Bienvenue Novembre!

Disclosure: I have so much to say so this will either be a very long blog post, or I will do it in multiple installments to avoid complete boredom ...

Notre Dame de la Garde
On top of the hill in Marseille

To begin, France loves vacation and any excuse not to work, so I worked for two weeks before I had a break for Toussaint (All Saint's Day). I got basically two weeks for one holiday, not too shabby. My friends Abbie and Sarah (roomies sophomore year at Bowdoin) and I decided to go to Marseille and Toulouse for break. Abbie is in Scotland and Sarah is in Brest, so we all had some time off and we are all (relatively) close. Sarah studied abroad in Toulouse, and my friend Lindsay who studied in Rennes with me is doing the teaching program, so lots of reasons to head south!

Abbie and Sarah on top of the hill

Trash ... I'll spare you the other pictures

Abbie, Sarah and I started in Marseille on Monday. I arrived at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and the girls forewarned me about the trash situation. See, the trash pick-up is on strike in Marseille. The trash was absolutely everywhere. You had to walk in the street because the piles were so huge they had spread all over the sidewalk. To add to it, the wind in the south is very well known and strong, so the smell wasn't exactly pleasant. Don't get me wrong, the port was beautiful and we went to the top of the Notre Dame de la Garde and the view was absolutely incredible, but due to the trash situation Marseille isn't exactly my favorite city ... We made the most of it, found a great restaurant for dinner and walked around a bit. It was cool to hear the southern accent too. For instance if you say "demain" (tomorrow) in French is sounds like "de-meh" but in the south they would say "de-mane". Or "matin" (morning) is usually "mah-teh" but they would say "mah-tane" with a huge emphasis on the N. We could barely understand our cab driver the first day. The next morning we decided to spend the afternoon in Aix en Provence which is a cheap and short train ride away. Aix is where Cézanne painted and lived. It is filled with history and reminds me so much of Italy with its tiny, winding streets that you could walk around in for hours. Not to mention we really lucked out with the weather. We stayed through dinner and got home close to 10:30.

Funny sidenote: We attempted to sleep early because of our early train, but, of course, there is a discotheque above the hostel and they had an un-announced party from 1 am - 5 am. So instead of sleeping I listened to drunk people shouting the words to house music. The hostel was nice enough to reimburse us for the night - I'm not sure what's better, no sleep and a free night, or lots of sleep and spending extra money? I like house music, so I guess everything worked out.

Off to Toulouse!!

Boardwalk along river in Toulouse

Toulouse "la ville rose" was incredible! The architecture is really beautiful, all made of brick (hence the nickname "the pink city"). There are small streets reminding me very much of Nice and lots of great shopping. We absolutely lucked out with the weather, one day it was 70! It was so nice to sit outside and get some sun. I stayed with Lindsay, my friend from abroad, and she has an adorable house. She lives with a woman who rents out two of her bedrooms in her house to foreign students, so it is Linds and Gabby, a really nice girl from Venezuela. Because Sarah had studied abroad in Toulouse we met up with some of her friends from when she was there and had a blast. Some highlights were:

- going to a house warming party for two of her friends, it was so fun, we met really nice French people and it was so nice to go to a low key party have a bit of a US/France mix.
- eating incredible gelato in town O'Sorbet is where its at. Just to make you drool, I had mascarpone fig and creme brulée. Enough said.
- COOKING. Lindsay has a full kitchen and it was so nice to use an oven and make goodies like quiche and homemade pizza.
- walking across all the bridges that run from one side of Toulouse to the other, reminded me a bit of Paris, and was absolutely beautiful at night.
- eating tapas with Sarah's French friends and another fellow Bowdoin grad, Marissa Moore, who came in for the night (she is teaching outside of Toulouse in the country) and we all ate at a small small restaurant with only about 15 places on high stools, it was SO good and had so much personality.

Toulouse is such a beautiful city, and I would definitely go back. The weather was great, I had wonderful company and the people there were incredibly nice.

Very early the morning of Saturday, October 30th Lindsay and I headed back to Rennes ...