Parle voius frances?

I have no clue what has happened to the kind, gentle girl I used to be after this long weekend with the Meghans, and thank goodness I survived, barely...



SO you ask yourself, How did this trip come about? I don't even think I know what came over me, but my friend Meghan aka Brennan called me up on a whim and invited me to Marseilles France for the long weekend we have in Madrid. I agreed upon it, I'm not sure at this point if I should have, but hey lets say for the sake of arguement, that I did.



Well I had to call the airline company Wednesday morning to change the names on the tickets, because there was a mixup and Lawler, the other Megan, goofed. That in and of itself was nerveracking beacause I was left to deal with Ryan Air to get it taken care of. And I did.



I met Lawler and Brennan at the Barajas airport for a short, 2 Hour plane ride and we arrived in France, calmly and without problems, yet....

The coolest part was, Did we have a map? No, did we know anything about Marseilles, nope, but we went with it and it was AWESOME...

We arrived on Wednesday afternoon/evening to see the main street lit up with lovely Christmas lights, and wait for it.... A Christmas Market!!! Hooray!!! The Meghans jumped for joy to see and SMELL the portside harbour. You know me, no big whoops on my behalf. But then again it was nice to see water again, and the salty, freezing, kind that you shall uncover over the course of the longest blog entry known to man!



The first stop was our luxioury 2 Star Hotel, which Brennan has upgraded to a Five star, Hotel Europe. Now an inside look into who Lawler is... she lives in style and likes to have a nice warm, quite room to sleep in after a long, long day of treasure hunting. The hotel was wonderful. As soon as we entered the building, after figuring out how to open the locked door, we were greeted by Stephan, a tall nerdy frenchman. He was very nice and helpful, including when Brennan shouted with delight, OMG Is that a real dryer I smell?? We spaniards don't have the awesomeness that is heat to dry your clozes (as Stephan pronounced it). The room was big but with your typical paper thin walls and a showerhead that trickled like a dryed up brook. There was no contest who I got to spend my three nights with in that room, each even playing a friendly game of turtle. Oh and it was not friendly at all, the French know how to upset some people and not by the name... But I recovered quickly until te following night with Brennan, no hard feelings, eh?



Once we checked in and got settled we were famished with hunger and chose to go for a jont around town. We we came upon a humble little abode called, Le Suffren and I think we would all say we definately suffered through that meal. Thankfully Brennan knows, un pur of French and man are we greatful. Except the French apparently don't care if we are Americans and when asked if the waitor speaks English, in French and scoffs Brennan off and says you must speak to me in French. We thought it was quite rude especially because as Lawler and I ordered, in English he had no problem. Huh... The food was half way decent but the crappy waitstaff outweighed the food. From there we headed out for a walk around the town. We headed immediately for the Christmas Market with all the quiosks filled with French cookies, jewlery, crepes, mulled wine, teas and such. It even had a Merry Go Round!! We resisted the temptation to hop on for a ride since we had just eaten adn figured we'd save it for another day. From the market we walked along the water front which we can only imagine must be overrun with people and boats in the Summer. In December though not as much, I don't see why....

Over the course of our walk we stumbled upon this huge Fort the overlooked the port (Vieux Port is the name of the area we were in). The Meghans grabbed me by the arm and yanked me up on the top of the wall overlooking the water for a nice view and time to relax. Altough I fumbled through it, it was all worth it. We were checking out where we would head out the following day. Thankfully like most citites in Europe there was a cheap Bus tour that takes you around the town.
Day Number 1:
Once on the bus we met a cute French boy who was all about foreign girls and he came to check on us frequently, we agree that he had a thing for Brennan, and she milked it for all it was worth. After the bus tour Brennan decided to go back and "get some work done for school" plus she was really tired from a long week of hosting guests. So Lawler and I headed off to explore the city. We walked around to this huge, elaborate Church in the middle of the city, which was being restored or something and we were not allowed inside but it has the typical old town charm that many Eruopean buildings and churches have. From there we headed to this park that looked quite big on the map, but the cartogrophers took some liberties with the representation. There was a large fountain in the middle, but you could tell that it has been some time without use. The group of us had decided early on in the trip that we would attempt to take a day trip to Tolousse, which had been recommended to us by another girl in the program. Well we quickly found out that Tolousse is not as close to Marseilles as we thought. So we then decided that we would try Nice for a day, but later also found out that the train would be too expensive.
To finish out the day Lawler and I hopped back on the bus tour and headed to the big Chapel and statue that is situated at teh highest point in Marseille. It was really beautiful, except for the gale force winds that we encountered. While we were there we met these two French men that we had seen before at a coffee shop. We all share our love for coffee and averaged three cups a day, but we still think Spanish coffee is better. Anyway, the two guys told us about a short boat trip to some neighboring islands where you could disembarque and explore the island. Lawler and I thought it was a great idea and planned that the following day we would be "pirates" and explore the islands as a group. Well these two french guys heard that we were American and invited us to dinner. We were a bit sketched out but agreed that we would meet them later at the, "Quality Burger" Restaurant located near our hotel. Well on the walk down we realized that this was not the best idea we had and decided that we would grab Brennan when the time came and made a run for it. Yes I realize that this is not the nicest thing to do, but hey we are three nice American girls and didnt want anything funny business.

We grabbed Brennan and headed off for the near Irish Pub, called O'Malley which I think its safe to say that we are now part of their regular crowd as we spent each night there having grand ol time. O'Malleys was a great pub and we even got to hear some authentic Irish music, but oh wait... they sang it in French.... Lawler is a big fan of the jig and Irish music so we got the real thing thanks to her. While we were having some drinks we met a nice guy, Georges, who immediately came over to us to chat. The kind waitress tried to give us a warning signal and not waste our time but we let him come over anyway. Well Georges is now a great friend and we actually saw him a few more times over the course of the weekend. After a fantastic tutorial on the Irish Jig from Brennan we stumbled home, with Lawler's sore back because she tried to do a back handspring but landed on ehr tummy. The poor girl, but she laughed it off and we made it home fine.

Day number two:
The boat tour that was recommeded to us was a short twenty minute ride to the island of Frivole. We immediately ran for the upper deck to get a great spot. Well did I mention that it had been raining all morning so it was jsut us on the boat. We met our new best friend, Jean Marie, aka Gus from Cinderella who kept us intriguied with conversation on the trip. Brennan speaks a bit of french from highschool and we depended on her to keep conversation rolling. Well Brennan took a break from translating and decided it was a good idea to feel the sea breeze on the other side of the boat. What she didnt expect was to get soaked with the crashing waves becuase the water was choppy. We laughed with her as we approached the island. Now again the weather was not great, per the gale force winds again that were hitting the city, but we didnt let that stop us. Now over the short time we were in Marseille at that point Brennan had been commenting that she must go swimming because heck when you see the Mediterreanean you gotta take a swim. Well she wasnt fooling around.
After a jont around the island we all decided it was about time to test the waters. Oh and it was Freezing!! We all put our feet in for a photo op beause when will we ever be in the French Riviera and be in the Mediteranean again.
As Brennan's mom, Mary J. would say to Brennan as a child, don't be a dog and go jumping in without thinking first. Well Brennan gave herself the speech, but still ended up being the dog and went head first into the Mediteranean with her clozes on!! It was absolutely ludicrous!! We were prepared and gave her some warm clothes. But she kept saying that her mom says alls you need is a hat to cover your head, but we didnt want to risk it. When everyone was warm agian we continued on our adverture and found a great Spideman shot. There were these two rocks that intersected with a cool opening in the middle. SO we figured it was a good idea to get some pics of us in the hole. It was soooo scary but hella cool.

BTW: Expect Lawlers pics to come shortly. Mine are not as good as hers and she was the designated photogropher for the weekend. She got some amazing shots.

When we realized that the boat was going to leave shortly we hightailed it back only to see Jean Marie again who then invited/just brought us up to the Capitans booth for the trip home. Now we are still unsure if he even asked the capitan if it was allowed but no one said anything and we got the capitans view of Viex Port in style.
Next we headed out for a bite to eat and again stumbled upon a great little dinner spot called, Pain and Coe. It was great the prices were reasonable and we each got a huge salad. It was delectable. We then returned there for one meal a day for the rest of the week. THe waitor was great and of course spoke a little English which was a god send becuase poor Brennan was exhausted from all the translating.
After dinner we stopped by O'Malley agian for a drink. While we were chillin out we met more English speakers two guys were from Spain too here on holiday and one from Portugal. We even elaborated our vocabulary with a new Spanish word, "Calienta Pollas" which is not really appropriate for some of you but it basically talks baout a girl who comes to flirt with you and then leaves you high and dry. Who would've thunk in France we could improve our Spanish vocabulary?

Day number 3:
After a long nights sleep we got up for our morning cup of coffee and figured we would give Nice another try and headed for the train station to buy our tickets. Well did you know that ATM cards here must have a chip in them to finction? Well I certainly didnt and Lawler and I spend a good twnety minutes trying to buy tickets to Nice when the card didnt work. Of course our luck ran out when we missed the train to Nice and then it was going to be outrageously expensive. So she and I headed back out to meet Jean Marie for another trip to teh island to check out hte other side. But the cool thing was that this day the weather was great, but they had roped off the upstairs seating due to rough water. Well being our new best friend, what did Jean Marie do for us, he brought us up to the capitans deck again adn this time we got to sit outside but had to hide from the other passengers. We were living on the edge!!
This trip we headed for the castle. Well I felt like Brave Irene trying to walk against the winds on teh mountain. When we got to the castle we encountered a real moat and drawbridge so we climbed up the wall and walked around the castel for a better view. Lawler was the brave one who tried to jump over a missing part of the wall. I chose the easier route and walked around the wall again, but it was exhilierating to say the least. From there we continued onour way and came upon what we have decided was a WWII encampment. It had bunkers and barracks, I even bit the bullet and climbed into one for a photo op. It was totally awesome but a bit spooky too.
We had a difficult time walking back through the wind but stayed close to teh side of the walls for protection. After teh boat it was off to Aix en Provence a little village about forty minutes from Marseille and only cost 5 Euros. It was fantastic.
In Aix, as they call it for short they were hosting another wonderful Christmas Market with lgihts and quiosks. This one was much bigger than the one in Marseille. There were handcraftted childrens toys, carollers, candies and much more. We tooled around the stalls for a while and got a bite to eat at yes, another Irish Pub... do you see a theme here....
When we got back to Marseilles we HAD to make one last stop at our favorite watering hole. We were enjoying our Bulmers cider, when who walks in but Georges.... and Mr. B who we had met the other night at O' Malleys. What a small world!! We had a great time and even met a nice British girl who joined us for a pint too. It was soo much like a movie to me to meet all these nice people in aforeign country. I dont know what's come over me!!!

The FINAL day:
Well we said that we couldnt leave Marseille without stopping at our favorite restaurant one last time for a traditional French croissant. We had planned to meet Becky there that morning to say good bye and wish her safe travels, but as we walked in sadly she wasnt there. So we go to grad a table and see some strange man fold over his newspaper, and guess who it was.... GEORGES!! We could not belive that he remembered we were going for bfast. IT was such a treat. We said our goodbyes and took photos for our albums and headed back for our luggage before the flight.
Well to get to the airport you ahve to take a shuttle bus. Now over the course of hte weekend Lawler kept saying oh our flights not until 2 so we can take our time and at least we'll get home in time to do laundry and get ready for school. So we are on the bus adn I am beginning to doze off as I am known to do, when I here, Uh guys we just missed our flight!
Our flight was NOT at 2 but at 11:45! So.... we take a deep breath and remain calm until we get to the airport. And of course the best news of the day is that there is only one flight to Madrid on Ryan Air daily which we were not on because, "The plane left without us" says Brennan.
Rethinking our options we decide to check out other flights from Marseille to Madird but they came up too expensive and we really really wanted to get home on Sunday.
So.... what would any rationale person do.... RENT a car!!!
Lawler was the bright one with that idea and shuffled off to Hertz to check the rates. Well to drive from Marseilles to Madrid we were told was about 1,ooo KM and we could do it in jsut over 8 hours. Lawler was up for the challege as she is the only one who can drive a stick so we piled into the Peougot and headed off.
We only got lost twice and as Brennan said over and over, "Its like Kidnergarten, it always easier the second time around". Which proved true.
As we continued on our adventure Lawler pipes up with the profound comment, "If Napolean could go over the Pyranees on foot, well i sure as heck can do it in a car!" And we did.
The long of the short of it.... 14 HOURS later, and 1,500 KM we finally arrived in Madrid. Oh and did we ahve a map?? NO... we are rock stars or as the Meghans now call themselves, TEAM AWESOME!!

THe funny thing is that when we entered the airport Brennan turns to me and asks, Hey Em were going to Portugal on Friday, Wanna come?? What do you think my answer will be....

Photos to come shortly... Have fun and Viva le France!