i have this sweet bus pass that lets me go all the way to marseille for just one euro. and so mes amis et moi jumped on the bus this morning and went into the city. i flew into marseille when i arrived here but i didnt get to see any of the city.. i honestly cannot tell you one good thing ive heard about the city. its the 2nd largest in france, after Paris of course, and because its right on the Mediterranean it is definitely an industrial city with a lot of immigrants.. most French have little respect or admiration for Marseille. My host family, especially. Apparently there are a lot of Arabs.. but its right on the Med Sea, so really how ugly could it be?? Well the bus ride in was very brief but my expectations were soon met. There is graffiti every where .. like on EVERY building.. and it actually reminded me a lot of what I remember of Cleveland or your typical overpopulated area. the closer we got to the beach it took a lot of resemblance to Myrtle Beach.. minus the rednecks and all the beach stores. but, the coast is ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. there was a ton of people sailing, which made me really jealous, and the weather was beautiful. we ate lunch at this outdoor cafe- 7 of us split 3 pizzas so it was so cheap and we had a blast.
earlier that morning however, we went to Salon du Chocolat.. this wonderful festival of chocolate! It was only 8euros to get in.. and you walked around all of these booths and got to sample MILLIONS of different kinds of chocolate.. There were your tupical macaroons and chocolate bars.. then there were stalls of chocolate fountains and pralines and almonds and sugary sweets that just almost look too beautiful to eat. there were stands of hot chocolate that puts Swiss Miss to shame and even chocolate sushi. There were chocolate and candy flowers.. sculptures.. even dresses adorned with chocolate. I actually got my legs waxed with this chocolate concoction. no lie, so crazy. and everyone was so friendly. there was chocolate from Sao Tome Principe and Armenia and Indonesia and Morocoo and all over the world. Needless to say we were on a sugar high and stuffed after a hearty 4 hours.. so we took a walk down to the beach and snapped some pictures and lunched.
And everyone there was SO friendly.. most people offered to speak english with us to describe to us what we were sampling which is funny that they can tell we're american, when we're talking of course we sound american, but just walking around or even speaking french.. i find it to be very interesting. one lady even begged us to take a picture with her becaue we were from the states, and she knows like 1 person from NY, and she asked for our names to facebook us and invited us to come back and visit her sometime. of course i would never do that but it was a really silly encounter and a good story none the less. oh and we all bought little gifts for our host families! Alex and i bought an assortment of chocolates from Morocco because thats where our host parents were born and they loved it. they yelled at us for spending money on them, but too bad. they do everything for us and are so sweet.. so they deserved a little treat! we also decided we are going to get some flowers for Mireille on Valentines day. oh that was the other interesting thing.. you would have thought that 2 days before valentines day that a chocolate festival would be nauseatingly overwhelmed with special treats for your valentine.. but thankfully it wasnt!
