This past weekend, I took Kevin on a “surprise” trip to France. His friend Kara works in Marseille as an English tutor and we went to go visit her before she returns to New York. For those of you who are as confused by France as I was, or just didn’t know, here’s a map of France with Marseille circled in red.
Yup, we went right next to the Mediterranean Sea. It was so nice there, our weather was in the 70’s all week, there was a nice breeze, oh! And we had our own personal interpreter. The only way we could have had a better trip would be if we had stayed longer. I can honestly say, I only ever wanted to go to Paris, just so I could say I had been to Paris, but WOW! It was so beautiful and the people were so nice, I’d love to go again.
Here’s how our weekend went. We started out early on Friday at 6:00am. Ya know, just for fun. We had to take a city bus to the train station, a train to the coach station and another bus to the airport. We got there plenty early but we didn’t want to take any chances. Our flight left at 1:30 and took an hour and 45 minutes so landed at 3:15pm (Since, for those of you doing that hard math in your head, France is an hour ahead of the UK). We got out of the airport with nothing but a saved facebook message telling us where to go and how to get there. It was a little scary but we made it!
Here’s a picture of Kevin and I standing victoriously in the airport having bought our tickets for the tram and the train to get into the main city.
Then we had to wait about an hour for the next train that would take us into Marseille, luckily we had these gorgeous views to entertain us with! The walls of the train station were also very cool.
When we got into Marseille and out of the train station, this is what greeted us. This is Notre Dame de la Garde (Our Lady of the Guard). Notre Dame de la Garde is considered by the population to be the guardian of the city, overlooking and protecting it from atop the hill. More on that later.
Then we had the more up close view. I love European cities because they are so short and compact.
This is Kevin’s friend Kara! She is awesome and even threw a party for us on Friday night.
"Does the blue wavy line reflect the oceans that connects the Americans and the French?"
Kara also asked Quentin if the French flag had the blue on the top or the bottom… She was making a sign up list to teach the French people how to play beer pong.
French computers are very strange. Everyone check out the AQWZ buttons on your keyboard. Now find M up there. Also, you have to hit the shift button to get a period or any of the numbers. Quite different from American and UK keyboards. (The only difference there is the @ and the “ are switched.)
They have rats named Tegan and Sarah (White and grey respectively)
Me and Kara at the party. Everyone loved me because of my tie dye shirt.
Someone took my camera at some point and took some interesting pictures for me.
Such as this one of Kara and Kevin rapping.
Kevin and I on the couch/our bed the next afternoon eagerly awaiting to go into town.
Kara was all ready to go, dressed in stuff that some people had randomly left at her apartment.
Kara took us to the harbour in Marseille and this is a picture of the two of us by the gorgeous water.
Then Kevin and I had to get a picture taken.
Then Kara and Kevin had to do theirs. Of course, they had to be different and point to a boat. :)
This HUGE band was just standing out on the walk playing and had someone dressed up in a weird costume asking for tips for the band. It was pretty awesome.
Although, my favourite part was this, the toy duck that had an upside down plastic bottle top taped to it’s back that walked around to collect tips.
They had a market going on where they sold soaps, pictures, and then there was a really cool booth full of leather things. They had these leather cat purses. I thought Tara would like these.
This is a typical building in Marseille, they had them in random places and they were absolutely gorgeous.
The top of the building is awesome too. I wish they still built things like this.
There was a random carousel on side walk, I thought that was pretty awesome. Sadly, I didn’t get to go on it.
There is a story behind this hat and it links to what the title of this blog is. We were in a nice little chapellerie which is a hat store and the three of us were trying on hats. Fist off, to get into the shop, we had to hit a buzzer so they could ring us in. Then, the woman barely said a word to Kara when she walked in. We wanted to try on some hats so we just continued. We weren’t taking pictures, we weren’t destroying the place, we were all actually trying on hats with the intent of finding one to buy…crazy I know right?! Well, the shop woman who knew Kara spoke French came over and told her, “You need to stop. You can’t do this in the store.” So Kara kinda laughed nervously and was like, “Yeah okay.” The woman freaked out and said, “Translate this now and tell her, You can’t have fun in this store.” So I stopped trying on hats even though I was thinking about buying one. Kevin got some attitude from her and then she was kind of nasty to Kara when she went up to pay. Apparently, she thinks that to have the French accent down perfectly, one must be living in France for ten years at least. Kara shocked her by saying she’d been there for two years and was actually an American. Dang. What a great way to run a business, be a jerk to your customers.
In the train stations, they had cool walls at the stops, this was an example of one where they also had a huge fish tank.
I have to explain the afternoon/evening of the next set of pictures for you guys to properly understand what is happening. One of Kara’s students, Marie-Sophie, is horrible in English but her parents love America. When she was talking about how we were coming, the parents got really excited and asked her if we could come over for dinner one night. They started preparing the dinner on Tuesday and we ate on Saturday. It was so good and so amazing and so over the top. I think this was a huge part of what convinced me I loved France. Everything they made for us was local Provincial dishes since Provence is the area Marseille is in.
Also, not going to lie, some of the picture captions have been stolen from Kevin off of Facebook. Everyone say, “Thanks Kevin!”
Our host and hostess, Marc and Sophie. They, like most French, smoke all the time.
The pre-dinner display. Mixed nuts, olives stuffed with anchovies, and a mixed assortment of spicy olives and beans.
They kept bringing out new bottles of wine for us to drink and kept refilling our glasses for us. Between the seven of us and four hours, we killed about 8 bottles of wine.
This amazing salad with artichokes and smoked ham in olive oil. It was so good and the flavours, though they may sound weird, went very well together.
Peppers and anchovies drenched in olive oil.
Wonderful chicken that was made using local herbs.
They also made us lamb, which was so tender, and turkey kabobs.
The dinner table, of which you can only see Quentin, Kara’s boyfriend,and I.
They brought out some great cheese for us. It would be illegal to sell these in the US because it was unpasteurized cheese.
And then gave us older red wine that they tasted before deciding it was worth enough to give to their guests.
Sophie must have made about 16 of these because she brought out exactly what everyone wanted and then offered us more. We had to try everything but we were so stuffed at this point! This one was Kevin’s and it was tiramisu with home made peanut brittle dipped in dark, milk, and white chocolate.
Mine was raspberry that tasted like cheese cake. It was so delicious!
Sophie then made coffee for everyone. I didn’t drink mine but I loved the cups!\
This dog, Beep, was so patient. I had fed him appetizers earlier and he never left me alone. Till Marc shooed him away asking me if he was boring me because the dog was boring him. I think he meant annoying.
Kevin and I at the house. The people were so in love with us they said if we ever came back, they would get us the most expensive foe gras, which is fattened duck, and make it for us. They also offered us their house to stay in for our honey moon since we are getting married and apparently going to France.
Marc and Kara in an intense conversation.
Sophie, probably during one of the many arguments they had over whether or not Rachel and I should get married. Sophie hates marriage and Marc thinks it's beautiful. He asked her to marry him like 18 years ago, and she said "What are you talking about? It's one in the morning." He said, "Fine. I'll never ask you to marry me again." They're still not married. Love them. They also got into an argument while we were there about getting married again.
Our group, minus Kara. They are such lovely people.
Sophie just loved us.
After Sophie went to bed, Marc came with us to explore the beach and of course, I couldn’t keep my eyes open because of the flash that lit up the car!
This next group of pictures are from the Marseille skate park which has been used in a Tony Hawk video game. The park never closes and people can show up at any time to practice.
Quentin
Me
The skate park was right next to the beach so Kevin went into the Mediterranean Sea.
And then Kara followed him!
The next day, we woke up early and went to Notre Dame de la Garde which is a basilica. It’s at the highest natural point in Marseille which is 532 feet on a limestone cliff and was built on the remains of an old French fort that was there until 1536.
The view from halfway up the hill.
First sight of the basilica up-close!
The view from the top of the steps was breathtakingly.
The sea was just so blue.
I was a really big fan of the blue stripes going on.
They had steps going up on either side of the basilica. One side had an enclosed observation point and the other had an upraised platform that you could get great pictures from.
We had to stand outside the doors of the basilica before getting in because there was a mass going on. Luckily, we were the first ones in when it opened and it was absolutely gorgeous.
This is probably my favourite part of Catholic churches. The lighting of the candles for prayers.
The place was gorgeous. The ceilings were amazingly decorated.
I liked the angels holding up the roof.
And the altar wasn’t too bad either.
They had boats hanging from the ceiling because they were gifts along with pictures on the walls of ships. The sailors who made it safely home through storms or just wanted to show their gratitude would donate these paintings and ships to the church.
A couple of balconies in case you didn’t want to sit with the common folk.
Prayer candles
These were outside on the observation deck.
Guide to show you where the sites were in Marseille.
Our hosts for the weekend! Kara and Quentin.
Love.
The side, just to show of the beautiful stripes.
Then we had to go home sadly. We left Marseille and Kara and Quentin at 6pm, got on our plane at 9pm, and got back to BC at 1am. Then I got to wake up early the next day and go to work! YAY!
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