Hungover like a Monegasque tourist

The morning after the night before, Monaco was cold, full of rain and we were tired. We were made painfully aware of the fact that we were primarily in the town to compete in a sailing competition, when our alarms went off promptly at 8am. The girls were lacklustre, but the boys even more so as they had all woken up in our hotel, without a beautiful international sailor in sight.

Having said that, our team was in a better state than some, as three competitors had been arrested the night before. It sounds like a cliché but an Englishman, an Irishman and an Italian walked out of the bar (told you it sounded clichéd), they had been distracted by some bikes and [allegedly] decided to steal one. Unfortunately the bikes had been parked outside a police station and while their drunk efforts were not strong enough to prosecute them for bike theft the 3 amigos were extremely surprised to learn that it is a criminal offence to be drunk on the streets of Monaco and so they were promptly locked up until such time as they were fit to go free.

This was considered highly entertaining by those who made it safely had to the Marina the next day (particularly those who still had a full team of sailors). We soon saw the Italian girl safe, well and (more importantly) sober but the Irishman didn't appear until 4pm! He was obscenely grumpy at this stage. This is largely because it transpires that police hospitality does not extend to feeding their short term guests. Even basic provisions like toilet roll and water are only given on request.

Sailing did not go well for us that day. It rained torrentially and I couldn't help thinking (while shivering violently) that I might prefer to be in the UK. With a sedentary hobby (board games might be nice). Indoors.

It might sound like this would be a good place to end this sequence of stories from Monaco – everyone has learnt a valuable lesson and is ready to go home. However, what we really needed was to get a grip!!! This was a 3-day event and we were only half way through.

#ClareInMonaco

Beware Ginger Wine

Oh good god, I have woken up with a terrible hangover. It’s not the usual kind, I have no headache but just feel violently sick. There’s a (frankly quite detestable) person running around outside with a microphone calling everyone in for bacon sandwiches as part of the camp site wake up call. I don’t think I could keep one down! I blame it all on the curious ginger wine I had last night. It seemed like such a good idea at the time - a 13.5% bottle for £3.50. Last night I described it as "one part benylin and one part firework". Now I would probably summarise it as ‘spicy sugar syrup’. This tells me that it probably has an extremely unpleasant laxative quality. I really hope I’m wrong.

Here it is. Now you know what to avoid.