Carrefour

Carrefour means "crossroads" or "junction" in French. It's basically a place where a lot of things come together...how apt for my life in Paris right now! Things here are going really well. I'm at a great junction between English and French, between the familiar and the unknown, between the exciting and the mundane.  Orientation has been exhausting so far, mainly because I'm speaking/hearing French all day. Nonstop. At the end of the day I have a physical headache from trying to understand so much! Luckily, I understand more than I thought I would, and I'm relishing the time I get to practice because I already feel like I've improved so much. It's much easier for me to understand daily interactions now and I'm already much more comfortable speaking with French people. In fact, we just got back from Marseille and I made a French friend! She was working in a boulangerie and we started talking about how we're both students and how she's a huge Obama fan (she said she thinks he's very handsome!) and we even compared drivers licenses because they're so different here. It astounded me that I could actually have a conversation with this girl, and even though I didn't catch 100% of everything she said, I've been learning that smiling and nodding will get you through pretty much anything!

Marseille was great. We were there for three days, and carrefour fits the description of that trip very well also because Marseille is known as the "Port to the Orient," a place on the Mediterranean that opens France up to the world. It's France's second-largest city and a huge melting pot of immigrants from all over. It was hot when we got there, which was nice because it's been froid here in Paris. Well, cold for September anyways. It was nice to get that last bit of summer in before settling down for fall. While in Marseille, I swam in the Mediterranean, ate foie gras for the first time, went to the Chateau d'If (from the Count of Monte Cristo) and saw one of the most beautiful cathedrals I've ever seen in my life, which is saying something because my mom is a Renaissance Art Historian and so I've been looking at churches forever. Check out the pictures below: 

Marseille from the Train Station

A street in the Panier -- an old neighborhood in the center of old Marseille

It is a port city, after all...

A view from the Ile de Frioul where we went hiking

The view of Marseille from Notre Dame de la Garde

It was really nice to get away from Paris for a bit and really get to bond with people on my program. I really like everyone who's here and had a chance to make some great friends. We heard a seminar on immigration in France, ate lots of ice cream, and just generally enjoyed ourselves in the sun. Marseille is getting ready to be the "cultural capital of Europe" in 2013, a role it is taking very seriously by adding new museums and basically getting the city into shape. I hope I can come back after that and see how it's changed. It was also interesting to see how different Marseille is from Paris. It's so much dirtier, and it's evident that there are many more people there that work with their hands for a living. Also, it's a beach town, and so the people are tanner and more relaxed and there's a heavy North African influence.  We had a lot of fun there, but by the end of three days we were dying to get back to Paris! It was nice to get off the train, step into the Gare de Lyon and think, "Things are familiar here. I'm home."