Part Deux: Marseilles

To begin more random France things:

They turned the heat on in our foyer. Yay! But wait, it has to be difficult. The heat is only on from 5 pm to midnight and 5 am to 9 am. If you are home during the day, you must freeze.

I guess that, in truth, I am not paying the heating bill, so I cannot complain.

Also, I booked my holiday tickets! I'm not going home, but I am going to Germany and the Netherlands! I will be staying with my fabulous friend Franzi and her fabulous family who are so nice to have me over for the holidays... then I will be in Amsterdam with another assistant and we will be crashing with another good friend, Victor.

So, I'm excited to do something different for the holidays, although I will miss my family and Kevin and all of you so much.

One more thing, I was having a horrible time with my hair. (I mean other than my lifelong battle with it because it does not do what I want it to.) Anyway, it was like tangly and frizzy and just generally disagreeable. So, I bought some French shampoo because I was still using some from home. It has made all the difference! I can't even tell you!

Maybe French shampoo has a different make up because French water is different? No clue.

Okay, and now for stories of the Mediterranean!

We left Bordeaux on Wednesday at around 11:30 and took the longest train ride, EVER. It was 7 hours, but that's what you get when you buy the cheapest ticket. Instead of riding on France's fabulous TGV (le train à grand vitesse, i.e. the really fast train), we were on the "local" train, which stops more frequently and doesn't even touch the TGV's supersonic (ish) speeds.

Interesting fact(s): The TGV was originally going to be a gas tubine powered train, but after the gas crisis of 1973, gaspowering was deemed inefficient and expensive. So the French switched to electric powered trains. They are powered by Nuclear Power. The fastest recorded TGV reached 357 mph in test conditions, and I think, but am not sure, that the average speed of a TGV train is between 150 and 190 mph.

Anywho, NOT riding the TGV, I had a window seat, which I enjoyed!

Interesting fact about Allie: she loves the window seat! Seriously, I always request it when I book transport (hahaha, book transport). I just want to SEE!

And see, I did. The country side was beautiful; I caught a glimpse of the ocean.

When we arrived in Marseille that evening, Meredith and Kelly's friend Andrew met us at the train station. He was really nice and helped us carry our (too much) stuff back to his apartment. Andrew has a really nice apartment with a shower that has... a wall-mounted shower head! The little things you learn to appreciate.

We went out to dinner to a Tunisian restaurant per the recommendation of Andrew's friend who works at the hostel in Marseille. I had vegetables and couscous, which was delicious.

I also received my first month's pay that evening, which was wonderful! We had some wine back at Andrew's, and Meredith and I crashed on the couches.

Marseille is the second largest city in France, and as a port city, it attracts a large number of immigrants. So Marseille is kind of known as this hodge-podge crazy place of lots of people. My France guide book describes a kind of rivalry between Marseille and Aix (our next stop). The rivalry can be broken down into very simple terms. Dirty/Clean. Poor/Rich. My book also said that people tend to love one and hate the other and that Marseille is a little gritty.

I also think the person who wrote my book is a douche.

Marseilles is kind of dirty. And there are a lot of immigrants. And there are lots of kebap shops and Middle Eastern restaurants and people walking around and broken glass and on and on.

I have to say that I really loved Marseille. We spent the least amount of time there, but I think out of everywhere, that's where I'd want to go back. We only walked around a very small portion of it, and there was just so much to see. So many people! We went into one area to get lunch, and there were all these little grocery stores with all the fruit outside in these stands and one shop with pots and pans and purses and pizza stands (there's also many people of Italian origin in Marseille).

Then we walked down to the pier to wait for our boat. I just had fries to eat, but I had a bit of someone's kepab (fabulous!).

At the pier, there's all these people selling fresh caught fish. My dad would have loved it.

Then we hopped on this boat for two islands off the coast of Marseille: If and Frioul.

Chateau d'If is most famous as the setting for the Count of Monte Cristo. The castle is really even though the count is not. Many people were locked up there and eventually went crazy, died, or both. I kind of poked around the castle, but it was just worth it to be on the island. The weather was perfect; the water was clear; the sun shone...

Then we caught the boat to Frioul, which was bigger and didn't have a castle. It did have some hills and fortresses, so we hiked around for a good bit. And I stuck my feel in the Mediterranean!

Then, we went to catch the boat (it was like a big tour boat, not so big as the one you take on the Mississippi, but it probably could hold a good 150 people), and the French boat person wouldn't let us on. He just cut off the line, and the boat was not full at all. We waited for like 45 minutes for the next one, at the boarding area, so we would be first. We got on the boat, but the stupid man cut the line off again, and there was tons of room available!

We went back to the apartment and had spaghetti. Someone bought wine again, which I didn't think was such a good idea. Then, we had to catch our train. We ran.

I mean, we RAN. We got to the platform with probably a minute to spare, but we boarded the train for the 10 minute TGV to Aix!

To be continued!