Marseille

Sorry for my long absence, but the past week has been crazy. On Saturday at 6:30 am I left for Marseille for what was supposed to be a day trip with 7 other people. I was nervous to see what the city was like because it seems like everyone thinks there are sleazy people waiting to grope and rob you in the streets. This was definitely not the case; in fact, I liked it so much that my friend and I decided to stay another day.

So...what did we do? The first thing we did when we got off the train was to go to the old port, which is probably the most famous part of the city. The daily fish market was going on and the port was bustling with tourists and natives. I have to say, the seafood was as fresh as you could possibly get; there were some fish that were still alive in the crates so the fishmongers whacked their heads agianst the side of the table a couple of times and they were good to go. Also featured were starfish, mussels, rays, eels, and squid (I can't figure out how one would cook a starfish or a ray). We tried to get tickets to visit Chateau D'If (the setting for The Count of Monte Cristo and The Man in the Iron Mask)at the port but the jail was closed, sadly.

Instead, someone suggested that we visit the cathedral just outside the city. In the attempt to save money, we decided to walk there...bad, bad decision. Walking at a brisk pace it took over an hour and a half to get there. I estimated it was about 3 and a half miles uphill, not including the never-ending staircase of hell one had to climb to get to the top of the mount. The cathedral wasn't really worth three hours of our precious time, but it was pretty (see pics below).

After all that physical exersion, we decided to head to the beach. Best decision of the day! The weather was probably 80-85 degrees without a cloud in sight. It would have been perfect if it had not been for the wind. Ten minutes in I already had a thick layer of sand all over my clothes, body and hair and I'm still getting sand out of my ears today.

By this point the others had to head back to G-Town so my friend and I set out in search of a room. I was in favor of a hostel, but she thought that it was too dangerous so we settled on a reasonably priced hotel near the old port. It was on the fifth floor, which was great because we could see all the way to the Mediteranean. After checking out the room, we looked for some authentic Southern French cookin', but it was more difficult then we expected because we'd find a building and it would be a bar, walk another 50 feet-bar, another 50 feet-bar...you get the picture. This went on for about half an hour before we finally found someplace serving something other than beer that was not over 50 dollars a meal. I had salmon (see pic below) which was excellent and my friend had a seafood pasta which she liked as well; however, the seafood did not like her because she threw it all up that night.

We headed back to the hotel at 10:00 because we were so exausted from the walking. I had literally nothing with me for staying overnight: no makeup, no pajamas, no toothbrush. My friend, however, brought stuff with her because she had anticipated staying an extra day; she very sweetly offered her toothbrush, but I draw the line in terms of sharing.

The next day we woke up at 9 or so and headed out to find the bus for Cassis, a village near Marseille. We asked for directions at the concierge desk and were told that the bus stop was on a certain street by the newspaper booth, flower shop, and telephone booth. When we got to that street there were no less than five of each of those, so we asked five passerbyers for directions and got five different answers. We looked for 45 minutes before I walked up to a woman selling flowers, and without me saying anything she said, "You're looking for the bus to Cassis, aren't you?" I said that I was and she pointed across the street and explained that it was between the garbage can and the phone booth. There was no sign saying that that was the bus stop and no time table, so if you didn't know specifically were the bus stopped, you would've never found it. After an hour and a half wait, we finally got on the bus. The view on the way was gorgeous and the town itself was spectacular. The big draw to Cassis, besides the beaches, are the calanques. I'm not exactly sure what that translates to, but they were huge cliffs that dropped straight into the sea. We hiked out to them, but it was best to have hiking boots (I was wearing Converse and my friend was wearing flipflops) and our tummies were grumbling, so we headed back into town. We ate at a cute little cafe right alongside the harbor (see salad pic) and then happened across a pottery show where I bought four handmade coasters. There was also a store which sold 100% concentrate perfumes from Provence. I got lavander as a gift and, wow, it is strong; you only need a squirt to smell like an entire field of flowers.

Th next activity of the day was to go on a boat tour of the calanques. It was amazing to see them from the water because you can see things that you can't from land, like the naked sunbathers which we wouldn't have had the opportunity to see otherwise. Anyway, I went a little crazy with the pictures because it was so picturesque.

We took the bus back to Marseille and then walked to the train station. I ended up at the house at 11:30 pm on Sunday. Total miles walked=at least 15. Yeah, my feet are not happy with me, but it was worth it. How many places have 85 degree days in mid-October? I would so go back again, but for a longer period because there is so much to see.

Cathedral at sunset

Sunset in Marseille-the photo doesn't do it justice

the Calanques

The flag kept getting in my way, but I thought this was a cool picture

lighthouse at Cassis

We stumbled across a random game of Petanque. The old guys kept arguing about whose balls were closest-so adorable.

Cool old building in Cassis

Salad in Cassis=delicious

Calanques

The water was an awesome color of aqua.

A harbor in one of the calanques.

Beach in Cassis.

The Mediteranean!

Beach in Marseille

View of the Mediteranean in Cassis.

Cathedral in Marseille.

Same.

Chateau d'If! Doesn't look as scary as in the movies.

Marseille

Harbor in Marseille

Fish market. I have no idea what kind of fish that was but there were lots of them.

Salmon dinner-such presentation

Again I apologize for this obnoxiously long post.

Bon mardi!

First week of classes

This week has been really busy but wonderful. I had my placement test, which consisted of a listening part, written part, and oral part. The listening started out really slowly, slowly sped up, and, finally, at the end it was so fast that it sounded like jibberish. After they figured out the scores, we were placed in language classes according to our ability. We also get to pick three elective classes, so I'm going to take Econ, Culture, and Art History. I'm finding that I understand everything really well, but when it comes to speaking I just can't formulate what I want to say--it's extremely frustrating, but I expect that it will come with time.

The program consists of all foreigners. About 40% are American and 40% are Chinese. The rest are random, like Swedish and English. The age range varies from 28 to 17, too. There's one Chinese girl in my class who has only been speaking French for 8 months and she's wonderful. It's incredible, but she has been living in France for four months so I guess that gives her an advantage.

This week I've also been exploring Grenoble; it's an interesting city-who knew?! On Friday, I don't have class so I went to 5 museums. They had one floor of a museum dedicated to skiing. If there's one thing I have to say about Grenoblians it's that they take their skiing VERY seriously. I've also learned that it is not appropriate to smile at strangers. They think it's weird that Americans strike up conversation with someone in line at the grocery store and smile at people that they don't know. If you smile at someone you're either flirting with them or you're making fun of them. This was really hard to stop doing, because it's so ingrained in our cultural customs to smile a lot, but I'm getting better.

Last night I learned how to play boules, which is the French acquivalent of bachi ball. This is another thing that the French take very seriously. I must have had beginner's luck because I kept winning every game; this wounded some egos but everyone was still gracious.

And today we are going further up the mountain for a picnic. I'm kind of nervous to see what they mean by up, because the tops of the mountain are above the cloud level, but we shall see.