Last Week

Above - Louise prepares her tuna sandwiches for the TGV to Paris

Above - Notre Dame de la Garde from Le Palais du Pharo

Above - Vieux Port from Le Palais du Pharo

Above - Le Palais du Pharo by night

This post is snappily entitled 'Last Week' as, surprise surprise, it is going to cover the goings-on of the last week. A week of firsts and lasts; a week of sadness and happiness, of sun and cloud and of course, as we're in France, a week of strikes! Quite shockingly maybe, this post is going to begin with Monday. Monday is the day that follows Sunday. Sunday being the day Aimee and me got back from Lyon. I came home to unpack (ok, ok, I lied, I'm actually starting with Sunday afternoon rather than Monday) and relax. I was talking to Louise on msn and she announced her departure. A departure without a return. The kind where you need only a one way ticket, a one way ticket destination Northern Ireland. A cinema trip was in order. We went to see 'Paris' at Varietes and afterwards, stood outside the cinema in front of the Marin Pompier station for what was probably a little too long. We stood talking watching the world pass by up and down La Canabiere. We saw Le Secours Catholique give soup to a homeless person. We saw a homeless person arrive and make their 'bed' in the shop window opposite the cinema, they just missed the chance of hot soup. If they were to have been 5 minutes earlier...

Monday saw the last ritual that is Monday evening coffee, meet at Vieux Port at 18h. It's a long standing tradition where Rachel, Aimee, Louise and me meet and go to La Plat Provincal for coffee and watch the waiters set the tables in anticipation for floods of hungry Marseillais. We usually stay until about 19h when we can't bear to delay the setting of the last table any longer, we can't bear the twitchiness of the waiters waiting to set the last table in the corner ready in time for the mad rush of hungry marseillais. This mad rush we never did see. Nor were we ever able to decide whether they dreaded us arriving at 18h on Monday because we delayed the setting of the last table or whether they were glad to see us if only so the place wasn't empty!

Tuesday was a day of Stikes. Now, a week in France just wouldn't be complete if there wasn't a strike of some sort somewhere. This week it was the turn of the public transport workers to strike. The opening hours of the metro are being extended, albeit ever so slightly. The RTM workers were striking over pay - the metro will be open later, we will have to work longer, that pay rise you're offering is just not good enough. Or something like that anyway. I had to be at Lycee for 10h10 so I left at about 9h15 but metro Colbert was closed with a sign saying 'Perturbations entre La Timone and Saint Charles' (Colbert is the stop just before Saint Charles). I about turned and went home. I wasn't going to work today. After lunch I went to Joliette metro (It appeared the red line was working fine, it was just La Timone to Saint Charles) and met Louise. We were to going to randomally get off at Jules Guesde metro stop which we knew was somewhere around Saint Charles. It turns out it's just behind the Porte d'Aix. Coming out of the metro on the escalator you could be forgiven for thinking that you'd just taken a plane to another country. It was like I'd been transported, in the space of one stop on the metro, to somewhere, anywhere, other than Marseille. We walked along and round and through and back to Saint Charles. I recognised some areas as where I go with Les Restos du Coeur in the evening. We saw building sites in an attempt to redevelop the poorest part of Marseille. But you have to ask yourself what good luxury appartments with extautionate rents are going to do for the people who need housing... We made our way back to the centre ville and went to the library where Louise un-s'inscrire-d and I borrowed two children's books on the history of France. We then went for coffee. We decided to try somewhere new. A first. It was a nice place not far from Vieux Port. We went in and ordered a tea and coffee and two desserts - a flan and a lemon merangue. Now, I've given up chocolate for Lent. You'd think ordering a slice of lemon merangue would be a pretty safe bet for a chocolate free desert wouldn't you?? Apparently not. Seriously, it's about as hard to not eat chocolate as it is to not eat meat in this country! Ok, so it was only drizzled around the merange and across the centre but still, who in their right mind puts chocolate on a lemon merangue?!! I ate around it/scraped it off. We left, my giving up chocolate for Lent still intact, just. We went down Rue Saint Fe and around Vieux Port in a few of the shops. We bought some postcards. Louise bought one (which I already have) with the departments numbers on. For example 'Bouches de Rhone' is 13 so all postcards in that region start with 13 and all cars registered in that region have 13 on their number plate) We then walked to Le Palais du Pharo as, despite having lived in Marseille since last September, it was one of the many tourist attractions Louise hadn't done. It was cloudy so not as pretty as it could have been. We stayed until it began to get dark and then spent 40 minutes walking half of Vieux Port back to La Canabiere. This 10 minute walk took us 40 as we were number plate spotting. 'Ooh, a 68, I wonder where that's from...' Out comes the map - 'Isere'. Two steps later 'Ooh, a 75, I wonder where that's from...' Out comes the map again - 'Paris', and so we went on. There's a suprising mix although it has to be said the overwhelming majority are '13'.

Wednesday brought with it a first and a last all at once. Breakfast at Vieux Port with Louise, Rachel, Aimee and Lucy. Albeit a staged breakfast (and I don't mean that in the theatrical sense, more in the 'sittings' sense). I got there at 9h and Rachel and Louise were already there. We ordered because Aimee had text to say she would be late and that we should order without her. Lucy had text to say she'd be there shortly after she'd found her keys. Lucy came and ate with us but 50 minutes later, croissants, coffee and orange juice long finished, Lucy having left for work, there was still no sign of Aimee... good job we did order without her. She came and we then went to Rue Saint Fe and then back to Louise's to drink tea and help her get her things down the four flights of stairs to Saint Charles for the TGV to Paris at 13h28. It was sad, we stood on the platform and said goodbye. Louise then got on the train. We waved and then Rachel and me went with Aimee who ate as she was waiting for the bus to go to Aix to go to the university (she's doing courses there). I went home.

Thursday was a work day. Metro and buses back to normal so I was able to get to Lycee today. It was my first day back after the holidays. I arrived for my anglais renforce class at 9h. I did role plays with them. Christiane (the teacher) wanted me to do something on smoking so I got them to write roleplays between either two friends discussing the smoking ban, a doctor and a patient or a child and parent. At 10h I had a class of terminale - more global warming. I'm now a self declared global warming expert after having done this lesson so so so many times. I then had a new class at 11h with Andree. They're very good. They're preparing for a 'concours' to go to engineering school so they've already done their bac. Afterwards I went home for lunch queuing for a good 10 minutes to buy a baguette. I then went back to Lycee for a class of Seconde at 15h. I like this class and was disappointed when the teacher asked me whether I'd work with her Terminale rather than come to this class from now on. More Terminale - more images - more global warming no doubt! At 16h I went to the staff room as I had some printing to do but the printer in the staff room was jammed so I went to the CDI to use the printer there but the computer wouldn't ready my USB stick. I enlisted the help of a teacher who came to the staff room and unjammed the printer there. You have to hold the lid down to avoid it jamming. Trouble was I then ran out of paper so had to go on a paper hunt. The computer was then being incredibly slow. I was beginning to get incredibly frustrated. A coffee was in order. Whilst the machine made my coffee and I drank it, left hand firmly holding down the printer lid at all times to avoid further jams, the computer and printer managed to work together to eventually print my 6 sheets. It was, by this time gone 17h. Apart from my 6 sheets of printing, the only good thing to have come out of this palava was that I learnt that 'coince' (with an acute accent on the 'e') is used for a paper jam. I then did my photocopying and walked to the metro calling in the supermarket en route. It was the first time I'd been in an 'Ed' supermarket. It reminded me a bit of Lidl. I didn't buy much - some cereal, fruit juice and sugar. I then got the metro. Disasterous. As it was getting towards the time where everyone was going home it was really busy. Because I get on at the first stop I got to sit down. Everything was going fine until we got to Chartreux. We stopped, just sitting there on the platform. It was warm and busy. People were crammed in. After literally 15 minutes (and several chapters of my book later) we began moving, only to arrive at Cinq Avenues to sit there again for another goodness only knows how long. I thought about getting off and getting the tram but I thought that that'd be just as busy. Besides, I couldn't physically move, the people were crammed in that well, let alone make my way to the door to get off. We eventually began to move only to stop at Reformes for a good 10 minutes. When we eventually got to Colbert and I got off it was 19h10! A 20 minute journey had just taken me 50!

Friday saw a first. I went in a rather appropriately named cafe (for Marseille anyway) on La Canabiere - 'Moing'. I sat and read that morning's paper with a cafe creme. I then, at 11h30, after having been to the centre de jeuneusse, monoprix, the post office and various other places, met Angeline devant la pharmacie. We walked to Castellane and had lunch at the new Patacrepe that has just opened there. Afterwards we walked back to the centre and I bought a pair of converse. I came back home and prepared for my cours de conversation which I went to give at 17h. I then came home, showered, ate and went to bed.

Which brings us nicely to today - Saturday.