Sun Chaser

So! The toussaint holidays are in full swing and I have decided to chase the sun in earnest. So while everyone is freezing their butts off going to Paris, Strasbourg and Lyon, I decided to head to Arles and Marseille for a short stint.

Arles in 5 words. Small, quaint, caves, great market. That's it. lol

Marseille...wow Marseille. BEYOND Words. I mean, yuh stink. The city could do with a good scrub, more garbage bins and less horny africans and Algerians (more on that later), but WOW. What a gem. If you really want 'to do' Marseille you either have to be youngish or a pretty active older person. All of the gems are on a mountain, around the corner, 20 kms away. Some attractions, comme Notre Dam, you can get to by using the little choo choo trains for les gens paresseux. (this immersion is doing wonders! Im starting to drop in french randomly nowadays lol). Others, like Les Calanques, you better walk with your defibrillator if you're not up  to scratch on the fitness. There's no choo choo, no plane, no shuttle. The bus drops you at the bottom of the cliffs and you are on your own.
My advice after doing a portion of Calanques in 4 hours - Make sure you leave energy, strength, mental fortitude for the walk back. I barely made it back. BARELY.

Anywhoser, I arrived in Marseille on Thursday 24th. Coincidentally I had a journey booked to Germany for the same period but that fell through. However, I am ecstatic that I didn't spend my time being cold in Germany (although I am not ecstatic about the Euro100 wasted, I'll try to forget that in the next 10 years or so lol). It was 22 degrees C. Warm enough in my books and I decided to set off early and take advantage of my midday arrival. After being stalked by a Senegalese on Rue de la Republique who decided he would DIE if he didn't tell me how beautiful I was, I decided to head to Notre Dam. Yaz, who I rented my studio from, assured me that 'everyone' does Notre Da9m by foot... :\  . Silly and stupid me. I was the ONLY person huffing and puffing, knees to chest, trying to counteract gravity on my way up a 70 degree slope (I swear) to the Notre Dam. After about 15 minutes and much sweat later, I finally made it. And, it was soooooo worth the work. Marseille is laid out like a lady in waiting at your feet. The views are breathtaking and it's easy to tune out and lose yourself in them. Alas, the Frioul islands were waiting and I had a date for the 4.50pm boat shuttle. After sprinting past an accident and a man floating in mid air begging for money (I swear!! these marseillans), I made the shuttle to do even MORE hiking (and risk a buss ass) on the Frioul islands. Another worth while experience.
Calcite veins, limestone mountains and a small fort all made the journey, by foot, an exciting one.

On Friday, I woke up sore and decided to head to the Calanques. I decided there and then comfort over fashion and donned my running shoes. Thank GOD I did that or else I would've died a most grizzly death up in those mountains/cliffs. 4 hours. 4 hours of highs lows, feeling vulnerable and small or like a conquering lion. And I didn't even do the whole thing. Apparently all of these cliffs are connected and you can explore a series of them. In the 4 hours I was there (I walked for 3.5 hours) I did 1 Calanque (Surgiton) and went to the 'beach'. But again, entirely worth it. I'd like to bring my family up here one day if they come to visit, but I am sure someone will suffer with some coronary issue...soooo..scratch that lol). It is beaaauuutiful.

Back to the studio at 6pm and I get a text...hey! wanna come to Aix to lime? uuuh.why not!! So off to Aix I go where I had 45 minutes of blissful sleep (and thank god I did that) where I met up with a trini ex-convent girl studying in France. We shared tales of when she just arrived 5 years ago and the constant faux pas she made. With all that said, her french is pretty bad ass right now. I have hope. lol So 4 hours, 2 sangrias and 2 horny africans later, I return to my studio knowing that i'm going to feel this on Saturday morning.

Oh and feel it I did. Waking up and stretching was an exercise in patience and trying to unfurl myself as my body set into some type of rigamortis. Muscles, joints everything. Stiff and painful! Ah well! Vacation is still happening so! Gotta go! I discovered in the cafe across the street that they serve a sinful chocolat chaud. I was informed that they have two types of chocolat chaud..the regular milo/nesquik type and the OTHER type. The OTHER type is just melted chocolate..yes thick, rich, warm, melted chocolate served in a tea  cup...WHAAT!! yeaaah... the OTHER type won hands down. I don't think I can drink regular hot chocolate ever again :(

So after being followed by an Algerian named Assiz who gladly showed me around old Marseille, it was time to go home. I was sad as Assiz informed me that I was missing the last night of some huge music festival happening that night, but I just really wanted my bed in boring, snoozy ole Nimes. It was fantastic, but it was time.

So! That is it! Back to reality where I have to go to the bank tomorrow to curse and threaten as after 5 weeks, I STILL have not received my bank card from La Banque Postale...wtf!

More on that....

It's the Holidays!!!

Now I see why the french has so many holidays. Their work and school days are grueling.

8-6pm and whatnot. Madness. But ! Today is the first day of the Toussaint holidays. It's two weeks long and I'm going to use it to its fullest !!

I'm off to Arles today, then next week I'm going to gangster/mafia land ! Marseille! :)

Hopefully I bring back some fab stories from both trips :)

The orifice is really a valley.

Nimes is...funny. hilarious even.

I'll keep this short as I'm STILL laughing.

My housemate and I went down to the CAF office to enquire about housing aid (as we make so little money) and the CSR took one look at the both of us and started referring to us as a 'couple'!

My English and her Italian understanding thought that homeboy was using it to mean pair...

Ooh Noooo he wasn't ! Lolol.

As we entered the final stage of the interview she asked 'why is all the money going into one account ? Do we just split it when we get the money?'.

He looked mystified, we were confused. Until the magic word was used again 'couple'. This time I had to step in. I said...'comme couple? Ou comme couple couple?'

It was only then he realised that we are in a colocation and NOT a relationship.

With that said, stef and I decided to break up (lol). As my official translator from English/french/Italian, I may not survive, but, my ego can't take another lezzie quip :p

And....the adventure continues.

À bientôt!

A Quick dash to Montpellier

This is going to be a quick post as the Nimoise air has me sleeping promptly at 9pm (it's the air, not my granniness that is the cause of this).

On the 11th, all of the assistants had to make the trek to Montpellier to attend our workshop/training. This was very bizarre to me as most of us started working on the 1st! I  guess it is the french way to train AFTER you've started working :s. So after an early morning, stolen train cables (I swear!!) and trekking around Montpellier in 9 degree weather, we arrive to our training where I learned exactly 2 things. So...success?

So! while in montpellier, I decided to grab the opportunity to discover the town! So after seeking solace in a nearby monoprix (this winter thing is sooo overrated...seriously), standing in line in front of a surprisingly smelly french man and turning up my nose at young people going to drink alcohol (Im still wondering who's stolen my body/brain), stef and I decided to take a walking tour of the city at 10pm at night. Stef seems to love these rambling tours...sigh...my granny gene..*cough* I mean the nimoise air really made it hard for me, but alas! We did it and started the morning early with some YUMMY Pain nimoise from Paul, another newly discovered 'problem' and an early saturday morning market in the suburbs of montpellier!

My trip in pictures!!

Homicide in the bull ring

Today should've have been a day of productivity and discovery.

Thanks to la banque postale I'll have to test my fluency in french curse words as they have spelt my name wrong on half of the correspondance I receive...yes. only 1/2.

Something only this bank can achieve it seems.

But of course, the banking managers were not there today (why would they bother to come in to clean up the mess of their colleagues?..so what if it is a Saturday !! )

So steffy and I with lots of time to waste before our trip to Bouillarges to see los toros in action decided to take a little promenade and lunch in the town centre. We stumbled across an olive oil convention (seriously) which held the same pomp and atmosphere of a graduation ceremony. This was beyond amusing.

Lunch, catered by Paul, was fabulous. But i think I'm getting tired of the tomate/mozza sandwich on olive bread (cue death curdling scream). Hopefully I can jump back on my path of healthy living and salads soon as I've run up too many hills in Trinidad to get back chunky :s

So after what looks like my last sandwich from Paul *tear* we took the J in the direction of Bouillarges.

So we get there...and my question is...why bother give these two cross streets a name ? Just call it Nime ext or Nime Trace or something! The circumference of the town is walkable in 10 minutes !! Needless to say we had 2 hours to spare. So in those 2 hours we managed to see a wedding procession to the town hall, listened to the bull fighting musicians warm up and just had random conversation about any and everything like only girls can do :)

So ! Finally! It's 4pm and we head over to 'the arenes', its small but say what we've come to see some toros !

Well...not exactly.

Apparently, unbeknownst to us, we came to see the sacrifice of these poor beasts. How is it that we didn't know that the point of this was to kill the bull ??? If I knew before I sure wasn't going to go ! I almost blew chunks in the area. I felt ( and still feel at the time of writing this) sick in the stomach as the animals realised they were dying and were fighting for their lives.

We lasted 3 fights. Only because there was no bus till the end of the 3rd fight :/

That was absolute torture. I dont mind the show and artistry itself;  The showmanship is absolutely amazing: The tilt of the hips, the pointed toe. The overexaggerated posture and the ruffle of the shoulders. The nod of the chin and the timbre of the shouts. It all speaks bullfighter.

It is exemplary and beautiful to watch.

But to see and experience an animal struggle to live, and trust me, 2 bulls did exactly that; they just didn't want to die. To watch these animals drag themselves on their knees , stumble, struggle, fall and get up and try to make an escape was really sickening.

If I ever attend a bull fight in the future, I'll have to make sure that its one where they do not kill the bulls and just simply put them out to pasture after they get tired.

But ! I'm all one for experiences and this is one for the record books.

So as usual, pictures attached :)

Only in France eh!

It seems that only in France you will get two letters from the bank in one week with one set of letters having your name spelt correctly, whilst the other letters contain an error.

I am not amused.

So now, on my Saturday which was supposed to be a SLOW Saturday , I have to go to the bank to practice my fluency in obsenities in french.

These people real not serious.

Bank Postale...you do not win :/

These shoes are made for walking

Well ! Observation week has started. What is that you ask ?

As a language assistant I have a week to determine and assess the level of spoken English and interaction in each of my classes. This comprises of me sitting in the back of the class trying to stifle laughter sometimes and taking notes most of the time :)

From.next week, it is WORK ! My English teachers have already started giving me assignments on how they'd like me to contribute..le sigh.

So before the cah cah hits the fan, I went on one last road trip today!  The day was absolutely gorgeous. Hot sun and 27 degrees outside and in the shade. Nimes...glorious Nimes!!! I did well in my choice of city :)

So! Short pants - check, baby tee- check, aldo flats - check and 1.50 euro for the B21 to Pont du Gard - double check.

I originally wasn't going to check out pont du gård as I never heard of it before 2 days ago , but I'm so glad I went today . It is a testament to Roman architecture and engineering at its best. The main feature is the aqueduct that fed Nimes with water for 500 years and it took 5 years to build... That's what I call a return on investment :)

There's a lazy river running right below the structure and there are a million and one paths leading every which way for one to explore.

It was well worth the 40 minute bus ride and 3 euro return fare. 4 Taiwanese tourists latching on to me also guaranteed me the reduced fare of 10euro, so definitely a win win for me today !

I also love the fact that the bus stop is a 3 minute walk from my house...could this day get any better ?

I hope so... :)