Menton is a bubble, an enclave where the rest of the world disappears, a parallel universe populated with only 300 people. It’s a place where you can’t hide - if you make a mistake you live with it, you are forced to face it head on, spending 10 hours a day staring at the person who you got into a fight with the night before. You are reborn in Menton, you are filled with opportunity, walking through the Old Town to school every morning and feeling the orange and pink walls tower over you as if you were Moses parting the Red Sea. Everything is at your fingertips, the beach, the mountains, the train station allowing you to go anywhere you wish. Menton is a prison, inebriating you with sun to prevent you from seeing how suffocated you may truly be. We live in a paradise, with classes that pique our curiosity and friends that become family within the first week. With Prosecco in our bags and our bathing suits under our clothes for when we finish maths, it is a place of bliss and distraction and fantasy. The Shabbat dinners, the drunk walks home from La Loca and Hardy’s, the days spent watching Gossip Girl on my couch, screaming into the sea during breakdowns, the Friday night dinners on the beach, the friends that I made for life, the relentless travel: these memories will never escape me. Menton is a place of improvement and renewal, the frequent smell of fire in the town signaling destruction and the restoration that inevitably follows: you too must confront that which you don’t like about yourself. You either come to terms with who you are, you put up a facade to impress those around you, or you become mindful of who you are and make changes for the better. There is no hiding in Menton. Menton is a bubble, an enclave where the rest of the world disappears, a parallel universe populated with only 300 people.
Most memorable moments in Menton:
canasta and boxed red wine with Hamish and Jozsef
Sunday morning walks with Genevieve to Roquebrune
Shabbat dinners
philosophical nights with Carl, Jay, and Rhe
boozy Sunday brunches at Iberia
learning econ while walking to Monaco
daily runs to McDonalds
chicken and waffle dinner party
trying to speak French with the Villa Jasmin ladies
living with 10 people in three rooms whenever Nikos and Morgane and Lili had friends over
being the photo bitch for all of Menton
hearing “bella” while eating the chicken run bagel at Edwidge
taking shots with Javi the night before MEDMUN
my parents partying with my friends at La Loca and the Purple Palace
listening to music behind the fortress by Bastion
being made fun of by Jade at Poivre et Sel
screaming Menton chants on the way to Monaco
weekend excursions to Italy for all you can eat sushi
brainstorming new projects with Oskar (and rarely following through)
sleeping on a mattress on the floor even though we had three beds
Friday night dinners on the beach
ice cream with Vivek
dancing in the streets of downtown Nice
getting heatstroke while hiking to St. Agnes
sneaking into MDL to cook (tbt kitchen goblin)
taking home plates of pasta from Dolce Vita
my friends playing AJR out my window on my birthday
playing my switch at Christmas Ball and Gala
staying up all night playing Limbo and listening to Jacques Brel
dancing with Grace at Wayne’s
James running with me over his shoulder
MEDMUN meetings at Le Bordel
dancing in the rain after 3A placements were released