I arrived in Marseilles Friday afternoon from Fes. At the Fes airport I was having trouble zipping my bag and a nice guy offered to help. We were unsuccessful but when I went through security I tried again. This time the nice guy's sister offered to help and we finally got the bag to zip. We started talking and she told me that she is going to do a 4-week art program in France. When she got on the plane and saw me she wished me a nice trip so I invited her to sit next to me. Turns out she is 22 years old and this was her first time out of Morocco and her first time on a plane. I asked the guy in the aisle seat to get up so she and I could switch seats and she could see out of the window. I sat in the middle for the rest of the flight. I was happy to let her sit by the window, but still hate sitting in the middle... She was so sweet and thankful though that I really didn't mind. We talked the whole way to Marseilles and exchanged facebook info. We promised each other that if she came to the US or I went to Casablanca (which I will one day) that we would meet again. I was happy to provide a little comfort and security for her and help her figure out a little how to get around a foreign country. I then took a bus into Marseilles. I had a little trouble finding my hostel, as the name of the road it's on changes before it gets to the hostel. Anyways, I walked around a bit and saw the ville charitie, the cathedral, and old port (which is where my hostel was).
We had plans for Jessy to text me when she landed at the airport and I'd meet her at the train station. Her plane landed at 11:15 and when I hadn't heard from her by 12:00 I began to panic and I called Danni fairly hysterical not knowing if Jessy was okay. Of course Danni with her rational thought processes came up with multiple reasonable explanations. Maybe her phone doesn't work outside Hungary. Maybe her phone is dead. 'Maybe she's dead!' I said. Maybe she was kidnapped at the train station. My mind was racing. If she doesn't show up, I will have to call the police and I don't even speak French! I will have to try to explain to the the situation and they won't understand. After 2 hours and about 40 panicked phone calls to Danni, Jessy called me from her hostel (we stayed at different places because my place was full) to say she was fine and her phone didn't work outside Hungary. Guess Danni was right.... Anyways, in the 2 minutes Jessy and I had on the phone I told her to meet me at the old port. It was very exciting to see each other!
The next day we spent in Marseilles. We took a double-decker bus tour and ate bouillabaisse, which is the dish Marseilles is known for and we also went to a little market.
We walked all around the city, went to the train station and bought tickets to Montpelier to see Maria and Timothy. We went back to the hostels, collected our stuff, I said goodbye to the really nice girls that worked at my hostel (with whom I had become friends) Zuzana, Kim, and Sophie and then we took the metro to the train station. In Montpelier, Maria and her friend's daughter, Carolina, picked us up. I can't imagine anyone more hospitable than Timothy and Maria. They gave us a mini tour in the car of Montpelier and then drove us about an hour into the countryside and hills of south France to their French villa in a small village outside Sommiers. They have the most amazing French villa with a courtyard in the middle where they fed us a wonderful dinner and breakfast the next morning. They even did my laundry! Travelling really makes you appreciate clean clothes- how luxurious! It was really great to see Maria again and get to know Timothy and Carolina. After breakfast, they drove us to Toulon so our train tickets to Nice would be cheaper. We drove past fields of grapevines, sunflowers, and even rice patties brought by Vietnamese immigrants, as Timothy explained, when France had a large presence in Vietnam. I was truly amazed (but not surprised) at how truly great they were to us both.
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