made my way down the steep steps.
Angel went in to have someone call us a taxi. The main area of Stars
N Bars (below our room) was hopping! I’m sure you could lose some
hearing in there. Angel and I had decided to take Gabe and check
out Le Sporting Club. I definitely wanted to see the venue setup
and well...see if we could make some new friends! You never know.
We got a good look at the room, and said hello. ; ) We
had made plans with the Girls to meet at the Irish bar next to La Piazza,
but it *was* Saturday night and that particular bar was filled to the gills
with young people there to enjoy a live band. We peered in but they
were nowhere to be found. We checked in at La Piazza and tried to
talk them out of dessert, but they were trying to close and nicely shooed
us away. One of our waiters from the night before followed us, calling
We’re Sorry! What a nice group of people.
I started to walk into the next bar on the “city” side of La Piazza, but peered in first and stopped. There was a lady in some kind of well...animal costume. MINIMALIST animal costume, if you know what I mean! I didn’t know what was going ON in there, or what to make of it, so I hurried Gabe and Angel past it. No matter what was happening in there, *I* was too old. Just like trying the Three Bears bowls of porridge, the final place we stopped (2 doors down from La Piazza) was just right. They were open and they had a nice table in front were we could watch for our friends and RELAX. How lovely! I could get to like Monte Carlo! It’s definitely my kind of life-style. : ) We waited around on the Girls (who were waiting for US at a bar on the ocean side of La Piazza) for oh...a couple of hours, talked about the world and watched Gabe sink deeper and deeper into a snifter of cognac. HAHA. We finally headed back up the road without even closing the bar and went to bed! Another WONDERFUL day in Monte Carlo was at a close. MAGGIEMAY Oh you'd like it Gliding around, get your feet off the ground Oh you'd like it Do as you please with so much ease...(and pluck that guitar, Justin!) Photos courtesy of SueC, MaggieMay, and Gabe |
August 8, 2004
Day Five