Right now I am sitting in the garden behind the Notre Dame. I said that to make you jealous. So yesterday I kinda felt a cold coming on, I spent most of the day at Prado Beach which is a little further away from downtown Marseille. Less people and less tourists. It was kind of a rocky beach but I liked climbing around. You know what they say about French beaches... There were a couple of naked old ladies. When in Rome (France) right? Just kidding. I wore a suit. Not a button-up mind you, the swimming kind. So after climbing around on the rocks and the pier I went and had une salade des fruits rouge. I'm pretty sure those were the best raspberries I've ever tasted. There isn't much to say about yesterday, like I said it was all beach. Today I took a train and I am currently in Paris. I was thinking as I was staring out the window on the train that it's hard not to notice your own reflection as you stare out the window. What a metaphor for life huh? You have to look past yourself to see the real beauty. Sometimes I get philosophical on long trips. I have a 7 hour 'layover' here and around 9 I board a night train to Barcelona. Is it weird that I'm excited to have a couchette on a night train? So you probably knew this was coming, but this is the part where I'm going to gush about Paris. Paris is down right pleasant. The weather is gorgeous and I've spent most of my time wandering through parks. I have been to Paris before, 5 years ago actually- and I don't remember enjoying it this much. The part where I've been is not dirty. It's not over-run by tourists yet, actually there are so many Parisian school children running around. I'm hearing "regarde Augutste, Auguste! Regarde!" All the buildings are those classy white stone with cast iron gates. I'm a succor for good architecture. I spent a lot of time in the Jardin de Luxembourg. It's huge. Tennis courts, basketball courts, playgrounds, fountains, statues, I came across a court where older Parisians were throwing silver balls at a small colored ball. I filmed them. Then they made fun of me. They said it would cost me 5€ to take a picture. There was also a section dedicated to chess-playing. I had a crepe, because that's required when you visit Paris. Someone's playing a saxophone in the background. How classy. That reminds me of New Orleans. I also made a playlist especially for Paris that I've been listening to all day. Cheesy I know. But have you met me? Playlist includes all the songs I have with 'Paris' in the title, lots of Celine Dion, Anastasia in French, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera.... Etc. The kids behind me, they're probably like 8 years old. One of the boys went up to this old lady and looked at her for a minute and smiled sweetly and said "Bonjour Madame" and she started yelling at him angrily in French. Threatened something about the police. :) There are a lot more tourists here than in Marseille, so I'm hearing a lot more English. I guess most of the tourists in Marseille were French tourists. Paris hasn't been too crowded though, their kids are still in school. You know what else makes Paris awesome? The Notre Dame has free wifi. .... 10 June 2016 Turns out I didn't get to sleep on a night train... Well I kinda did. The night train to Barcelona was cancelled. Striking again. Those dang train drivers. I met a guy from Wales in the information line, let's call him Gary. Gary gave the employees an earful for cancelling his train. He was actually going to Toulouse. I felt bad for the employees because he was chewing them out pretty badly. These guys actually showed up to work today, it's the strikers you should be angry at. I told Gary so when I was talking to him again later. They parked a train in the station and let all the passengers with cancelled night trains sleep onboard. So I slept in first class! Holla! And I'm taking an express train to Barcelona this morning, so I didn't actually lose that many hours. As we were standing in line waiting for our 'night train' Gary and his nephew saw me in line and 'cut the queue'. He was not a very courteous person. But we talked about what I should see if I ever visited Wales. Actually as luck would have it, most of the people on the train were from the UK. Some people say the French are rude about speaking French, but I was surprised how rude all the English speakers were. We are in France and they assumed everyone should speak English. I'm no European, but I can see why people find American tourists rude. They travel in packs and want everyone to do what they want them to do. By 'American' I mean U.S. Funny how those have become synonyms eh? We're pretty entitled. I found the French to be very nice. I had to store my luggage for the day yesterday and as I struggled to figure out how to do it, the guys at the luggage storage place were very helpful. And then when I went to pick up my bags I told one of them I was heading to Barcelona, and he asked if he could climb in my duffel bag and come with me. In Paris there are 2 major train stations about 10 minutes apart from each other (walking). I arrived at Gare de Lyon yesterday, walked to Austerlitz to put my luggage in a locker, and then explored the city. Then I slept on a train at the Austerlitz station and walked back to the Gare de Lyon this morn'. Weirdly enough I have liked all these little adventures. Especially when I meet new people. I shared a car with a French lady last night. She didn't speak any English. I left my baggage in the car a couple of times to go to the bathroom or to talk to other passengers, but she never left our car. Perhaps she didn't trust me with her stuff? She left at around 6 this morning, and I slept an extra hour. So my phone charger has been struggling this whole trip. Each time I plug my phone in I have to wiggle the cord a certain way to get it to charge. Stresses me out a little every time. This morning when I got to the station I found a charging station and I couldn't get my phone to charge for the life of me. As cliché and cheesy as it sounds, I read my scriptures and said a prayer. After a few more seconds of trying it started to charge. Prayer works guys. I've been pretty lucky that everything has worked out so well on this trip and I'm not too näive to ignore the fact that God's been looking out for me :) Well those are my last thoughts in Paris. I'll talk to you again later! Next city:
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I suppose wifi isn't the coolest thing to happen today, but it's the most recent. I've tried calling the manager (still no answer) and I've looked all over for the wifi password. Apparently temporary tenants don't get it. So how did I post this you ask? Well earlier today I actually went knocking on other people's apts to see if there was a generic access code. One girl was willing to give me her personal one but she couldn't remember her password.
Then, hours later, I hear a knock on my door. The girl next door went out and found her username and password and let me use her personal wifi! I'm going to buy her chocolates or something. The people here really are very nice. On the bus I keep seeing younger people give up their seat to older people, and not necessarily old frail people- but a teenager will stand up for a woman ion her 40's or 50's. Today in the grocery store a woman got in line with a crying baby and everyone in line let her go in front of them so she could get out of the store. I could see in America people getting annoyed and complaining about the noise. I've just been really impressed with the people of Southern France. I went and got my City Pass this morning which included a trip to the Chateau D'if and then a touristy train ride around town. The Chateau was cool! I was talking to a guy from Quebec about it later and he said he wasn't impressed, but I thought it was awesome! The best part was that there weren't a lot of people there. Funny how tourists dislike other tourists. But I don't like going to crowded places. I took so so many pictures at the Chateau D'if! Like a lot. If you don't know what the Chateau D'if is, it's the prison/castle/fortress in the Count of Monte Cristo. The boat we took over to the castle was the Edmund Dantes. When end we got back to the harbor I went and had lunch. I asked the guy if he spoke English but then I ordered in French :). That's the best way to do it actually. He would still say things in French when he found out I could understand but much slower and a lot more clearly. The meal I got came with a 'muffin' and it was actually a pretty delicious cupcake with bananas and caramel in the middle. Which got me thinking.... What is the difference between a muffin and a cupcake? The sugar level? One's a breakfast food? Je ne sais pas. Then an I took the touristy train ride around the eastern part of town. We stopped at the Basilica Notre Dame de la Garde which sits on a pretty big hill in the middle of the city. I met Terry from Quebec on the train ride. He is traveling France alone for a month. He was probably in his 50's. After the train ride I walked around town a little, then came back to my very own apt. and took a nap. After nappin' went grocery shopping and made myself dinner in my very own kitchenette. That's all for today! One more full day in Marseille! Au revoir. I don't have wifi here, which means I can write this on my iPad but I can't post it until later. Which might actually be a good thing. Today was a little stressful. It started out normal, I took the Brussels metro to the train station. I found out that the train I reserved was cancelled due to strikes in France. Inconvenient. I had talked to Donna (Cliffs of Moher) a little bit about this (this meaning how the French train workers have been striking a lot lately), I didn't know what they were demanding but she seemed to think their demands were unreasonable. Donna seems sensible so take that into account as you form your opinions about the strikes :) I wait about 2 more hours for the next train to Marseille. I get on and choose a seat, assigned seats don't matter anymore because it's not even our train they're just trying to crowd everyone on when a train shows up. A guy from Germany sits next to me. I would guess he's a bit younger than me, not because he looks younger because he acts younger. He was on his way to Barcelona to try to meet people to party with. (not that I'm too old to party :) He asked if I was traveling solo.... Don't worry mom I told him I was meeting a friend. I even had a story made up in case he asked. In a previous post I said I tell 'everyone' I'm traveling alone, but I'd like to clarify that I by 'tell everyone' I mean that I quietly whisper it to really frail old ladies, and then I run away before they can kidnap me. So in the scenario I made up- the friend I was meeting would have been named Kyle, that way if he were to ask questions about him I would just answer them about my brother. Kyle would have been studying abroad in Paris and was going to meet me for a vacation in Marseille. Kyle was also fluent in French. But alas, Dieter didn't ask about Kyle. Yes I nicknamed him Dieter because of the apostle from Germany. Each stop more people would get on the train. A woman tried to get me to get out of her reserved seat, but I wasn't able to respond adequately with my limited language skills. Luckily Dieter stepped in to defend my honor (actually my seat but it was still pretty chivalrous). I returned the favor by telling him we were only at Avignon when he was trying to disembark- I knew he was going to Marseille. He spoke decent French but he seemed more comfortable with English. I don't want to make assumptions, but I would assume that German is his first language... Seeing as that's where he's from. At one point on the train ride the girls in front of us were playing BACKSTREET'S BACK by the Backstreet Boys. That's my jam! Well I suppose I have lots of jams (and jellies). I didn't realize how much these guys (and by 'these guys' I mean Europeans) listen to American music! Guys they love us! So I got off the train 5 hours later in Marseille. I just realized the only thing I've paid for today are bathrooms. 50¢ for the Brussels train station (and it wasn't even that fancy) and 80¢ for the St. Charles station (much more fancy). I ate leftovers, free breakfast, and yesterday's groceries. Well unless you count the money I spent on the train pass and the City Pass I paid for a few months ago.... I've been doing pretty good eh? So Marseille. First impressions: sunny, more Arabic people, more black people, and the people seem happier and more friendly... You don't see people smile on the street in cities very often. I saw a few of those. My first impression of Marseille was very pleasant. I had to walk 18 minutes to the tourist office with my backpack and duffel bag and I felt weirdly safe (don't worry mom, I'm still street smart thanks to that VHS we watched in our youth). It's a little ironic I felt so safe walking to the tourist office... because of what happened later. Intended foreshadowing. The tourist office was having technical difficulties so they gave me a 24 hr. public transport pass and told me to come back tomorrow morning. They were all very nice. I walked around the corner where there were 12 different bus stops. I'm sure that has something to do with the fact that it was near the Marseille Office de Tourism. So I take the bus to the address of where I'm supposed to stay. I actually paid to stay for 3 nights in a student apt. on campus. It was comparable to the price of a hostel, and I get my own space for a few more nights! I was a little worried because you don't 'check-in' with anybody- they e-mail you an access code to get in the building and another code for a key box. And they didn't e-mail that to me until last week. So I get to the apt, and the access code isn't working. I try to call the manager but it goes straight to voicemail and all I can do is leave a message. I'm starting to stress a little. With transportation I can usually find another route- but what about a place to stay? So I go back to my e-mail and read the latest e-mail again and realize the manager changed the address from the first one he had told me, he has me staying in another student apt. complex he owns closer to downtown. So I Google-mapped directions. Google maps has saved my life. As I approach the bus stop I see a guy already there. We start talking, his English is not-the-best, so we stick to a mixture of English and French. He starts hitting on me pretty hardcore. Asks if I'm married, when I say no, he say's 'why not?' I don't like when people ask me that. What am I supposed to say? 'Oh you know, no one really wants to marry me...so that's why'. Ha. Alright I guess I have to take some of the blame ;). Anyway, He asks if he can come to Barcelona with me. I laughed pretty hard at that one. I'm pretty sure he was kidding? Maybe I shouldn't have laughed in his face. He asked if I was alone, so I pulled out my 'meeting a friend' story. He asked me if it was my boyfriend. Then he asked me if I was in love. He asked if he could have my Facebook. I told him I didn't really know him well enough. Didn't want to give away my last name. See - Street smart. I did give him my phone number. So maybe disregard the 'Street smart' comment :) Man I'm such a succor. If I don't come home it's because I've run away with this guy from Marseille. His stop was before mine, so he didn't see where I was staying. At least I'm kind of street smart right? A couple of crazy things happened on that bus ride that actually affected me pretty intensely- As we were on the bus, we passed another bus station and slowed down. We saw a little crowd of people gathered around the curb looking down at something. They were huddled around this lady on the ground. As we got closer I saw a pool of blood around her head. As many of you know I get queasy very easily. I'm not good with injuries in real life. (movies are sometimes okay- like I'm totally fine with Lord of the Rings gore :) and I had never seen anything like that in real life. Like there was a lot of blood and the lady wasn't moving. It shocked me a little. The French guy I was talking to kept asking if I was okay. Unfortunately I had a good view of her as we passed. It looked like she might have hit her head on the curb. Yikes. I didn't get as light headed as I normally do around that stuff. I usually don't handle it very well. But it was one of those life experiences where the image burns in your mind. I can't stop thinking about it. That freaked me out a little. Then a few minutes later I had another intense experience with violence. So further down the road the bus stops at a stop light. There is another crowd next to us and they start pushing up against the bus. Right outside my window two guys are yelling at each other in French. By this point the guy I was talking to had already gotten off at his stop. So these two guys arguing outside my bus window are drawing a crowd of people. A couple of people have come in and are trying to calm everyone down, but most of the crowd is just spectators. The crowd starts to move in front of the bus, so the bus can't move. Then one of the two guys fighting pulls out a gun and points it at the other guy. Yikes. I'm not sure if I was more scared of getting shot or seeing someone get shot. But I freaked out. It was intense. It didn't seem to affect the other people on the bus as much as me. I know guns are common and shootings happen all the time, but I had never BEEN in a situation where I felt like I could get shot. I know that sounds naive and privileged but it scared me. Eventually after the bus honked at the crowd, it was able to move and we didn't see what happened with the argument. My bus stop was only a few more seconds down the street. When I picked up my bags to get off the bus I was shaking. I wanted to get inside a building as quickly as possible. I had a hard time finding the right apartment, but never fear! I'm now safe in my own student apartment in downtown Marseille. I should be fine tomorrow. I'll just hug my pillow. Don't worry I'm still having a blast. Though that sounds weird to say right after that story. The mornings are always safer. |