Day 21

July 17, 2013

I had an 8:30 class again this morning. I really don’t like waking up that early. It’s even worse than a regular 8:00 class at school because you have to allow yourself about an hour for the bus ride to campus. The ride itself is supposedly 40 minutes, but the buses don’t always run on schedule, so we have to account for time to wait for a bus at the bus stop too.

I didn’t have a class during the second time slot today, so I spent my 2 ½ hour break in the library researching for Barcelona, Spain! Molly found some really cheap flights for about 126 Euros each roundtrip. Two of our friends might come along with us if it isn’t too expensive. We don’t have a hotel yet, but I’ve started looking at prices to visit the Sagrada Familia and looked into getting a 2-day city pass.

Unfortunately we’ll only have about 2 days in Barcelona because our flight back to Marseille would leave early on Sunday morning. Leaving later would be too expensive, and it might be for the best anyways because finals start next week!

Update: Our two friends ended up not being able to go to Barcelona, but Molly and I have booked our flights. It was slightly more expensive than we’d originally seen, but I’ve been wanting to go to Barcelona for a while and think even two days in Spain will be worth it. We still need to book our hotel though. I’m not too concerned because there are several cheaper options out there.

Day 20

July 16, 2013

Today we went to Avignon on a day trip with our UNCW group. I think Avignon is my new favorite town in France! We got a guided tour of the city for about an hour, then had a wine and food tasting, and then got to explore for a bit on our own.

Every July the city has a 3-week long theater festival that takes place all over the city. There are over 500 stages set up, and over 1,000 performances a day! Some performances take place in regular theaters, some in schools or other rented spaces, and some take place on the sidewalk. It was really cool to see the performers dressed in costumes as they went around singing and advertising their shows. There were also hundreds of posters plastered everywhere to advertise the different plays.

After our tasting, a group of friends and I went back to the Pope’s Palace to tour the inside. It was a neat medieval structure that had some fun things to see inside. The only downside was that it was an extremely hot day and there wasn’t air conditioning in the palace. We kept drinking water throughout the day, but I still got a little dehydrated.

After touring the palace we went by the marketplace where I managed to buy a few gifts. We also stopped for some inexpensive gelato and then went back outside the city walls to walk along the Pont d'Avignon bridge. It wasn’t a very long day, but we did manage to see a lot of neat things in the short amount of time that we had in Avignon. I’d definitely like to come back in the future, perhaps to stay for a bit and see some French plays that I wouldn’t understand.

Day 19

July 15, 2013

Today was much better than yesterday. I was supposed to have class from 11:00 – 3:15, but my second class ran until 5:00! Our International Business professor wanted to make up for the day that we lost a while back to watch the Tour de France. It was an interesting class with some group work, but I was so ready to leave school by the end of the day.

Despite the fact that I didn’t have the best Bastille Day, I was happy that I wasn’t hung-over like half of my classmates. I didn’t have an 8:30 class, but apparently a lot of people in the Finance class decided to skip and sleep instead. Our trip leader was also not happy with the events that took place on Bastille Day.

The first time I came to Europe was in 2010, with a group of high students lead by my AP European History teacher, Mr. Rothenberg. At the time Mr. Rothenberg made it clear that even though most of us (17 and 18 at the time) were legal in Europe, he didn’t want us to drink. He said that the point of going to Europe was to learn about the history and culture, not to drink. Despite the fact that I am legal in France (and will be soon in the US), I think about what he used to say all the time. Occasionally it feels like we’re on this trip with a bunch of immature, young teenagers who can’t get their priorities straight.

Because we weren’t able to go out for a nice dinner with Morgan yesterday, six of us went out for a nice dinner and ice cream with her tonight. We had a lot of fun hanging out. I’m glad I’ll get to see her a lot next year, especially because we’re in the same major. 

Day 18

July 14, 2013

Molly and I had a little time this morning to lie out by Lake Geneva before catching our train back to Marseille around 12:45. The train ride was about 4 hours and we got back to our hotel around 4:30.

Not only is July 14^th Bastille Day in France, it’s also our friend Morgan’s birthday. This year she turned 21 and was excited for everyone to help her celebrate. Interact and Euromed had set up a boat ride for us to watch the Bastille Day fireworks, so we were supposed to meet up as a group at Vieuxport at 6:30. We had hoped to go out as a smaller group for dinner with Morgan beforehand, but realized we wouldn’t have enough time. Instead we got a quick bite from a food stand and eventually made our way to the boat with our big group.

There were two kinds of people from our group on Bastille Day – those who had a fabulous time and those who didn’t. Unfortunately, I was one of the ones who didn’t. The concept of getting on a boat to watch fireworks from the water was neat in theory, but was rather boring in reality. I was still quite tired from traveling back from Switzerland, and it didn’t help that many people were drinking way too much while I had decided not to drink at all. There were only 4 options of things to buy on the boat – beer, rosé wine, fruit punch with vodka, and hotdogs. I’m not a big fan of beer or rosé wine; I tried a sip of the punch, but was unfortunately allergic. I’ve also never eaten a hotdog and never plan to. I know I can be difficult at times (all the time) about my food and drinks, but the lack of options left me quite hungry which was not good considering how tired I was too.

The fireworks didn’t started until about 10:30, and our boat was supposed to be back at the dock by 11:00. The fireworks were ok, but I think we do them better in America. Right as the fireworks were finishing up one of the girls on the trip started to have a panic attack at the same time that another girl was having a drunken episode at the other end of the boat. We got back to shore around midnight, and I was starving. Instead of going to the bars with some other people, a very cranky Molly and Sarah went to the McDonald’s and then went home.

Day 17

July 13, 2013

Today was kind of a hodge-podge of sightseeing around Geneva. We started off the day with a fabulous continental breakfast. Molly and I finally figured out today why our charming, little hotel is so cheap – it’s technically in the red light district! We find it rather humorous. We’ve felt totally safe during our stay and only realized because we saw a few working girls during the daytime today. I’d still stay here again if I can back to Geneva and would recommend it to anyone else (especially those on a budget). It’s clean, has great wifi, and the staff is excellent.

As many of you could have guessed, I’ve been quite excited to visit the United Nations. We took a streetcar a few blocks down the main street and were able to get a good view of the main building. Unfortunately, we (and dozens of other tourists) couldn’t find anywhere to purchase the tickets for a tour. Molly and I searched the area for a good while, but no one was on duty at the gate we saw, the Refugee Center is closed on weekends, and there weren’t any signs to point tourist groups in the right direction. I was disappointed that we didn’t get to take the tour, but at least I’ve seen it. (We later found out from some hikers/UN workers that the tourist entrance is located on an obscure side entrance that can be found by traveling through a neighboring park. I think they need a COM major to help them make better signs.)

After giving up on seeing the inside of the UN, Molly and I came back to the hotel to get our hiking gear and go off toward Mt. Salève, one of the mountains just outside the city. We took a city bus to the Switzerland/France border and walked towards signs we saw for a cable car. No one checked our passports.

As I’ve mentioned earlier in this blog, I have acrophobia. I was determined to get some good shots of the city as we rode up to the top, but I had a minor vertigo spell halfway up. It wasn’t as bad as it was for that one Jimmy Stewart character, but it was worse than the symptoms I have when I fly. Nevertheless, I was fine when I reached the solid ground of the mountaintop.

We had a lot of fun hiking, watching paragliders, and getting to see Geneva from up above.

We were done hiking by late afternoon and had safely made it back down to France and then to Switzerland. We went back to the hotel to change, and then had planned to walk around shopping. In Marseille most of the stores close at 7:00, but here they close at 6:00!

With nothing to do we wandered around for a bit and ended up at a pizzeria for dinner. We were both so exhausted from our long day that we just came back to the hotel and decided to relax.

We’ll have another morning to hang out in Geneva before our train leaves tomorrow around 12:45pm. We’re heading back to France a bit early because tomorrow is Bastille Day and our friend’s 21^st birthday. All things considered, we’ve had fun just going with the flow for a weekend in a new city.

Day 16

July 12, 2013

Bonsoir from GENEVA, SWITZERLAND!!!

Why Switzerland? Well, when Corsica became too expensive of an option we started rushing to find somewhere in Italy that we could easily travel to after our day trip to Nice. However, the plane tickets were once again way too expensive, and the train rides were way too long. We started looking at places closer to Marseille and Nice, and soon found a great deal on tickets to Geneva! Molly and I each paid only 150 Euros roundtrip for our train tickets (way cheaper than anything else we’ve seen), and are each paying about 43 Euros per night for our hotel room which is close to the city center, has a continental breakfast, free wifi, and free city bus passes! Win, win, win! Besides the money factor, we wanted to travel somewhere that was distinctly different from Marseille and the other Mediterranean cities we’ve seen on this trip so far.

Our day started off quite early once again. We woke up at 5:00 and left our hotel in Marseille at 5:45 to take the subway directly to the train station. We arrived at the station around 6:05, got our tickets, and boarded our train to Lyon, France at 6:35. Our train car was empty except for a younger boy named Ben who was going to Lyon to visit his grandmother. Ben’s aunt asked us to make sure he was okay and got off at the right stop. Ben was fine, and he likely speaks better French than either one of us.

We arrived in Lyon at 8:25 and were scared of missing our connecting train to Geneva that was set to leave 10 minutes later. Lucky for us we found our next terminal with no trouble, and actually ended up leaving for Geneva a little later at 8:50.

Our train arrived in Geneva around 10:30. No one ever checked our passports. We stayed around the station until about 11:00 to buy a map and get a snack. We knew our hotel was a short walk away from the train station but still had a difficult time figuring out where exactly we were. We finally got to the hotel around 11:30, but our room wasn’t ready yet. We were pretty tired and we had all of our luggage with us, so we decided to sit in the lobby and take advantage of the free wifi until our room was clean. We ended up officially checking in at 12:25.

Our hotel is adorable! We even have a physical key to get into the room, not a card.

Molly and I weren’t exactly sure what we wanted to see today and what we wanted to leave for tomorrow and Sunday, so we walked down to Lake Geneva and decided we’d just go with the flow and see whatever sites we came across.

The first site we saw was the famous Jet d’Eau fountain. From there we set off to see the Flower Clock, the St. Pierre Cathedral, and the Reformation Wall on the other side of the river from our hotel. We got lost a couple of times, but we always found our way eventually.

The side streets of Geneva almost remind us of the cute winding roads in Florence. The only problem is that once you’re lost down a side street, it’s hard to see any tall landmarks to position yourself and find your way out. We really like Geneva so far though. Getting lost down side streets made our day a lot more interesting.

Although Geneva is a large city, it’s surprisingly quiet. It took Molly and I a few hours to realize that the Swiss don’t constantly honk their horns like the French do. The only downside to the city so far is that everything (food in particular) seems so extremely expensive. Switzerland actually uses a different currency than France; they use the Swiss Franc which is almost equivalent is the US dollar. I’d been warned that Switzerland was expensive, but had thought everyone was merely over-exaggerating. Molly and I actually brought our own bread, peanut butter, and nutella to Switzerland so we could easily pack a lunch for our train rides and for hiking, but I’m glad we have a little stash of food so we won’t have to spend so much money on snacks here.

After walking around the city we came back to the hotel around 4:30 to rest for a bit before going out for dinner.

Day 15

July 11, 2013

I miss Mexican food… This statement doesn’t have a whole lot to do with my day, but it does illustrate the fact that I am starting to miss some of the comforts of home (mainly nachos). I think the honeymoon phase of the trip has started to wear off for most of us here. In the past few days I’ve caught others and myself talking about Mexican food, macaroni and cheese, and simple Southern-style cooked vegetables. Surprisingly, no one has mentioned missing sweet tea. I still really love France, but I think I’m getting a little tired of bread and pasta (Yes, you did read that correctly).

We had a lovely little trip to Nice today. It was even more beautiful than Marseille! My pictures don’t do the city justice at all, but Nice is exactly how I’d pictured the “French Riviera” to look. The city has a definite Italian influence, especially with its architecture and bright colors.

It took us about two hours to get there by bus. Once we arrived we stayed on the bus for a tour of the city and got off at a park near the Matisse Museum. We got to walk by a monastery and see their gardens with a great view of the city below. Then we hopped back on the bus and were dropped off at the market for two hours of free time to get lunch and go shopping. Another comfort of home that I’m starting to miss is speedy service. I understand that time is viewed differently here, but we spent almost all of our free time at a restaurant getting lunch. Molly and I only had about 20 minutes left in Nice to visit a few touristy shops before we had to be back on the bus. It's definitely a city that I'd like to explore more some other time.

Many of our classmates are staying in Nice for the weekend or staying for the day and then leaving to go on weekend trips to Monaco or Italy. Molly and I are leaving for our weekend trip out of Marseille, so we got back on the bus with some other members of our group and went to the village of Grasse, France to tour a perfume factory. It was definitely the nicest smelling factory I’ve ever been to! I’ve never really been interested in perfumes or scents, but it was cool to see how much work goes into making a bottle of perfume.

After the tour we got back on the bus and came home to Marseille. We arrived at about 7:00 and have since been getting ready to travel tomorrow. We’re planning on waking up bright and early at 5:00 so we can get out of Marseille on time.

I’ve had a lot of fun being vague about our weekend travel plans so that I could surprise you all… I guess you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to see where we end up going!