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Silver Bullet is very grateful to receive this material from Desiree Crossman, reporting on John (Hopper) Hopkin`s MotoGP exploits and her own newsy, behind the GP scene column that is not always PC.
Desiree will be providing Silver Bullet with her column on a regular basis.
Check out HOPPER`S WEBSITE
Hello,
Well we were suppose to go to Jean-Michel\'s house close to Marseille, but he had last minute engagements he had to take care of, and we are here in Nice instead.
We checked out of our hotel on Saturday with Garry (McCoy) and Gemma, and we all decided to give our selves a small holiday on the French Riviera. We all drove to Nice and started looking for a hotel. Gemma and I walked into a few hotels and asked if there was any availability. One hotel we walked into (mind you we were dressed like beach bums) was a nice Victorian 4 star called The West End. It was a Best Western Hotel. We asked for availablity and the lady gave us the updown look, rolled her eyes with a smile and said, \"We are fully booked.\" So we said, \"Ok whatever.\" Who knows if she was telling the truth. We then tried the Sheraton. It was nice, but it cost alot for no facilities and no beach front view. We wanted a beach front, we decided to be posh for a night! Finally, we tried one more hotel, the Radisson, which was a ways down from the centre but it looked nice and it had beach front. We went it and asked for availability, \"voila!\" It was good. We got rooms cheaper then the Sheraton, with facilities and beach front. We were styling.
When we got settled in, we all sat outside on the balcony and shared some wine. John and Gaz were exhausted, you could tell. Gemma and I were abit on the exhausted side too. Yeah we had fun in Cannes, but before that was testing, and before that was a race. It was boom, boom, boom!!! We wanted to relax and enjoy nice weather, nice bottle of wine, nice Italian cuisine, and John and Gaz played a nice game of Grand Turismo. They ended up driving back the next day and we are here now until tommorrow until we fly to Le Mans.
Yesterday we just hung out and vegged. John caught up on some sleep and I hit the beach for a bit. Down here there are lot of Americans, Germans, and English. Well there are alot of Swedes too! All we really did was run on the boardwalk, hit the fitness centre, sleep, ordered room service, and watched some movies. But today we did something fun!
Today, we rented a scooter and rode to Monaco! It\'s only 45 minutes by scooter on the coast, two lane road. It was really nice. John wanted to see the F1 track, but when we were cruising around, we ended up being on it through the streets! We went under the tunnel, around the bends, through the streets with all the bleachers. It goes right through the whole centre. It was cool to see and I can\'t imagine what it\'s like when it\'s the real deal.
Monaco is like La Jolla in San Diego. Alot of really nice homes, nice cars (really nice cars), but it\'s really compact on the cliff side and it\'s built UP!! Alot of high buildings next to each other, and really nice hotels. We didn\'t really see any nice beaches, but there is a small area in Monte Carlo where there is a bunch of resturants on the beach and that\'s where we ate.
Next to us were 4 women. I wasn\'t paying much attention to them, but John said, \"Hey babe, check out that chick, she looks like she had one too many face lifts!\" I looked over, and usually I don\'t like to stare, but this group of women looked like bitter gold diggers from Sex in the City. The spoke French and English in conversations. A few words in French, then switched back to English, all chained smoked, talking about hormones, cheating men, getting in bed with guys who have girlfriends/wives, wore the orange gold with the big Gucci black and gold sunnys, and yes........one looked like she had one too many face lifts. She looked like her face skin was pulled as tight as can be, and stapled together in the back of her head. We were watching Sex in Monte Carlo while eating our meal. Quite the scene and conversation to listen to while eating. Oh well, how often do you get that?
After that, we hung out on the beach and went in the water. The water was clear, and fish were swimming around. We then got back on the scooter and rode back to Nice. So again, tommorrow we heading to Paris to meet up with the team, then head to Le Mans for the race. This was our small holiday we thought we deserved and it wasn\'t too bad either. The south of France is nice I must say.
Desiree
