Marseille and the like

So Thursday after class after much stress in planning and tickets not working out, etc...I finally got on a train to the south of France. Let me tell you...everyone should go there. It was stunning and the weather was gorgeous.

Thursday:
School...boring.
Train from Paris-Lyon and then from Lyon-Marseilles
Got into Marseilles at around 10 and took a cab to our hostel cause apparently the buses in the town stop at around 9...lame. The hostel was a bit hard to find, too...even the cabbie got lost. So we check into this hostel and it was such a sweet place. The proprietors...if you can even call them that, were named Jean and Xavier and they were these two old pervy guys who I don't think I saw move from their couches more than once or twice in the whole 4 nights we were there. They also were very adament about telling me that I was pretty and then when I would walk away they would kind of old dirty French man laugh...gross. But they were truly harmless and nice. Plus the hostel was only 15 Euro a night which was sooo good. So our rooms all had kitchens and showers and toiles. The beds were more like...lofts I guess you could say. They were basically just mattresses on these planks that were attached to the ceiling. Our mattresses had a little closet nook thing behind them which was nice...we never had to leave our things on the floor. There had been some problems with theft before we arrived...I guess some guys had hoisted themselves into the room cause the window was open and had taken some girl's backpack that contained her laptop. Suck. But why on earth would you leave the window open if you were gone? Silly girls. Anyways...the other people in our room were all from Canada and were super nice. Two girls, Alex and Chris and a guy (Alex's boyfriend) named Sean. They were all just trekking through Europe and it was fun to hear their stories and some of their advice. Nice people. The first night we also met this Irish guy Eoin (pronounced Owen..silly Irish) who ended up hanging out with us the rest of the weekend which was nice. So basically we chatted all of them up a bit and conked out around 2.

Friday:
Slept in til around 10...so brilliant. Then we woke up and went out in search of groceries, got 4 days worth of food for 30 Euro...score. We went back to the room, grabbed Eoin, and headed out to this calanque (which is a rocky inlet cove-type thing) called Sugiton. The walk out there was a bit of a hike and we got a little lost in the hills, but when we found it it was just breathtakingly beautiful. The water was clear as day and you could see straight to the bottom no matter how deep. There were all these cliffs around so naturally we jumped off a few and swam around for a bit. It was just absolutely stunning...I cannot reiterate enough. It was a bit of a shock when I jumped in the water for the first time and realized it was, indeed salt water. Gross. But other than that swimming in the Mediterranean? How can you beat it!
After we dragged outselves away from Sugiton, we headed back to the hostel for a quick minute and then went out to downtown Marseilles where we found a nice little Irish bar that Eoin had been to the night before. I got my first on-tap Guinness...I am never going back after that one...maybe I will...but it will be hard. It was sooo good. We also did something quite shameful in going to Haagen-Daas afterwards and getting two giant sundaes to split...Oh decadence. After our little Marseillean adventure, we hopped on the metro and then walked the rest of our way to the hostel--it was about a 40 minute walk but it was so nice out. We got back decently late, all of us hopped in the shower to rinse the salt off of us, and we just hung out in our room with the people we met drinking beer and having a good time. Alex had cooked already so we just ate some of her left overs and called it a night.

Saturday:
Got up relatively early--around 9. WE COOKED SCRAMBLED EGGS. Enough said. The French don't believe in them and it sucks. So we made some breakfast and headed out to see if there were any good markets happening on a Saturday morning in Marseilles...and oh guess what? There were! So we did a bit of shopping, picked up a few things. Alex came with us for the markets but decided to head back and the three of us, Me and the two Jessicas, decided to stay and walk around the city. We just did some shopping and stopped to get lunch at a place by the Vieux Port (old port/harbor) where they had amazing seafood. I got salmon, but when I took a bite of Jessica's scallops I immediately regretted it. But everything was delicious right down to the coffee we had afterwards. I've noticed that French waiters are very suggestive. "Would you like dessert?" "Why yes...I would!" ***five minute later*** "Would you like a coffee?" "Well...why not?!" Yes...they are sneaky. Anyways...after we ate we realized something was happening that seemed a bit dangerous. There were tons...TONS of guys in the street chanting and hollering and lighting flares and doing what looked like a riot--especially since there were cops in riot gear there...but it turned out it was a celebration for the Algerian team doing well in soccer. They take their stuff very seriously over here apparently! So it was fun to go up and take some pictures of the celebration after we found out it wasn't hostile. We then tried to go out to Chateau D'If, the famous island from the Dumas books about the Musketeers and the Man in the Iron Mask...but it was too windy that day so we couldn't. Sad. Instead we went back to the hostel, caught up with Eoin and a few Americans--Mike and Marc (not related...still funny). And we walked to a beach and went swimming. Brilliant. Headed back home, cooked some pasta, tasty vegetables with garlic, and made some guacamole. We forced the boys to eat some because they don't like it...not ok. They still don't like it. Still not ok. Then we all headed to our respective beds for a nice night of sleep.

Sunday
Woke up pretty early to leave to go to a little town a bit away from Marseilles called Cassis. We got on a bus that took us out there and walked around a bit and just enjoyed being out of a big city for a while. The beaches and the water were clear as day again and everything was just so nice. However, I wish that the only people at these beaches that took off their tops weren't old women. Not so enjoyable. We just kinda lounged on the beach for a bit. The water was cold, but I still dove in head first whereas the other girls were not for that at all. It felt soo good but the water got deep really fast and I am afraid of the ocean to begin with so I stayed pretty close to shore...but it was still great. The sun was out there weren't any clouds. Parfait. The two Americans and Eoin were getting a bit hungry so we packed up and went in search of food and this is where we split up because us girls wanted to sit down somewhere outside and enjoy just relaxing and the boys wanted to grab something to go. So...no big deal. They left and we stayed. We got a great lunch at this little place and poked around Cassis for a bit then decided to go for a hike along the coast even though none of us were prepared for it AT ALL. Aka we were all in dresses, bikinis, and basically flip flops. Didn't stop us...we're hardcore. We hiked all the way from Cassis back to Marseilles along the coast up these huge mountains/hills and then down but pretty much each time there was a descent, there was a beautiful calanque with a beach that we stopped at to admire and just take a breather. It was so breathtakingly beautiful. The hike in total took us 8 hours and afterwards I had to throw away my shoes...which was kinda sad. But we got back to Marseilles right as the sun was setting and it was just so nice and pleasant...but tiring. Very tiring. So we got back, said goodnight and goodbye to the boys, and went to sleep a bit too late.

Monday
Train left at 6:30am so we got up at like 5:30 and had to be out by 5:50...not a problem right? Wrong. We got up just fine and left the hostel when we wanted to, but when we got close to the bus stop, one was leaving and we figured "no big deal...wait til the next one!" but as we got closer we saw that the next one wasn't coming for almost 20 minutes. Bad day. So I tried to call a cab and the guy wouldn't just come to the bus stop where we were at, he wanted an adderss which I had no idea what street we were on or any addresses so he hung up. Awesome. So then we got on a different bus, had to switch to the metro, ran up the escalators to get to the station with our sore feet and joints from the day before, and missed our train by 1 minute. Literally. Sad. It was really no big deal, but we did have to pay to change our tickets and all that. Oh well. We still got back to Paris in time for a quick shower and class (boo). For dinner I ate at this restaurant called Polidor that served traditional French cuisine and it was soooo good. It was a bit pricey, my meal was 23E, but it was so worth it. Then a bunch of us from the program were going to try to meet up at this bar because my French dad AND my friend's French dad both told us to go to it because the views are "some of the best in Paris". So we were supposed to go when I get a call from one of the Jessicas saying "we aren't going because we're here and it's 22E a drink...even juice and coke and stuff" YIKES. So instead we went to "our spot" which is just a corner cafe halfway between our two places with a big group of friends. One of our friends actually got engaged over the weekend so she bought a bottle of Champagne and then we all got beers and talked and laughed. So fun and relaxing and a nice way to end a very very long day.

That's all! Go to Marseilles!

Ann