France Trip Post # 2 - La Canebiere

Thursday, May 15

Our first real day here was a lot of fun. We both were kind of awake around 4, but we actually got up and going at 5. Jet lag will do that to ya. It was actually really nice to get up and going while it was still early and quiet. We left our apartment around 6, I think and we made our way back to the airport to see in our luggage would be there.

We tried to call ahead, but nobody was answering their phones yet, so we just went. We had 30 minutes until the office opened, so we went and got a pain du chocolat for breakfast! It’s like a croissant with chocolate bars inside. MMmmm.

When the luggage office opened I was very, very happy to hear that they had our bags!! We made our way back to our apartment, but stopped at the train station to reserve our train tickets for a couple of our day trips. Then we brought our things home and boy, was I happy to put on a new outfit and some make up!!

We decided to spend our day getting to know our area, so we went out to walk the famous Canebiere. It’s a fun, busy street that is located conveniently close to our apartment. We just meandered through, looking at the shops and people.

We saw this big group of people hanging around the plaza, and stopped to figure out what was going on. It seemed like a festival or party or something. Nope. It’s a protest. France is a silly place. Later we saw the parade of protestors go by with their music and chanting.

I got to try my first baguette. Lots of firsts today! It was really good.

Then we saw this big, old cathedral, so we stopped for a look inside.

On our way back to our apartment we stopped by a little grocery store to buy some stuff.

At home we took a little nap that ended up being longer than we had planned on.

Then we got up and decided we had to go find some internet. The internet in our apartment worked the first day we arrived, but then it broke. It’s really strange because skype works, but none of our browsers work on any of our devices, so we can’t check our email or facebook or update the blog from the apartment. Anyway, we needed to get in contact with some people we are meeting up with here.

We tried the train station where we’d used it before, but the iPad wouldn’t connect, so we decided to try finding a cybercafé that Spencer used to email home from during his mission. His old neighborhood was just a few metro stops away, so off we went. The cybercafé he used was closed, but we stopped by a grocery store to buy some ice cream bars and asked the owner if he knew of one in the area. He pointed us in the right direction.

On our way back we stopped by the tourist info office by Vieux Port (where we are staying) to find out more about some city passes. We decided that they probably weren’t worth it for us, but they did give us a free map and a tourist guidebook, so that’s been useful.

We wandered around looking for some dinner and decided to just come back to our apartment and make some. We make cous cous and heated up a can of ratatouille. It was actually really yummy. We’re cheap tourists. J Don’t worry, we’re planning to go out to eat at a nice restaurant one of these nights, but at 15 euros (18 to 20 dollars?) a plate, we’ll probably just do that once.

After dinner we went out again to wander around, since we still had a couple of hours of daylight left. We were trying to find me a watch, but didn’t find anything reasonably priced. We went to the grocery store on our way back and found some cheese!! Then we set off to find a bakery that was still open. Everything closes at like 5 and it was probably 7:30 by now. We eventually found one down a slightly sketchy side street and made our way back to the apartment to eat our cheese and baguette and look over the port out our window as the sun went down. Romantic, eh?

My first pastry! Pain au Chocolat. <-- My French is so good!

A view of Marseille from the bus from the airport. 

A party protests on Canebiere. 

La Canebiere

My first baguette!

Big old Cathedral - We never found out the name of it.

Me and good old Joan of Arc. 

The protest parade! They had closed down the street for it, including the trams that run on those tracks. 

Ahhhh...

Cheese. I don't know what kinds. 

The view of the port out our window.