Marseille - Take: 2

Sunday, October 7, 2007

A few things that I’ve seen or done in the past few days:

1.) You know the chip wagons that are scattered around streets (more so in Ottawa, than in Coquitlam)? Well, I was walking downtown and instead of seeing a chip wagon, I saw something that I would hesitate to call a “blood wagon”. It was a van parked on the side of the street, and people were going inside to give blood. I don’t know if that’s a French thing, but I’ve certainly never seen anything like that before. If anything, the “blood wagons" in Canada bring the supplies and set up and operate from a room in a building instead of the a back seat of a vehicle.

2.) Do you find it odd to see a girl in shorts and a t-shirt walking into a residence? No? I didn’t think so. Then why on earth does every single person I walk by after or before playing a sport insist on commenting on the fact that I’m “sportive”. Also, I swear, in a residence of almost 1000 people, there MUST be another girl that plays soccer. I have had more people ask me if I’m “la fille qui joue au foot”. First of all, that means that people I don’t know are talking about me. And secondly, I can’t possibly be “the (ONLY) girl who plays soccer”. Oh well, I suppose it’s not such a bad rep to have. It is weird, though.

3.) It’s Sens madness all over again. When the Sens were in the playoffs, I knew that if they won a game, I wouldn’t be going to bed early that night. I lived on a main street, and I would hear honking and yelling until 2 or 3 in the morning. It’s the same thing here with soccer. (And a little bit of rugby at the moment.) If France is playing a soccer match, and you’re not watching, well, if they score or if they win, you’ll hear it for another two hours after the game.

4.) I went to Marseille again yesterday. Talk about rugby madness.


Marseille is one of the locations for the world cup games. I hadn’t factored that into my plan for the day. The streets were FILLED with British and Australian fans. People were dressed in their colours, carrying flags, with painted faces, sporting their jerseys or their homemade rugby ball hats. I swear I even saw an Aussie in a kangaroo suit. (He’s on the right hand side of the first few seconds of the video. You can see his tail.)



5.) The purpose of this trip to Marseille, was to a.) Get a rug for the ugly floor of my room, and b.) Bring my bike along to explore the city a bit and ride along the coastline to a park that Tonin recommended to me. I bought a beautiful blue and beige Turkish rug. The geometrical patterns sure beat the puke-green tiles in my room. I couldn’t stand to be bare-footed on my floor before. Now my feet feel much more comfortable (and instead of sweeping, I can just shake the carpet out the enormous window [which, by the way, is open 85% of the time because the weather is gorgeous and because, more importantly, there are NO bugs—EVER!])! As for biking to the Park, well, that never happened. I left my map open on my desk back in residence. Bugger. I got completely lost, and wanted to see if I could figure my way out without asking anyone. Eventually, I got hungry, bought a baguette, and asked the lady at the Boulangerie for directions. Wow, was I ever far from where I wanted to be! I even somehow ended up at the entrance to a tunnel that would take me back to the downtown area, but a.) You had to pay to use the tunnel, and b.) Bikes were most certainly not allowed in it. After explaining my situations to a very kind man, another nice man carried my bike up a flight of stairs to prevent me from having to retrace my steps: against traffic and on a highway. He pointed me in the right direction to get myself where I wanted to go, and I was off again, attempting to not kill people while riding on the sidewalk and to not get killed while riding on the road. It was quite the ride.

6.) Finally when I was where I wanted to be, I reached the chaos. It was dark, about 8pm, and I would compare it to the daytime part of a Canada Day in Ottawa. There was stage set up right on the water, and a concert going on with drunken people wandering around, and random sports chants and cheers could be heard overlapping in every direction. While attempting to take a picture of a charming street with an outdoor bar, a bunch of dudes from London all wearing their team England jerseys insisted on being in the picture too. They decided I needed to be in the picture as well, and I ended up being in the middle of a group of about 15 people posing in the middle of the street. It was a guy who took the picture. Would you like to know how it turned out? Voilà.


Standing amongst fifteen other people, this was the result. I have not cropped this picture in any way, shape, or form. I couldn’t believe it. They all had a good laugh, and then a couple of them insisted on taking another when the rowdy ones had left. I present to you, as they put it, “a picture that will make your mother proud”. Right. Awkward.


I eventually ended up getting the picture of the charming street with all the flags of the teams who were still in the World Cup.


As for getting to that park, I’ll have to go back again another day.

My New Bike!

Friday, October 5, 2007

I got a bike today. I’m so excited. They have a program on campus where you can rent a bike for the year and pay only 40€. That price is unheard of! The bikes are bright orange and yellow, and if you want, you can chose one with a removable basket on the front—very useful for groceries! The only thing that irks me is that the bell on the handlebar is very sensitive. Therefore, even the tiniest bump in the road makes it ring. So if I’m going down a hill, every person on the street is very well aware of it. They also must think I’m being an annoying pain: *drrrring…. drrrring, drrring…. drrrring*


Going about my daily errands, I have been confused several times for a Quebecer. I haven’t yet decided if that’s a compliment to me… or an insult to other Quebecers. Maybe it’s simply because the only French I’ve been around the past couple of years is Quebec French. Then again, maybe it’s because they think that Quebecers have really horrible Anglophone accents (which might be the case. Benjamin told me that he had a girl come up to him after having spoken in class, telling him that he speaks French really well. Duh! It’s his first language). To all the Quebecers I know, I apologize for unintentionally poorly representing you. However, I should mention that even the Quebecers I’ve met here have told me that the French I use is more from Quebec than France. Makes sense, if you ask me. But good grief, I am going to have such a messed up accent when I come back: a strange mix of Quebec pronunciation, French expressions, and an Anglophone accent to top it all off. Yikes.

On the topic of language, I’m actually taking two language classes while I’m here: Italian and German. Apparently, language classes are popular, because in both classes I’ve been to, if you don’t get there early, you don’t have a seat. The Italian prof seems to be a little more lenient on this subject. Basically, if you’re comfortable sitting on the floor for three hours, then fine. The German teacher has more of a “tough-luck” approach. The very first class, there were about 75 people who showed up in a very small classroom and were forced to cram standing in the back of the classroom. Nazi-prof then decided the first 35 people to sign a sheet of paper would be the ones able to register for the German class. Thanks heavens I had a friend save me a seat, and just by chance, it was in one of the first few rows the paper was sent. I’m happy, but I’m scared. This means that 40 people left that classroom really angry. For all I know, I could have a few dozen Hitler aficionados after me wanting to off me to take my spot in the course.

I’ve decided that when it comes to language, French people are just cleverer. This cleverness is also often a mark of class. It was explained to me that in the current class system in France (which very well exists), the higher-class people tend to be cleverer. From the bathroom stalls…

- S’il vou plaît arrêtez de salir les portes. (If yo please, stop writing on the doors.)
- Retournez à l'école primaire pour apprendre les bases d'orthographe, s’il VOUS plaît. (Go back to elementary school and learn how to spell, if YOU please.)
- Cessons donc cette violence verbale. (Let’s stop this verbal violence.)

…To the ads on TV…

Ad for “Thé Éléphant”: Un parfum de ‘nouveauté’ (→ “Nouveau thé”)

…To the social aspect that involves a lot of wit. Therefore, if you can manipulate words and play with their sense of sarcasm and satire, you will find yourself fitting in and no doubt being invited out quite often (and with the bourgeois, they’ll most likely pay for your drinks, too). Now, I’m nowhere near being able to play with words in French that cleverly, however, though it doesn’t happen often, it feels incredible when I can successfully inject even one ounce of humour into a conversation.

Soccer & Stuff

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

I haven’t found my niche yet. That always takes me a while. I’ve hung out with some people who forgot they were no longer in high school. THAT wasn’t it. I’ve spent some time with the soccer obsessed Senegalese. That was nice, but I couldn’t do it 100% of the time. I have even hung out with two little French punks who took me to a store called "Curious" followed by a gothic bar— surprisingly, a good time. Most of the time I spend is with Tonin and Benjamin. (Plus, we have a wicked deal worked out. They make the deliciously mouth-watering food, and I do the dishes. I can live with that!)


Tonin, whose bedroom door faces mine, is from a town about an hour away from here, and Ben, who lives down the hall from Tonin and me, is from Montreal. The two of them are great, and I usually laugh (and learn) a lot when I’m around them. However, the two of them are in “art plastique”, and therefore, they have a lot of the same classes together. If you put two and two together, you have a pair of fun guys in classes where 98% of the students are female. Needless to say, they meet a lot of girls. And I tend to back out of being a third (or fifth) wheel when they go out to meet with them.




On the topic of meeting girls, it just so happens that I have class during the ONE girls’ soccer practice (sports are scheduled as classes here). Today, at the end of my class, I booted it to a far field where the practice was supposed to be going on for another 45 minutes. I wanted to at least talk to the coach to see if I could practice with the boys at night. When I got to the field, there were only three young boys goofing around. When I asked if they had seen a girls’ team, they responded saying that they had left. The first conclusion I jumped to? There weren’t enough girls, and so the coach cancelled practice. Ugh. That would suck. I went back to campus and sat outside enjoying the 26-degree weather before going to a different field to try to catch the coach at the boys’ class/practice. I explained the situation to the coach, and he said that I could practice with the boys for tonight, and that he would see my level before deciding what to do next. I guess it went decently, because at the end of practice, he asked if it would be possible for me to make at least the last half of the girls’ class each Monday, and said that I could continue practicing with the boys in order to have a full practice. YES! Fantastic! The best of both worlds! Playing with girls who have things in common with me (if only an affinity for soccer), and then playing with boys who will force me to push myself a little harder.

The coach then went on to tell me that the games that the girls play competitively are an out-of-class thing, and those matches happen on Thursdays. You don’t register for that, you have to talk to the coach. If he ends up liking the way I play, then that would be perfect, since I only have classes Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays! The last thing that the coach recommended to me was to sign up for a soccer-coaching course. I brushed off the idea at first, but now I’m seriously thinking about it. He said that for five or six weeks, there would be theory and an exam, but then for the following weeks of the semester, I would be preparing a practice series for youngsters, and then coaching the kids from the primary schools in the area. Could be fun. The coaching certificate is also recognized around the world (this was the coach’s word. I’m skeptical about this, but I’ll look into it.) I think it could be great to do--even though it means giving up volleyball.

The practice itself was interesting. I really went into it with a so-what-if-I’m-a-girl-standing-amongst-a-bunch-of-guys-ready-to-play-soccer attitude. The coach got that attitude as soon as I explained my situation. Some of the boys caught on. A few of the boys were too weirded out to even look at me in cleats. And it took until the end of practice for the rest of the boys to accept the fact that I just wanted to play. Even if it was on gravel, it felt sooooo great to play organized soccer again. And I never thought I'd say it, but it also was nice to do drills!

(On a side note... By the looks of it, I'm going to have a full-out novel by the end of the year, if it continues this way!)

Statistics

If you know me, you know that I always like hearing fun and interesting statistics, so here are some numbers that I have put together since I’ve been here (almost two weeks):

The number of times I have:
- Been out in the town and NOT seen an outdoor market: Once or twice. (There is even a market every second day right beside my residence!)
- Almost been hit by a car: I average twice a day. (I hear that’s a good average!)
- Asked someone directions, only to discover that they are an international student too (and therefore, have no clue either!): Too many to count. There are 3000 international students at my university alone.
- Seen really obese females: On average, about two to three a day!!
- Seen really obese males: On average, about zero to one a day!!
- Come home from the bar smelling like a chimney: Every time I have gone to a bar.
- Had to dodge to prevent being burned by someone holding a cigarette walking down the street: Nine or ten times.
- Reminded myself that there are only 126 days left until smoking is banned inside bars and restaurants: 5 times a week.
- Left my room to go to the bathroom forgetting to bring toilet paper: Twice.
- Been in a bathroom where there wasn’t any toilet paper: I’ve lost count.
- Been in a bathroom where there was soap: Once.
- Used a toilet with a seat: Once.
- Used a hole in the ground as a toilet: Luckily, only once.
- Gotten lost going to school the direct (but longer) way: None. Hooray!
- Gotten lost going to school trying the shortcuts: Twice. And they both resulted in me turning the 25-minute walk into a 45-minute walk. Argh!
- Showed up to my class and there was no teacher: Twice (out of the five total classes I’ve had so far)!
- Had French guys hit on me in barely comprehendible English, or really vulgar French: Five or six.
- Gotten funny looks when I say I play soccer: Almost everyone who is European.
- Had to buy men’s cleats because they don’t sell women’s: Once. (I only needed one pair, though. They’re silver and red Umbro cleats that cost me 29€ on sale. I’m so excited!!)
- Tried to go somewhere, only to discover that the place I want to be is closed for another hour: Three or four very annoying times.
- Walked into a store to talk to a person that “can’t help me” for another ten minutes, because she’s still eating: One very annoying time.
- Tried to take out money from my Canadian account only to have my “request refused” (even after setting up my account so that it was accessible overseas): Five or six times. I’ve now given up and am trying to contact my bank.
- Gone to the bank here to open an account and to try and see what is the best, easiest, fastest, and cheapest way to transfer my Canadian money to my French account: Five or six. It’s getting very frustrating. Hint: there is NO best, easy, fast and cheap way. I need it fast because I need to get a statement of account so that I can apply to live here for longer than three months. And I had already done that to apply for my visa… they just need it in euros now. Gah! So nit-picky!
- Eaten a baguette and/or cheese with my meal: Once or twice a day!
- Smiled and nodded at things I didn’t understand because it was easier than getting it explained to me: The number is starting to increase. Let’s leave it at that. I’m pretty sure I am starting to seriously annoy the people I hang out with because when I don’t understand something, I asked for it to be explained.
- Lay down on my bed for just a minute in the middle of the day, only to fall deep asleep because my brain is so tired: Four or five.
- Thought of people from back home: Daily—or more!
- Heard from people back home: Not nearly enough!

Toilet Talk

Friday, September 28, 2007

A conclusion that I have reached is that either a.) The French discourage peeing, or that b.) Going to the bathroom is only for the privileged. Not convinced? Read on…

In general,
- Toilets have no seats.
- Bathrooms (and showers) are co-ed.
- Clean bathrooms don’t exist, only different levels of dirtiness.
- If you want to use a toilet outside of residence, bars, or campus, you need to pay to pee.

In residence,
- They don’t supply the stalls with toilet paper. This means that going to the bathroom is not a subtle thing. It doesn’t leave much to the imagination when you see someone walking down the hall with a roll of toilet paper in his or her hand. (Or even better, a roll of toilet paper and a textbook!)
- They also don’t have sinks in the res bathrooms. You need to go back to your room to wash your hands.
- (And a bit about the showers? Well, you can’t adjust the temperature, and in any case, they seem to only have two settings: icy cold or scalding hot.)

In a bar,
- Most bars have nothing more than a hole in the ground. Consider yourself LUCKY if you get a seatless toilet!
- You can also imagine that drunken girls squatting and drunken boys trying to aim doesn’t leave the nicest aftermath in the stall.
- You might get toilet paper if there is still some left. Though, they’re never in a hurry to restock.

On campus,
- Again, toilet paper isn’t restocked very often. Go in the morning. Otherwise, carry Kleenex with you at all times.
- Sometimes you can get carried away reading all the colourful graffiti. However, if that happens, you will be left to do your deeds in the dark.
- The light is timed, so after about 90 seconds, it shuts off. Eco-friendly? I think not! It’s just another way to get you in and out as fast as they can!
- Now on campus, it’s a step up (a very small step). They have sinks. Soap and a way to dry your hands? Think again. I usually walk out of the bathroom with wet handprints on my jeans.

I hear that the North of France is a little more up-to-date on the toilet stuff, but hey, in exchange for weather like this, I’m more than happy to put up with a seatless toilet for the year.

Lost in Aix

Thursday, September 27, 2007

I’ve decided that Aix is a fantastic city to live in if you have no place to be at a certain time. On the other hand, if you’re supposed to be somewhere, there is a very high chance that you will get lost. No wonder the French are always late. The downtown of Aix is an old medieval city. This means that there is a tangled web of narrow streets going in no particular order and in no particular direction surrounded by three or four main streets bordering the old city. There is absolutely NO organization. No one here uses street names as directions. I am led to believe that not even the locals know the names of the streets.

I’m in the market for a bike at the moment, and while trying to find the main sports store, I asked the lady working at the Student Life Office. I have a map that she drew for me. It has the main street labeled and then little offshoots that twist and turn sporadically and are most certainly not labeled. I think she sort of gave up with drawing the map while she was trying to give me directions. Translated, the conversation went as follows:

Lady: You know the main street, le Cours Mirabeau?
Me: Yes, I know that one.
Lady: Okay, well there is a road to the side; I think it’s called “Thiers”.
Me: (Thinking to myself: There are a thousand roads to the side. You ‘think’ that’s what it’s called?) Okay, yes, “Thiers”.
Lady: Yes, I think that is it. Turn on that road; it is near the end of the street. There are a few streets that you have to follow after. I don’t know the names of them.
Me : (Are you kidding me? Why don’t you just say you don’t know how to get to the store?) Okay, in which direction?
Lady: You will find it. It’s in the middle. Just follow the tiny streets. It’s in that direction.
Me: (The "tiny streets"?! Lady… there are a hundred tiny streets. Some of them aren’t even on the map! In "the middle"? The middle of what?! There are three main "middle" sections in the downtown area.) Okay I’ll try. Thank you for your help, (...which was utterly useless, by the way).

As it turns out, I didn’t use her directions at all. I used a real map. I like to think I’m a brilliant map-reader. Give me a map and I’ll get you where you need to go. Well this was a disaster! At first I didn’t want to pull out the map because I didn’t want to seem like a tourist. Then when it was absolutely necessary, I used it. I’ve never doubted my map-reading skills so much! After double the time it should have taken, I found the store and bought my new silver and red cleats (men’s of course because they don’t sell women’s cleats)! I didn’t find the bike I was looking for, but I’m pumped to start soccer practice on Monday.

First Weekend

Monday, September 24, 2007


Finally!! I just got out of my first class, and I’m on campus, on-line, and on MY computer! It’s been a little frustrating not having any internet in the residence other than eight computers (although fewer functional) for all of the 1000 students. I’ve had a busy past few days doing things and meeting people. There seems to be an abnormal amount of students here from uOttawa. I suppose it’s because there are only three or four of us at my university, but there are a bunch of others at a different university in Aix. Three of us are even on my floor! I didn’t know either of them before, but apparently I took a Spanish class with Rachael in first year (she was the one who cooked a big steak, stir-fry and spicy rice meal for me and a few others on my first night there.) Mélissa, the other girl from uOttawa, also had been here for two weeks before I arrived because the classes at their university started a lot earlier. I’ve met some French people, although they are very seriously into their studies, and only a select few go out of their way to meet people. My neighbour across the hall, Tolin, always comes and knocks on my door to say hi.

There are many Quebecers here too. I had an adventure with Benjamin the other night when we went to the massive grocery store by bus. (There is a smaller one a block away from rez, but if I keep shopping there, I will need to pack my things within a few months because I won’t have any money left.) So the big one we went to was called Géant Casino. And there you have it, I haven't quite figured it out. The casino is called “Pasino” and the grocery store is called “Casino”. I’m in France. Things are backwards. I won’t ask questions. When we got back we made a big meal with pasta, crazy French sauce, and of course we had wine, a baguette and cheese. I’ve decided that every time I buy cheese, I will try a new kind. This time, I bought a big sphere of Camembert for 1€. The enormous chunk of Brie at the same price was very tempting, and I might give in to that temptation a little later on in the year.

Yesterday, I ventured to Marseille with another Quebecer, Wissem. It was beautiful, right on the Mediterranean ocean and therefore, had several tourists and lots of expensive restaurants right on the water.


We wandered the streets, listening to nothing but Arabic and seeing nothing but North African vendors. They have stores selling food from Morocco, rugs from Tunisia, and clothes from Algeria. It was quite esthetically pleasing, and even though it’s only 30 minutes from Aix, it felt like a completely different place.


It was quite hot, so Wissem and I decided to go swim in the ocean. However, being right downtown, all the beaches along the water were private and reserved for the bourgeois or Marseille.


As we had already been walking for a good couple of hours, we decided we didn’t want to walk another five kilometers to the nearest public beach. So we hopped a fence to where there wasn’t even a beach. It was a sort of no-man’s-land over the side of a cliff. We climbed down the stairs that you see in the top left of the picture.


Then we hopped the rocks down to the water.


It was so refreshing, but I didn’t know that the Mediterranean is known as the saltiest ocean. My shorts were stained with white salt streaks when they dried, and my hair was a little crunchy to the touch.

We walked around a little more to see the hoards of people crowded around any TV screen trying to watch the Rugby World Cup.


We grabbed a bite to eat at the “Quick”, the French version of McDonalds (although don’t get me wrong, the obviously have that here, too!). That was my first time eating there, and it was also my last. The “cheeseburger” (pronounced with a distinct French-massacring-English accent) didn’t sit too well with me on the bus ride home. All in all, including Friday night's outing to a cave-like dance club, it was a really good weekend. I do, however, need to start going to bed earlier than three in the morning!