A Weekend in Marseille

I just got back from a beautiful weekend in Marseille! I've been to Marseille before, but just on a day trip a few summers ago while I was living in the south of France. I just wandered around the city, through the different markets and huge crowds of people out for a nice Saturday afternoon. It seemed like a very lively, southern, Mediterranean city, but it was just a glimpse. This past weekend I was lucky enough to have a friend from Canada to stay with just outside of the centre. He is also doing an exchange at a business school and his friend was gone for the weekend so my friend and I were able to have a room to stay in for free. It was really interesting to see another type of ERASMUS lifestyle. Unlike in Paris, most of the exchange students were living in one big residence a short bus ride from their school. It was almost like summer camp or first year university, everyone was really friendly and they did a lot of group activities together. There were communal kitchens where there were always groups of people cooking up a storm. It has much more of a relaxed, southern, style. We went out to a few different bars while we were there and saw a bit of what the nightlife in Marseille is like. It is definitely more casual compared to Paris, but it was a lot of fun.
We also did a lot of sight-seeing in and around the city. We tried some seafood at a really nice restaurant downtown as well (which was much cheaper than it would have been in Paris). My favourite part was going to "les calanques" which is what is pictured above. We hiked for around forty minutes to get there and it was well worth it. The view was absolutely breathtaking and it was really refreshing to breath some fresh air and be surrounded by nature. It made me miss the south of France, it is such a beautiful place. Overall the trip was really great, my friend was an amazing host and it was nice to get out of the city for a bit and experience some new things.

Here are some of my observations/interesting things I learned about Marseille:

1) It is the second biggest city in France (over 800,000)
2) It really does deserve its reputation as the "dirtiest city in France." The downtown streets were covered in litter.
3) You can definitely see certain differences in immigration trends. There is a lot stronger North African presence in Marseille, you can notice just by looking at the people and by the fact that there are kebab places on every corner. There are a lot of kebab places in Paris as well, but not nearly as many. I also noticed that there seemed to be a lot fewer Asian people in Marseille, I didn't see a single "Traiteur Chinois," or Japanese restaurant (which are both abundant in Paris).
4) I think that the people in Marseille speak slower, which is definitely good for understanding their French. I was told that there would be a really noticeable difference in accents, but I think the speed was the thing that I noticed most.
5) Marseille has a metro system, though it only consists of 2 lines (unlike Paris which has 14). The bus system is a bit strange though because it is really easy to just walk on a bus without a ticket, or without validating one (meaning you can just use it again). Once you validate a ticket it lasts for 1 hour and you can use it again within that hour. The only "control" that they have is random officers who will stop buses and check everyone for tickets, and fine those who don't have one. I didn't see any of these officers though and we took the bus quite a lot.

Chèques

The cheque is still a pretty common method of payment in France, unlike in Canada. In Canada the only things that we use cheques for are rent, paychecks (though direct deposits are becoming a lot more common), school trips and monetary gifts (birthdays, graduation, etc.). I rarely ever use my checkbook or see anyone paying for any commercial good with a cheque. I don't think you're really allowed to pay for much with cheques these days in Canada anyways. In Paris it's a different story, you can pay for your groceries, restaurant bill and many other thing with cheques. I've seen many a sign in stores reading something like "you must have 2 pieces of ID to pay by cheque." Usually the larger the amount of money, the more pieces of ID you have to show. I really started to notice the prominence of cheques here on my first day of class. It was my first business class in French and the teacher brought out the box of shiny new textbooks ready to be purchased. So the French kids started lining up to pay for a book and 80% of them had a checkbook in hand and began scribbling out the amount. I became a bit nervous thinking that maybe the teacher only accepted cheques as payment, but then I saw some students with cash in hand and breathed a sigh of relief. I never ended up getting a French bank account since I'm only here for a few months, so I can't exactly pay for anything with a cheque :)

The Algerians are REALLY Excited

The streets of Paris are filled with ecstatic Algerians. Algeria just beat Egypt to qualify for the World Cup next year and they are celebrating like crazy. There is a large Algerian population in Paris and I'm pretty sure that every single one of them is out at a bar blasting loud music or driving around honking their horn like mad. It sounds like one huge party outside.

Scooters

Kids in Paris love their scooters... and apparently so do some adults. I have seen quite a few adults rolling about on scooters here and I don't really know what to think about it. I always associated scooters with childhood play but here some adults seem to use them as a legitimate mode of transportation. I'm not sure how practical scooters really are, personally I've never been a big fan of them. It's just a funny sight to see a well-dressed "grown-up" riding around on a scooter in the city. I guess it is a good way to be environmentally friendly, but there is also the much more practical "velib" (public bicycles in Paris). I see people on their way to work/school on velibs every day, and wish that my school was more easily accessible so that I could do the same without fearing for my life.

Name Days

Yesterday I found out that in Sweden and Germany (and probably in some other countries that I am unaware of) they have "name days." The most popular/traditional names in the country are assigned to a specific day of the year. I don't really think that your "name day" is a huge deal, my Swedish friend just said that her parents give her some candy on her day, but I think it is a neat idea to have a day dedicated to your name. I guess this type of thing wouldn't really work in Canada considering how multicultural it is, and the fact that I wouldn't even know where to begin to make a list of "traditional" Canadian names. I did however find out that in Sweden "Viktoria" day is March 12th.

You can read the Wikipedia entry about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_day

Poutine the French Way

Today at my school we had an "ERASMUS" day, so the exchange students were supposed to give ideas for recipes from their respective countries and participate in games, etc. in the cafeteria. I couldn't go because I had class but I heard a horror story from my fellow Canadians. So the Canadians decided to submit poutine as the recipe for Canada, but it was the Parisian students who actually made the food... and that is when disaster ensued. So the first mistake was that they decided to make the fries yesterday and then reheat them today, personally I always find reheated fries disgusting so that would have ruined the whole dish for me. Secondly they used barbecue sauce instead of gravy... I can only imagine. Day old fries with barbecue sauce and cheese curds...mmm, sounds appetizing! Apparenty the Canadians were asked to stop serving their dish because it was so bad. So now you can imagine the wonderful idea that the French students have of Canadian food. I love poutine when it is made well, but I don' think I would have tried the French version of it if I had been there today. I'm not really sure what else could have been served that might have been easier... I have a hard time coming up with any other food/meal that is distinctly Canadian aside from the stereotypical maple syrup, beaver tail, canadian bacon... any ideas?

Men with Guns

The police in Paris always seem to be carrying around these huge guns and I find it really frightening. Yesterday on my way back from school I saw a bunch of guys in army gear carrying guns like the one above, just standing in the metro station casually. Police with large guns also stand guard at the bottom of the Eiffle Tower, and I've seen them around other places as well. Even the "regular" police that patrol tourist sites and try to prevent public drinking have visible (though smaller) guns. I find it really terrifying that these people are just allowed to carry these huge guns around in public. Yes they are police, but that doesn't really make me feel any safer, accidents happen and when there is a real emergency or situation who knows how they will handle it? I'm not really sure what the firearm policy is for Toronto Police but I've never seen one with a gun. These huge guns make me feel intimidated, not protected.

French Men's Shoes

Recently one of my friends pointed out that most French men wear a similar style of shoe. I hadn't really noticed up until then because I don't normally pay much attention to men's footwear. At the bar the other night I actually took a moment to look at shoes and realized it was true, most French guys wear pointy shoes. Ever since then, I can't help but look at the shoes that men are wearing here. I am really not a fan of the pointy-toed shoes on men, to me it just looks a bit sleazy and I'm not sure why. It's probably just more of a European style that I'm not accustomed to seeing. I couldn't find a great picture but hopefully you get the general idea from above. The shoes that I've seen tend to be even pointier and shinier.

Vintage Shopping

Vintage shopping seems pretty popular in Paris, I've seen quite a few vintage stores around and yesterday I went to a vintage sale with my friends. The sale cost 7 euros to get into... which I was not too happy about because then I felt like I should buy something since I payed to get in, but most things were really expensive. There was furniture, clothes, shoes, etc. and a lot of the stuff was designer so the prices were well beyond my price range. I saw a few bags that were relatively cheap but nothing really caught my attention. I'm not too big into vintage shopping, I find in general a lot of items are overpriced and I just don't really like the idea of wearing clothes that have been who knows where... I understand why people enjoy it though, I think it has a lot to do with the excitement of coming across a really good find, and also there's an aspect of uniqueness and history behind a vintage piece.

Favela Chic

My friends and I went to a cool place for dinner last night called Favela Chic. It's a restaurant/bar and we went a few weeks ago for drinks and decided that we would have to go back to eat since the food smelled so good. Luckily we managed to get in last night, even though we were a huge group (around 14) and didn't have a reservation. They have really long tables and benches so it's the perfect place for large groups. The food is Brazilian and most of the meals contained some sort of meat/seafood with veggies and rice. The food was good, though expensive so I don't think I would go back for a meal just because of my student budget...haha. But I would recommend anyone to try it at least once. The atmosphere is great, very lively and warm and the staff is very friendly as well.

I finally tried a French "hot dog"

So I finally tried a French "hot dog." It looks something like the above picture, basically a hot dog in a baguette covered in melted cheese. They have them at all the sandwich places and I've been wanting to try one for a while and finally caved in yesterday. I was nervous that if I tried one I would really like it and then I would want to eat them all the time, turns out I had nothing to be worried about. What you can't see is that there is some weird sauce inside underneath the hot dog, I think it's some sort of mustard but it was really hot almost like Wasabi. The hot dog itself was also not so great, it wasn't really cooked enough for my taste. So I'm glad that I finally tried it and no longer have to be tempted because it is definitely not my kind of food. It might be different depending on where you get it from, but French sandwiches pretty much always have some sort of sauce or butter inside them, unless they're called something "sec" aka "dry" in English.

Paris is Dirty...

Okay so I know I'm sounding a bit pessimistic with this title and the last post... but Paris just seems especially dirty lately. I think one of the main contributing factors is the heating in the metro. The metro is always hot, but now that the weather is getting colder and people are starting to layer more on I think it has become even hotter, stuffier and smellier. The urine smell that's always lingering in the stations has seemed especially strong the past few days as well. I've also been finding it frustrating to always have to look down when I'm walking so that I don't accidentally step in a giant pile of dog poo that someone has so kindly neglected to pick up. And to top it all off, I was sitting in the fancy Starbucks near Opera with my friend last night (this place has chandeliers) and I saw a mouse run across the floor... The funny thing was it didn't even surprise me. I find it interesting that Paris has this reputation as a romantic, glamorous, classy city yet it is so dirty in some ways. Sometimes I find that these contrasts give the city more character, but at the moment it's getting colder, darker and drearier outside and it's becoming more difficult to view these aspects as charming.

Germaphobia

I've started to become a bit of a Germaphobe lately when it comes to the Paris metro. I keep on forgetting to buy a bottle of hand sanitizer to ease my worries. I think it all started when I saw a man cough into his hands and then grab one of the metal bars for support. It wasn't just a regular cough either, it was one of those flemmy cringe-inducing coughs that no one really wants to hear let alone see. Sure we all know that thousands of people touch the same pole that we grasp onto everyday, but it was just really disconcerting to see such a blatant transfer of germs.

Halloween in Paris

Halloween has always been one of my favourite "holidays." In Canada it's a pretty big deal. As a child you get to dress up as scary creatures, run around with your friends and get lots of candy. In university it's undoubtedly one of the biggest events of the year, everyone goes all out with costumes, and there are crazy parties all over town. Halloween is only just catching on in Europe and has a long way to go if it wants to live up to North American standards. Luckily there are some Canadians here and Joce was visiting, so I had some people around me who were into the spirit. One of the other erasmus students had a halloween party with decorations and there were a few people dressed up, so it was a decent start to the evening. However we went to a club that was having a "halloween" party, and they wouldn't let us in! I'm not really sure what happened because I went to the bathroom at a restauarnt with some girls and came back to the line to find that most of my friends had already been kicked out. Apparently we were "too rowdy" but I have a feeling they were just not into our costumes. No one in the line was dressed up except of our group, and this was for an event advertised as a halloween party! Anyways the night ended up going very well, I was kind of glad that we didn't make it into the first place because the cover was 15 euros. We wandered down the street a bit and found a cute little bar and just danced the night away. We were a big enough group that we probalby would have entertained ourselves wherever we ended up!

I just short-circuited my Kitchen...

Yesterday I decided to make banana bread because I had some old bananas leftover. I was only missing one ingredient: butter, so I went to the store to do some food shopping. When I came back to my apartment I unpacked all my groceries and couldn't find the butter anywhere... so I checked the receipt to make sure I had actually bought it, which I had, and then after a lot of fruitless searching I decided I must have left it at the store. This morning I poured the milk that I had bought over my cereal only to discover chunks in it... so I decided a return trip to the grocery store was necessary and I picked up another stick of butter along the way. Everything was going well, I made the batter, greased the pan and put the banana bread in the oven... then I decided I should make some hot water with lemon and honey because my throat has been feeling a bit sore. I decided to use the kettle and put it on the electric burner (which I have never done before)... and then a few minutes later I realized that the burner wasn't working anymore, and neither was the oven. After that I also realized that the fridge and microwave were no longer working either. So I called my landlord and apparently it was a bad idea to use the electric burner at the same time as the oven because it uses a lot of energy. It seems a little impractical to me, but I guess I've learned my lesson now. I put the batter in the fridge... which isn't working...haha, so we'll see if that banana bread ever ends up being made.