Wednesday April 11th and 12th - Marseille

Though today is actually April 16th, I am still working on updating you about my vacation with my mom. In real time, that is to say, this morning, I took my first exam at the University of Savoie. It was for my Intro to the Supply Chain class. I didn't end up studying a lot during my vacation, but with David's quizzing help I crammed a lot yesterday and feel that I did very well on my exam this morning. I guess time will tell when I get my grade back (probably in like 4 more months) but I feel at least mildly confident about my performance. Also, tomorrow I have my hour-long presentation for Techniques de Vente, which I had already fully prepared before going on vacation. I have taken some time today to look over it once to make some last improvements, but really I think it is ready to go and I am kind of excited about the presentation because I get to evaluate the differences between American and French commerce based on my time spent in the two countries. I think it will be quite fun. So that brings you up-to-date with my real life, and now for telling you about Marseille:

So we left for Marseille (on our very sore legs from our hike to the cross) at 6:02 in the morning, meaning we were awake and getting ready by 4:30. As far as all that was concerned, however, everything went smoothly and we had no problems whatsoever. It was a total of 3 hours to get to Marseille, and my mom and David managed to get some sleep on the train, which lead to me having the only time I would have to study for my upcoming aforementioned Supply Chain exam. Once we arrived in Marseille, we headed to our hotel which was supposed to be nice and close to the train station. After about an hour of being lost and walking around in circles, I couldn't figure out why the hotel wasn't where it was supposed to be according to the maps that David had printed out. Well, unfortunately, somehow there was a mix-up and David had put the wrong address for the hotel on the map, and I didn't realize it initially because we had multiple sheets of printed out maps so that the roads would be big enough to read, but meaning that I couldn't situate the location of the hotel in the city based on the map we were looking at. Suddenly, while we were wandering around we came across a city map and I compared the intersection that we were looking at on David's map with the intersection on the map and I knew immediately what had happened, because I knew we weren't in the correct part of the city to find our hotel. Actually, I was glad that is what had happened because previously I was starting to get worried that our hotel didn't exist! To fix the problem David and I went to a McDonald's to use the free internet and look up the correct address of the hotel and get directions, after which we had no problems, dropped off our baggage in a very nice looking hotel and set off exploring.

Our two-day trip to Marseille had several highlights, but also several letdowns because of certain closures. For example, due to "weather" we were unable to go to the island of the chateau d'If because the ferry "couldn't dock during rough tides" but we went to the beach that day and could see nothing of overwhelming importance as far as waves were concerned, so we are not sure why the landing was so finicky, and we wished we would have known to expect the possibility that visits get frequently cancelled due to "weather". Also, one of the old forts that protected the old port at Marseille was closed for reconstruction (because they are attaching it to a nearby museum) but that meant that we couldn't visit the fort. Unfortunately there was nothing about this construction or closure online, or even on a street sign, so we walked all the way there to figure this out, which is just typical France. Also, I was in the peak of my sickness which did prevent us from going to very nice sit-down restaurants (it is very embarrassing to have to frequently cough and blow your nose if you are in a nice restaurant)...

On the other hand, we did get to go to the very impressive Basilica Notre Dame de la Garde, the fort Saint Nicolas, the Pharaoh palace, Saint Victor's Abbey, and the beach for a decent amount of time or relaxation. We got to watch some hard-core bocce ball games get played on some official "courts" near the fort Saint Nicolas, which was incredibly amusing because the players were so skilled. I have never in my life seen more successful bocce ball playing. I mean seriously every time they threw the ball they either placed their ball within a foot of the target, or skillfully, in one perfect trajectory knocked a competitor's ball away from the target. I mean the balls that knocked out other balls were honestly thrown threw the air, with a perfect arch and backspin so that they knocked the competitor's ball away and yet stayed generally close to the area of play. You can tell that I was really impressed by their skill, but it truly was awe-inspiring.

Here are some pictures from the trip:

David and I on the beach, showing off our hotdogs that we all purchased from a street vendor. They were enormous and filled with fries. They were really good.

This is a picture of the beach when we arrived. Because it was only about 70-75 degrees, maybe even about 65 when the wind really picked up, the people of Marseille had deemed it too cold to go to the beach. I suppose that was nice for us though because we did have the beach all to ourselves! (almost)

While I was sunbathing David and I amused ourselves by tempting our nearby pigeon audience to eat bread crumbs off of me. At first we had to convince them to eat the crumbs near me, then we finally succeeded at having them jump up and eat the crumbs, which this picture shows. We also took a pretty good video of the situation, with a funny ending because I laughed and scared the poor pigeon off me. 

There were a lot of stairs to get to the Basilica, and I would just like to remind everyone that we had put ourselves in traction the day before by climbing to the cross...

David and I with the basilica in the background.

Mom and I from the hilltop with the basilica, overlooking the ocean and city behind us. 

A view of the city from the hill of the basilica. I love all the orange roofs and the blue sky, even if it is slightly cloud-covered.

The chateau d'If as seen from the basilica

The beautiful and ornate inside of the basilica. 

Here is the view of the ceiling in the basilica. It was truly a beautiful church, and you should have seen the floor! It was the most ornate set of mosaic tiles, and they were so small! The detail that was put into this church was just unbelievable. Also, it had a drawbridge to get into it, so we think it served as some sort of military shelter at some point in its life. 

David and I at the fort Saint Nicolas.

The view of the fort Saint Jean as seen from the other ancient fort. Unfortunately that is the fort that we couldn't get into, but it did still propose an impressive skyline view.

This was my favorite bocce ball player because he was so calm, so serious, always had a perfect throw and had a really interesting "throw routine" which usually included squatting on the ground before doing some funky thing with his wrist and then throwing the ball. 

David and I in front of the Pharaoh Palace. We are not actually sure what this building is, but there we are in front of it!!

Overall I would say that our time in Marseille was rather successful, though there were some things that we were hoping to see and couldn't. However, I am glad to say that we have now been to the Mediterranean coast of France, something that I may not be able to do again during this trip to France. 

Ok well wish me luck for my presentation tomorrow, and I'll try to update you about the last leg of our journey tomorrow!