Monton Old Port to Menton Garavan, A Tale of Two Ports In One City

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How many ports must a small town build, before you call it a racially and culturally-integrated town? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

So Menton has two ports. One dates back to the Phoenicians, and the other is  only 30 years old. They're practically side by side, and have duplicated all services. One look at this situation in this small border town, and I just knew what it was all about: one port, the older one, is for the French-speaking contingency in Menton, while the other is essentially an Italian colony. It's kind of funny, considering that the entire region used to belong to the House of Savoy and was, in essence, Italian until not too long ago. And oddly, most people here have last names that indicate Italian ancestry.

If this is the situation with the ports, I don't even want to know how the school districts work. Maybe they can make some headway towards unification by bussing Italian boats into the Old Port, and the reverse for the French boats into Port Garavan. A port costs $20+M, it is ridiculous to build two of them as an edifice to cultural separation. As an aside, the entire "unified currency in Europe" idea is predicated on the notion that labor can move freely to wherever the jobs are. Well, you can see why people might be reluctant to move across boundaries.

Stella, sans transmission,
trying to get her groove back yet again

In any case, I needed to show Stella the Engine to a mechanic, as it developed a gear problem. It was Bastille Day, so the mechanic in the French port was off. I thought I'd have to sail to the nearest Italian port, in Ventimiglia, to get the engine serviced -- a 4-5 mile sail, not long enough to be fun, on a windless day to boot -- but then decided to check out the new port within Menton. I was greeted with "Buon Giorno" by the guys at the port, and sure enough, the mechanic, Segnor Osvaldo, spoke only Italian and, naturally, was at work even though it was Bastille Day. He pulled apart the lower engine assembly, ground down a part, and reassembled the shifter, so now, there is absolutely no part of the engine that I have not personally touched. Stella the Engine seems to have gotten its groove back again. I was about to chuck it overboard and buy a new one, but at this point, I just can't get rid of something whose every piece I have lovingly touched, took apart and reassembled. She's coming with me to wherever Guizmo's final destination might be.