Aix-en-Provence et Marseille

4/4-5/4
This weekend was our last cuefle trip, this time to aix-en-provence. I’d already been, but me and Lindsay were tres intelligentes and decided to use the 5ish euro tip to aix as an excuse to go to Marseille for cheap at the same time. The train tickets to Marseille, which is only about 2 ½ hours away, are pretty ridiculously expensive and cost at least 30 euro one way. This way we were in aix, only 45 minutes and a 5 euro train ticket away and we’d only have to pay for the expensive train ticket one way. So we had to get up at the crack of dawn, as usual, for the cuefle trip with no chance to sleep on the bus, of course, because of daniel’s incessant commentary. At least I knew nothing he was saying was important so I really just tuned him out the entire time. After a couple of hours on the bus, we stopped just outside aix at a fabrication de santons, those traditional little figurines that they make in provence. I’d already done something like this before, too, but it was still cool to see again. They can make and paint even the tiniest santons. Then it was back on the bus to go into the center of aix. We had a little walking tour checked out the main cathedral, complete with the wood carved doors that they opened especially for us and then broke for lunch. They gave us a ton of time, as usual, so we had lots of time to walk around the markets and cute little streets and see some weddings happening at the hotel de ville. We met back with the rest of the group later, but that was when we they were leaving to go to cezanne’s atelier and we were staying in aix. So we said goodbye to our good friend Daniel and headed to the hotel to drop off our stuff. Then it was back downtown to walk around some more, go into some shops, buy some shoes (me) and just basque in the sun during one of the first nice days in awhile. We were trying to avoid going back to the hotel since we had nothing to do, no tv or anything, but finally we did and I worked on homework (aka write a stupid poem for poesie.. horrible!) and then went to bed. The next day we got up and went to the train station to get our train to Marseille. We got to Marseille quickly, but then found that not much was open since it was Sunday (typical). So we just walked around (also typical) and then made our way up to the notre dame de la garde. It’s this big cathedral on top of a huge hill and it definitely has the best view of Marseille. There were lots of people out around the various churches we passed in Marseille because it was Palm Sunday. Some people even tried to sell the palm leaves along the street. We slowly made our way down and walked around the old port area, checking out some other churches and sights mentioned in our guide book. We ended up having a bunch of extra time, and just sat at the port like many of the other local marseillais were doing. Then it was back to the train station to take our tgv to nice.