Final France Days

Someone was teasing me recently about how all I post on social media makes it look like I just live a life on vacation.  I laughed at that.  I guess I figure no one wants to read about the expense reports, the daily phone calls to my logistics coordination with moving questions, the complaints about the heat, the cleaning of the fridge before putting into storage, discovering wood eating beetles (again), business calls over Skype, etc.  That's all normal boring stuff that relates to most people's lives.  Who wants to read that?  So I post about the stuff that makes me happy in my life, and that might be different than others.  

Anyway, here's my "vacationy" life--the last few days in Marseille.  During my moving week, my friend Honey invited me to break the Ramadan fast with her and her family one evening.  In all my years in France, this was only the second time I've been invited to break the fast.  Her mother-in-law (who is in one of my classes), made the traditional chorba (a soup that all North Africans eat to break the fast), brique (a North African egg roll of sorts that is filled with beef and cheese and is oh-so-yummy), a small frittata, steak, chicken, potatoes and green beans. Seriously, it was a feast.  After all that, we still had fruit and then dessert!  

Notice something that doesn't belong?  Her mother-in-law knew that I'd introduced Honey to Dr. P, and how much she liked it, so she hunted down two cans for us.  Double portion blessed at this dinner, I was.

Me and Honey Honey.  I'm gonna miss that girl.

On my very last day, I'd already thrown out or given away all the stuff I didn't want, but I had one book left.  I can't handle throwing books away, even if I don't want them anymore.  Well, in Marseille, there is the book giraffe!  In a city where people vandalize and steal all the time, it's amazing that the book giraffe still serves its original purpose: to be a free book exchange.  Leave a book, take a book.

Here I was, dropping my book in the hole.  The very moment I laid it down...

...a face appeared on the other side to look through the stash inside.  Hopefully my little English book will find a home somewhere in Marseille.

Next, I headed over to say goodbye to the French Steel Magnolias.  I call them that because they are a group of Southern women who sit around each week gossiping about all the people of the neighborhood.  I'd like to say that these women helped my listening comprehension in the area of the Marseille accent, but considering that during my goodbye party I will silently deciding which one was which character from the movie (instead of listening to their conversation about some woman who recently changed jobs for whatever reason), I'm not so sure my actual listening comprehension improved.  Haha.  I did enjoy getting to be a part of their neighborhood circle for the past two years.

My team always had a tradition that for a person (or couple)'s last night in Marseille, we'd go out to this fancy steak place on the Vieux Port.  The thing was, I liked the steak...but there were other restaurants I'd wanted to try that were just as fancy.  I didn't have a team anymore (I am the team!), and so I figured I could break tradition and eat wherever I wanted.  I'd passed by the Nautical Society many times, and always thought you had to be a member of it to be able to eat there.  Turns out that isn't true.  Anyone can eat at the restaurant, member of the society or not.  I asked my friend, Chrome, if she would mind eating with me for my second to last night in Marseille.  The restaurant is on a boat in the Vieux Port, with a great view of all the other boats all around.

Chrome and I had great conversations over dinner (as we have many times over the past 2.5 years).  I had watermelon gazpacho for my appetizer.  They gave me a huge bowl of it, with a small side salad.    It seemed like a big appetizer, and later I saw the same appetizer coming out in much smaller portions.  However, the gazpacho was soooo good that there are no complaints from this end about the big size of my portion.

For my main course, I had filet mignon of pork with mustard sauce and caramelized onions.  Delish.

And for dessert: strawberry tiramisu with speculoos.  Died and gone to heaven, I have.

Thanks, Chrome, for all your help and friendship and fun!  We're both big enough travelers, we figure we'll see each other again somewhere.

There was a lot more that happened on that second to last day in Marseille.  I had the walk through and said goodbye to my sweet apartment.  I accidentally stole a towel from the studio I was staying at, that ended up being 10 days of drama of how to return the dumb hand towel.  I had lots of sweet little Marseille moments that made me smile and think, "This is why I love these crazy people."  It was such a good day that I was nervous for my actual last day...would it be able to top this day?  What if I only encountered crazy Marseille people who would make me think, "This is why these people make me crazy"?  It turned out that my fears were in vain.  My last day was equally as good.

On my very last day in Marseille, I met up with Manue to eat lunch at one of my favorite restaurants. They serve a duck dish with sauce made from whatever fruit is in season.  Cherry is my favorite, but I thought it was going to be too late for cherry sauce.  The Lord smiled on me, and I got to eat duck with cherry sauce one last time.  Sooo, sooo good!

Manue was my very first friend in France.  I met her in Paris, and a few months later, I ended up getting an apartment in the same building as her.  She has always been a consistent help for language and culture and helping me just love France.  It got fun when we both moved to Marseille the same month back in 2011.  She was so sweet and gave me a Huguenot Cross necklace, telling me that I am French Protestant, so I must have one of the necklaces to show it.  It was hard to tell her bye.  But I kept reminding her that I'll be back to France some day, and since she's French, she'll more than likely be here, so we'll surely see each other again.  

Barney and Woody happened to be in Marseille for a short little stopover during their journeys of their year out, and so I got to meet up with Barney while Woody took care of business.  Catching up with her made the day seem normal, instead of weird...since it was my last day.

Keeping it normal still, I went over to the apartment where I lived back in 2011, and had a final goodbye dinner with the family who lives there and their intern.  We ate pizza and played games and laughed a whole bunch.  I do enjoy that lot!

On my way back to Aix that night, I stepped out on to the terrace of the train station to take one final look and photo of Marseille.  I'd taken a daylight photo there the day I arrived so many years ago...and now the sun has set on my time in the sweet little city by the sea.

Once I left Marseille, I still had five days left in France.  I did my {most complicated ever} expense report, and sent emails, and recouped a bit from the moving weeks.  Then, came the Tour de France!

A few months ago, I looked up the route of the Tour to figure out when they would be closest to Aix.  I then planned my fly date and moving date backwards from that day.  *You know you're a fan when...

Mr. X found a spot on the road that wouldn't be too crowded and we drove up there, and set up our picnic chairs.  There were six of us, which was fun.  About thirty minutes later, the caravan came through, and we had so much fun jumping up and down and waving to get them to throw things to us.  (The caravan is made up of all the sponsors for the Tour, and they throw out free samples of their brand.)  We got hats, bags, candies, cookies, keychains, magnets, bracelets, juice bottles, and more!  So much fun!

(I don't have pictures from the caravan because I was keeping my hands free to grab stuff.  If you want to see pictures from a previous year, click HERE.)  About an hour after the caravan, the three cyclists in the lead at that moment came by...

Then the small pack of leaders came--about 15 or so of them.  Mr. X and I crossed the road after that, to be in the shade.

Then came the peloton!!!  It was a serious WHOOSH! and then they were gone, but what an awesome whoosh!

There's Chris Froome, who was (and currently still is) the yellow shirt wearer for the day.

I said it was my favorite way to do the Tour.  There were no big crowds like when I've seen it in the cities.  Just a fun afternoon out with friends, with free stuff and an awesome whoosh of colored wind for about 27 seconds.

The next day I had my final goodbye dinner with Honey, her mother, and her mother-in-law.  They were so sweet and sent me the most precious text messages throughout the night after we'd said goodbye.  I've said goodbye a lot throughout my life, and especially over the past few years and the past two months...but this one was hard.  This family has my heart.

And all of a sudden, it's my last day in France?  What better way to spend it than at the beach, swimming in the Med?  The temperature of the water was perfect, and I swam for nearly two hours straight.  I could've stayed all day, but I had some final packing to do.

And so my time in France has come to an end.  Tomorrow I fly to the Middle East, via a long layover in Athens.  I follow the Alpha and the Omega, and so as this chapter ends, I look forward to beginning the next new journey.  I do love me some France, but...you know me...

...always looking for a better country...