I know it's French but...

I just can't get used to the sound of someone playing an accordion outside my bedroom window.

Marseille, France: Day 2 (Le City Pass)

The first day I arrived in Marseille, I went to the tourism office and bought myself a 2-day 'City Pass'. This thing is fantastic. I get unlimited use of bus, metro and trams, entry into any museum, Petit Train tour of the Vieux Port, boat ride to the Chateau d'If and many many more things that could easily be done in 2 days. Except I had spent the first of the two days (unexpectedly) on the other side of the city, hanging out by the water all day. So in order to get my money's worth (27€ to be exact) I played beat the clock on a Sunday afternoon, trying get the most out of my City Pass and to check out what the city of Marseille had to offer. Here is a list of things I did last Sunday...

1) Guided tour of la Rue de la République

2) Musée de la Mode - where I checked out this really cool exhibit from Designer Fred Sathal.
3) Musée de la Marine et de l'Économie
4) Seaside Market

5) Boat ride to the famous Chateau d'If
6) Tour of the prison at the Chateau d'If
7) Boat ride from Ile d'If to Ile Frioul and then back to Marseille
8) Petit Train tour around Marseille up to the Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde
9) Fish Market at the Vieux Port
9) Irish pub to grab a few pints and watch a football match between Liverpool and some other city. Liverpool won.

10) Took the bus along the coast all the way back to the beach to have dinner.

Though I crammed what seemed like a million things into one day, I managed to see all I wanted to see in Marseille. It's a nice city, even though it's filled with tourists, and it was the perfect place for me to spend my long weekend, during the heat wave.

As for days three and four... well, naturally I spent the day on the beach. Several beaches. Four, to be exact.

Marseille, France: Day 1

Well, it's been a pretty busy week. For starters, last I had some time off work so I spent the weekend in Marseille. It was just what I needed. It was the beginning of a heat wave here in Lyon and as much as I love this city, it just can't compare to one with tons of beaches and the Mediterranean sea. I got on the train at 8am and by 10am I had arrived at Gare St-Charles. I bought my train tickets really early and was able to get 1st class tickets for the same price as coach.
I arrived and made my way to the youth hostel with the directions I had gotten from the internet. After taking a metro I was to take the bus and then walk for a couple of hundred meters. While I was waiting for the bus, a young guy asked me if I spoke English and knew when the next bus was arriving. I answered yes to both of his questions, and we quickly realized that we were going to the same place. Seeing as we had about half an hour to kill while we waited for the bus, we chatted about jobs, movies and our respective home countries (he's from Germany). It wasn't until we were almost at the hostel before we learned each others names. His was Domenik; he's a graphic designer/model whose friends went back to Germany the day earlier (he stayed to visit his brother) and now had limited funds and no way to get home. He asked me if I thought he could hitchhike from here to Germany, and I explained to him that where I come from it's pretty dangerous, but I think it's pretty acceptable here. I told him that I think the main obstacle he'll run into is that, in this tourist filled beach town, not many people will be driving back to Germany. The people in Marseille are mostly just visiting from different regions of France.

After checking into the youth hostel, I ran into Domenik again. Seeing as how its been awhile since I've been near large masses of water, I decided to go to the beach. I asked Domenik which was the sea, and he said he was going that way and that I could follow him. I asked him if he was going to the beach and he said no and that there were too many people. He was still going to go to he sea, just at a different 'less touristy' part. He asked me if I wanted to join him and I said sure. We got on a bus and about a half hour later we had reached the end of the road. The bus dropped us of and we decided to walk along the coast to find a good place to hang out for the day. We met this guy named Abdel and asked him if he knew a good spot. He said he was going that way and that we could follow him. He led us to these rocks where people could jump into the sea from different levels.

From 1m to 10m you could plunge into the refreshing saltwater and then climb up and do it all over again. It was pretty awesome, not to mention the spectacular view and the fact that there was barely anyone around. After almost two hours of being astounded by the beauty of my surroundings, I called it a day and told Domenik that I would be heading back to town. He said he would stick around that spot awhile longer, but that he would see me back at the hostel.

Later that day, I walked around the town, went back to the beach (went for a quick dip) and had dinner at this lovely beach side restaurant while I watched the sunset. It was fantastic. I saw colours in the sky that I had never seen before.
After dinner and sunset, I returned to the hostel to grab a sweater. I had seen a poster announcing that there were going to be fireworks on the beach that night. When I got there I ran into Domenik and asked him if he wanted to come. He said 'ya' and after we grabbed our jackets we made our way down to the beach. The fireworks were amazing. They were put to music, and went on for almost 30 minutes. While sitting on the beach, Domenik and I discussed our home countries' different national holidays and annual celebrations. He explained Oktoberfest to me and invited me to Munich this fall to come and experience it first hand. I told him all about Canada day and the fireworks competitions at La Ronde and what poutine was like.
The fireworks ended and we stayed on the beach exchanging email addresses and talking until around midnight. We met for breakfast the next morning at the hostel where we said our goodbyes and I wished him good luck on his journey home.

Thus marked the beginning of my big fun filled touristy day in Marseille! To be continued.....

Cleaning à la taille

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As you know, I work at H&M. I am a 'vendeuse' who works 22hours on a CDI (Contrat a durée Indeterminée) This is an awesome thing to have. Apparently, once you complete your trial period of two months, it is really hard to fire someone who possesses a CDI. I work four days a week, with a staff of about 40 co-workers.

I started work the other day and there really wasn’t much to do. Not very many customers to help out, the place was quite clean since everything was organized the night before. So I asked someone who works in my department what we should be doing at a time like this. She informed me that today, we would be ‘Cleaning à la taille’.

Putain! C’est. Le. Pire. Cleaning à la taille consists of going through every rack of clothing and placing the garments in order from smallest to largest. We did this all day long, everywhere in the store. It was the longest shift I had worked so far (8 hours) and by the time the day was over, I wanted to cut my fingers off. But at one point in the day when I was thinking about how much this menial task was getting on my nerves (specifically while I was sorting through purple lacy tops), I realized that... I’m in France. I have the permission to work legally in a foreign country where I don’t really speak the language that well, not to mention the fact that I was able to find a job – in THIS economy- within two weeks of my arrival.

So right there in front of the lacy purple tops, I decided to take pride in the stupid task that I had been assigned. And I gladly placed the size 38 behind the size 36 and finished my long boring day off with a smile on my face. Because I did it; I had a random thought to visit Europe for a few months, which morphed into me moving to France by all by my lonesome. Actually going through with it, and finishing something that I started is what I’m most proud of. I think the thing I’m second most proud of was how organized that store was when I left that day.

À toute a l'heure!

Thank you Mr. Hughes

I’m sure by now you have all heard that John Hughes passed away earlier this week. Some of you may not know him by name, but he was one of the greatest filmmakers of our generation. His work has at one point in time put a smile upon each and every one of our faces. I just wanted to take a minute to appreciate and remember the man who created such films as Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Home Alone, Uncle Buck, the always underestimated Curly Sue, Vacation, European Vacation and Christmas Vacation just to name a few.

And to honor his memory, here are a few great scenes written by the late, great John Hughes.

A day in the life

I will start this post off by apologizing for not having written sooner. I see this blog as a vehicle to pass on information about the fun and exciting things that happen to me here in France, and lately, well… there just hasn’t been anything fun and exciting to write about. I live here now. I'm just going through the motions like you guys are. The other day my mom asked me what I had been doing lately (I assume she was expecting a typical French story involving a mime, an accordion and ends with me wearing a beret). I had nothing to really tell her so I reminded her that “I live here now; my days are probably as un-eventful as yours are in Montreal”. So for those of you who find yourselves wondering what Sophia’s up to over in France, I thought I’d make it easy for you and let you in on my daily regime.

Firstly, I wake up; usually around 10h30. I make a French press full of Costa Rican coffee and throw a bit of yesterday’s baguette in the oven. Then I make my way into the living room (coffee and baguette in hand) to chill out and enjoy 40 minutes of uninterrupted Newport Beach. After that, I will either read my book (in case you’re wondering, I’m currently reading The Namesake – thanks Lisa) or check my email and my Facebook and the rest of the internet to see how your side of the world is doing. (If it’s a day where I have to work, this is probably the part where I would go to work and return – exhausted – at around 19h30) Then I hear Sarah’s voice in my head tell me to “get outside and do something, it’s a beautiful day”. So I reluctantly muster up the energy to get up and do something, and see what’s going on in the world outside of my apartment. I go on walks exploring the new neighborhood in which I live, I try to go to museums, to the movies, sometimes I people watch or I’ll rent a bike and check out the ‘other side of the river’. Then I’m usually home by 5 or 6, have chat with the roommates about their day, figure out what to have for dinner and the go to the supermarché to pick it up. Then I cook dinner and we eat at around 8pm. Once that’s all over, we watch a downloaded episode of Skins or How I Met Your Mother and then decide what we’ll do that night. The usual nightly activity often seems to involve Guitar Hero or going out for a drink somewhere.

So there you have it, a day in my life abroad. Exciting enough for ya?

What's French for 'locksmith'?

After a long day of work in an UNair-conditioned H&M, (and being bummed about not being at Jenn's b-day party in Mtl) I was really looking forward to a nice relaxing meal out with (the new couple) Eimear and Valentin. We decided to go to this restaurant around the corner called Flam's. Their specialty are these pizza-like dishes cooked in a wood oven, with a very thin crust and a variety of toppings that don't include tomato sauce. Delish. What really sold us on the restaurant was the unlimited Flams plus dessert for 11€.

We could tell that the place was kind of full when we arrived, but after we were seated, we noticed that there were only two waitresses working in this whole place. Seating new clients, cleaning off tables, re-setting tables, taking orders, pouring drinks and bringing out the food. Did I mention that this restaurant has two floors? It was like a short-staffed Saturday afternoon at Homestyle (Sarah, you know what I mean?). So we ordered our first Flam and when that arrived after 5 minutes we thought we were in for an awesome evening filled with unlimited Flams. When 20 minutes passed and we hadn't yet gotten our second serving of delicious Flam, we started getting impatient. After waiting for what felt like an eternity but was probably only actually 35 minutes, I went up to our waitress and asked if it would be much longer. She had the nerve to tell me that it wasn't her who was our waitress but the other girl. (She was DEFINITELY our waitress, but whatever). She then said that she would get right on it. 10 minutes after that, she brought us 2 flams that we didn't order. Valentin ate them anyways, while I waited for my flam that wasn't covered in veggies.

I got my flam and ate it. We were all in kind of a bad mood from waiting so long and for the crap service. But I ate my flam and ordered the best dessert EVER. It was delicious, and almost made up for the 'Hell's Kitchen' pace of our food delivery.

During our meal, a friend of Valentin's who was staying at our place came by to pick up the key to our apartment. Valentin gladly gave him the keys and continued to eat his Flam. 20 minutes later his phone rang. It was his friend telling him that he had broken the key in the door. Turns out, the friend tried to use the tiny mailbox key in our giant front door lock. Valentin left to go see how bad the damage was while Eimear and I waited for dessert.

The guys called a locksmith... at 10pm on a Friday night. And 500€ later, we've got a new lock, a new set of keys and one really broke and really unhappy roommate. And I can't get my mail.

That was a summary of my Saturday night. Oh wait, then the four of us played Cranium, in French.

fin.

P.S. How was your Saturday night?