After decades of anticipation, this is what it's like to check off the top spot of the bucket list.
Seb Said:
Three main things have happened since my last blog. Number one: residential (pics in the previous blog).
Residential is the school trip that me and the rest of my class goes on after we finish our finals as a celebration. I was quite nervous about this as we are in a foreign country and I have only known the kids for nine months. I had done something like this in fifth grade, but it was different because it was in Colorado and I had known the kids for six years. Even though I was nervous, after I got there, I had the time of my life. We were doing zip lining, and disco, and laser tag, and paintball, and high ropes courses, and much more. Even though the dinner tasted like prison food, the midnight candy snacks made up for it. When I got home, I had so much to tell, and lucky for me, Aunt Kristin was there to hear it. That night, since it was my birthday weekend, I crashed at their five-star hotel where it was supposed to be just Aunt Kristin and my mom sleeping there. It was one of the nicest hotels I had ever stayed in. And, the best part was I got a free amenity kit.
That leads me to number two. My birthday! (Pics also in the previous blog). This birthday was definitely different from all the other birthdays because the only family member that I got to see was Aunt Kristin. But, it was still super fun on the night of my birthday, we went to a delicious Indian restaurant. My parents got me tickets for Olivia Rodrigo, a.k.a. my favorite singer in the world. I get to see her on June 23. So less than two weeks. I will fill you in on the details in my next blog.
The third thing is the Monaco Grand Prix. This was one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had in my life. We stayed in Nice and then took the train back and forth for the race, qualifying, and practice sessions. The first day of practice sessions, we got to sit directly across from the casino, which was a great view of the casino, the cars, and the hilly background in the distance. The second day, for qualifying, we had general admission seats. That pretty much means that there are sets of bleachers, and it is a first come first serve basis. The first practice session, we had amazing seats across from the famous casino where we could see the cars coming from around the corner and also the beautiful view of the city. The second day, which was another practice session, we were so close to the cars that if you were to reach your hand out, you could touch the drivers' helmets. Also, we were so close that by the end of the practice session, my mom was picking out bits of tire from my hair. For actual qualifying though, we didn’t get so lucky. We got there right as it was about to start, so everybody had already piled into the bleachers and we didn’t have any seats and couldn’t see the track. The only good part about this was that the track EMTs saw this and asked if I wanted to take a picture. Of course, I said yes. Also, one of the security guards was super nice and took us into a back area where we could see the cars coming out of the tunnel and into the new chicane. (I don’t know if I spelled that right, I hope I did.) On the day of the actual race, we had amazing seats. It was the top row across from the yachts. As a result of that, we could look forward and see all of the yachts and a big straight stretch, and if we looked behind, we could see the starting grid. Since we had such good seats, we left from Nice early that day so that we could get to the seats and see as much race as we could. The person who won was named Charles Leclerc. This was a very big deal because he is from Monaco, and nobody from Monaco had ever won the race in 93 years. As a result of this, on his last lap before he won, all of the yachts were honking their horns celebrating him, also all of the people in the balconies of the buildings were piling out onto the balconies to watch. It was so amazing that my dad even cried. And that is saying something because he never cries.
She Said:
To say that this was the most anticipated Path to 50 event for Chad would be a very gross understatement. He’s been looking forward to the day he could attend this race (which always coincides with the Stamm annual family reunion at Indy500) since pretty much the day I met him. Chad carefully orchestrated every detail of the weekend from the hotel in Nice, well thought out tickets to each day of practice/qualifying/and race day, and of course, must try restaurants in both Nice and Monaco.
I enjoyed every minute of the weekend but have to say that I felt like Pretty Woman more than once in the crazy, bougie country that is Monaco (we were reminded the hard way that it is, in fact, its own country when we got a notice of roaming charges outside of the EU within minutes of being there, ARGH!). I had to remind myself, while the sticker shock of a meal or drink was blowing my mind, that this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that made my husband extremely happy, and instead, I tried to go with a similar mentality I have for most things this year: YOLO. It was fun, though, to see how the other half lives with their gorgeous yachts and fancy cars and beautiful people all dressed up. But, at the end of the day, this girl much prefers the crowd and ambiance we enjoy every year at the Indy 500, and we sure did miss our family Back Home Again in Indiana.
Chad wanted it to be just right, and I think we nailed it. It was a perfect weekend of weather, car racing, ambiance, family time, and an unexpected, super exciting hometown winner for the first time in 93 years!
Congrats Charles LeClerc!
He Said:
The Grand Prix of Monaco. There's no doubt this is the biggest and most anticipated thing I've wanted to witness for a very, very, very long time. It earned the top spot on my bucket list long ago when I visited Monaco on my 32nd birthday, and now I get to attend it as the biggest part of my 50th.
In 2006, after spending my first night ever on continental Europe in, ironically, the city of Lisbon, we made our way south to the Algarve, across Spain, and through the south of France. We found ourselves in Nice in late July, and Alli asked what I wanted to do for my birthday. A trip to Monaco sounded fun, so we day-tripped there on the train and walked the race circuit, after which I wrote the following:
"All it did was make me want to see the Grand Prix about as much as any other sporting event I have never been to. This is my birthday wish. I'm serious here, and you know who you are, but we really need to get this trip together someday."
Well, thanks to my amazing family, we did it. Yes, I had been to Monaco before. I've also been known to attend an auto race or two in my life, especially in the month of May, but I have never seen the Grand Prix of Monaco, and wow, was it spectacular.
Let's start with some basics. With Formula 1 racing, the schedule includes practices on Friday, practice and qualifying on Saturday, and then the race on Sunday. At Monaco, where the streets are so narrow, and the cars have evolved since the race was first run in 1929, passing is at a premium. This means that practice and qualifications play an enormous role in where a driver will start (and thus finish) on race day. Unlike Indianapolis, where the 500 saw two passes for the lead on the final lap this year, the Monaco Grand Prix is kind of ho-hum in terms of the race itself. But what it lacks in passing on the grid, it more than makes up for in the stands and the streets. And this year, the end-of-race drama was even pretty incredible, as well.
Knowing all of this, it seemed important to attend the event for all three days, allowing us to watch the action from various viewpoints along the iconic circuit where each turn has a name. With careful planning and consideration, we selected seats from across the casino on Friday, seats that are extremely expensive on Sunday but have an amazing value on Friday. It gave us an opportunity to soak in the bougie vibe on that side of the Municipality amongst the famous hotels in and around Casino Square. At one point during a break, we headed over to the Hermitage, where they had a display of McClarens next to a champagne garden. I'd like to think we picked our spots soaking in the atmosphere, enjoying two expensive glasses of Veuve Clicquot before going around the corner for 6 euro ham and butter sandwiches on amazing French baguettes with 3 euro cans of beer.
On Saturday, we had general admission tickets in the area right along the harbor front between the Nouvelle Chicane and the Tabac, two of the most iconic corners of Monaco. We were so close to the cars that you could feel the breeze as they raced past us just on the other side of the wall. Behind the small bleachers, there were cafés with DJs adding to the ambiance, while on the other side of the track, the yachts bobbed in the bay. The sound of the cars? Unreal. During a break, we walked over to a separate area of town and had lunch and a pastis at an outdoor café, but when we got back to our section for qualifications, all of the space along the fence was taken. Unsure of what to do, I told an attendant -- in French (yes, I've still got it!) -- that my son wants to be an EMT, and could he get a photo with the safety crew. I'm not sure why I thought to do this, but when Sebastian was meeting the safety team, I asked the attendant where my son could get a better view. He said, follow me when qualifications start, and then he walked us behind the fence and down a long path where we had an unobstructed view of the Nouvelle Chicane. We didn't really get to follow the qualification action on the speed charts, per se, but that experience alone made the day worth it. We did keep our eye on the big screen just long enough to know that Charles Leclerc won the pole for Sunday's race, and we sped off to the train as quickly as possible so we could spend the rest of the afternoon in Villefranche-Sur-Mer, a beautiful French Riveria beach town on the way back to Nice. We encountered a local neighborhood festival and enjoyed a great dinner on the water. It didn't take long for my francophilia to return in big, big ways. J'adore la France!
Race Day. What can I say? The last Sunday in May has been Race Day my entire life. I've sat in the same seat for the Indianapolis 500 since 1983 when I was eight years old. I've seen some of the best drivers in the world, including many that came from Formula 1 and some that have won Monaco. I've seen one driver race who has won both the Indy 500 and the Monaco Grand Prix. I say all of this because, at the end of the day, Race Day is race day. It doesn't matter how much the champagne costs or who is on the boat in the harbor or which concert is happening in the infield or which family member pulls Andretti out of the hat. No matter where you are on the last Sunday in May, it will be Race Day. There's the pre-race pageantry. There's anticipation and people and the sounds of the cars. There's the smell of fuel, which is very similar whether you're in Monaco or Indianapolis. But then the race starts, and the first laps are exhilarating. The sounds intensify. The speeds increase beyond those of the warm-up laps, and then the race settles in.
It will be hard for me to fully explain this, and I'm not sure if it happens to anyone else, but at some point, the race can lull you into a trance. The whine of the cars is mesmerizing, and the sun's warmth is soothing. Around the midpoint of the race for me, the seasons actually change from spring to summer because that's always what Race Day has been—the beginning of summer. The action on the track twists you into a meditation on everything the warmer months might bring, an anticipation of the places you might get to visit in June and July. You look at the names of the drivers on the leaderboard and see they are the best in the world, from all over the world. Maybe you'll get to go to some of those places as summer progresses. Maybe Italy. Maybe France. Maybe Monaco. Who knows. Looking across the mid-race infield, you feel the Central Indiana breezes as they continue to bring summer. This year, though, those breezes came from the Mediterranean, and I realized my typical mid-race daydream was actually happening. I was in one of those places.
A few laps of this is all you get, though. Just as soon as the mediation begins, it ends with an untimely pit stop, a crash, or, in the case of the 2024 Grand Prix of Monaco, the building drama of a hometown hero who could win the race. As the laps counted down, I honestly wasn't sure whether or not the leaders had to pit to change tires, a requirement of every team during a race. But then, with about five laps to go, it was confirmed that they were good to go until the end. Hometown hero Charles Leclerc slowly built his lead out to five seconds, then eight. And then on his final lap, the yacht horns in the harbor blew. People cheered and whistled and waved the Monaco flag from balconies. The Ferrari fans all went crazy. Charles Leclerc navigated the final few turns of the circuit, a section of the course he used to ride in a school bus on the way to school. And he crossed the finish line to be the first Monegasque to ever win the Monaco Grand Prix. It was hard not to get caught up in the emotion of the moment, given Leclerc's history in Monaco and the stories about him losing his father just as he was joining the Formula 1 ranks. As an old timer told me on the train (they have them here just like they do at Indy), this will be one of those races where people say, "Where were you when Charles Leclerc won Monaco?"
I am incredibly grateful to be able to answer that question by saying, "We were in the top row of Tribune K between the Tabac and the Piscine with an amazing view of the harbor and the Mediterranean beyond." It was a weekend I will never forget.