je suis désolée je ne parle pas français

 Ok- so I'm not really sure how I got to be 2.5 months behind on this blog. Time is both flying and crawling at the same time! I cannot believe I get to go Stateside in a week! SO EXCITED. Its pretty much all I think about. Definitely going to bring my carry-on and one of my giant suitcases just so I can stuff it with fruit snacks, wheat thins, deodorant, candy canes and shoot, I know there is more but I can't remember. I keep telling myself I should write those things down! Alright so now I am going to try to get you all caught up on the last couple of months of my life in London- there have been some pretty big changes! I'm going to follow the wisdom of Maka Chee however and just write a whole bunch of smaller entries so I actually finish them because finding the time to do it all at once is proving impossible!

So when I last wrote I got all the way up through the end of September.  On to October!

First big adventure of October (and the topic of this blog!) was my trip to THE SOUTH OF FRANCE to visit my friend Anissa with my roommate Emily!

The adventure started early on the morning we were leaving for France because I knew I couldn't go to France without a camera (and remember that mine got stolen/lost) so I spent the morning following Googles wrong directions to the BestBuy equivalent so I could buy a camera and then I went on the wrong train to work... nothing like being 30 minutes late when you are already scheduled to leave a few hours early!

The next bump was that there was a mixed up and I ended up with 2 return boarding passes and no boarding pass from London to France. No normally this wouldn't be a big deal, you could print the pass at the airport and board your flight like a civilized person. But no.  We were flying RyanAir- which has amazingly low prices, but then screws you over by charging an arm and a leg for other trivial things- like printing a boarding pass. So after we had waited in line to get our passes stamped (that person apparently doesn't even look at the pass because they stamped it just fine) and waited in the security line we found out I had the wrong boarding passes and, after desperately trying to negotiate with the lady at the desk, I had to pay £40 (roughly $65) to get the pass reprinted. Keep in mind the price of the whole roundtrip ticket was only £60. Needless to say I was in tears, we were now running late and my roommate at just glared at the lady and asked "how can you stand working for a place that does this." Anyway- we took of sprinting through the airport and then RyanAir struck again. As we were sprinting through the airport a guy stops me and says he has to weigh my bag (because RyanAir also charges you about the price of the ticket if your bag is more than 10kg). He gets to randomly select which bags he weighs- so I was pretty pissed that he picked the only two people sprinting through the airport. Just not nice. But we ended up getting there just fine and then had the MOST amazing weekend.

We landed in Marseille and drove down to where Anissa goes to school in Aix en Provence and stayed in her apartment. Then the next morning we wandered around X (that's the nickname for Aix en Provence) and it was SUCH a quintessential French town.

Anissa and I in X

- After a morning in X (which included some of the best pizza ever from Pizza Capri) we drove about 20 minutes down to Marseille- which is on the water and was so gorgeous and SO windy. After walking around the harbor a bit we drove up to a church called Notre Dame (not the Notre Dame) at the very top of the tallest point in the city. It was hands down the windiest place I have ever been in my life. At one point I was trying to film a video of Emily and Anissa blowing in the wind and I had to stop to help an old lady because she couldn't get back to the railing. But it had the most amazing views of the water and the town. Absolutely incredible!

Me in front of Notre Dame Church

Me Emily and Anissa at a French Cafe in Marseille 

The incredible view from the Notre Dame Church

 

Welcome to the windiest place on earth!

-being in France made me realized I had never been to a country where I didn't speak the language (I had only ever been to English and Spanish speaking countries) and it was really daunting. I definitely recommend learning at least a few words before going somewhere. I made Anissa teach me how to say je suis désolée je ne parle pas français (I'm sorry I don't speak French) but it took me a while to remember how to say it.  At one point a man asked if I spoke English and I responded by saying Si- everyone got a riot outta that one :-). Haha it was confusing, but I definitely learned my lesson!

After Marseille we drove down to Anissa's hometown- La Ciotat- to stay at her parents house. Anissa's family is incredible- so kind and hospitable even through the slight language barrier. When we arrived we went to the supermarket with Anissa and her mom and her mom tried to buy the whole store for Emily and I. And of course cheese was a big part of it - learned that Camembert is my favorite type of cheese!!!)

Nightly "after dinner" cheese platter :-)

In the morning we headed up to a beautiful medieval village named Le Castellet and hung about a bit before going back to La Ciotat for Anissa's little sister's dance recital and checking out some of the landmarks there- including her parent's restaurant where we had a really good drink made out of some red syrup and water. Then we headed back to Anissa's for a crepe making lesson (I now have every intention of buying a crepe maker and perfecting the fine- and surprisingly difficult- art of crepe making)

Le Castellet

La Ciotat!

In front of  the Bec de l'Aigle (the eagle's beak)

My attempt at making crepes!

The next morning we headed to the local weekend market down by where the biggest yacht fixing yard is.  Then we headed back to Anissa's parents house for lunch and had a delicious DELICIOUS Moroccan pie called Pastilla.  Its an incredible savory sweet pie with chicken and what is kind of like a baklava crust and it is topped with powered sugar. Loved it to bits. And to top it off Anissa's mom hand made a raspberry tiramisu. (and the Salmon and spinach lasagna and lamp chops from the other nights were delish as well) Then we packed up, struggled through a "family photoshoot" using the timer function and headed off to the airport. 

PASTILLA!!!

Hand made raspberry tiramisu

My wonderful French Family!

All and all this weekend was one on of the best of my life. Surrounded by wonderful people, delicious home-cooked family meals, beautiful scenery. I'll definitely remember it for the rest of my life! Can't wait to go back in the spring/summer!