Possibly no blogging for the summer...

I've been a very bad blogger, I know.  I'm about to be even worse.  That time of year has come upon the bettercountry once again (summer), and I fear the "no blogging for the summer" post will be coming soon.  Maybe that's what this post is?

In the last month, I have worked more hours than I even know how to count.  I'm averaging 15 hour days five days a week, with Saturdays being an ever slow 8 hour day.  Eek.  I've also written a daily devotional for 30 days...which is why there's been no blogging.  My wrist is screaming "no more typing, please!"

I have enjoyed the warmer weather.  93 degrees yesterday.  Bliss.  I love sleeping with the windows open and a fan blowing on me and waking up by taking a cool shower.  The Marseille I love is Marseille in the summer...and summer is upon me!  Happiness.

I will be moving out of my apartment tomorrow and into a hotel.  Where I will live until mid-August.  Then I will travel until I return to the states on Sept 7th, known to people-who-don't-know-Soj as Labor Day.  (To the rest of you, it's SOJ-RETURNS-TO-AMERICA-day!)  Then, the blogging will pick up in full speed to keep yall up to date with my reverse culture shock/re-entry/traveling to a gazillion states in 7 months extravaganza.  (TN, VA, NH, Boston, NYC, NC, SC, GA, AL, TX, AR, FL, Bahamas, CA, AL, TN, France).  Fun times.

So...more than likely, no blogging (on this blog) until mid-August.  You can check back every once in awhile to see if maybe I stopped by.  I will be blogging weekly on the work blog.  If you receive my newsletters, I'll be sending the work blog address this week.  I hope you all have a great summers.  Pray for me, if you remember.  Thanks.

Luxembourg

Okay, I finally got the photos done from my trip to Luxembourg.  Click HERE.

Photos of my time with Prince(ss) Harry

So see photos of my time Prince(ss) Harry in Paris, click HERE.

Photos from Luxemburg to come soon.

When water costs more than chocolat

I had warned Prince(ss) Harry before she came that she might have sticker shock while she was here...coming from two years in India to France.  She did alright, I think.  But our biggest shock happened near the end of her trip, and here's the interesting part--the prices shocked me too!

We'd been walking down the Champs-Elysees when we decided it was time for dinner.  We stopped into a sandwich shop, order our sandwiches, and then informed the worker that we would go sit upstairs with them.  She told us that there was a waitress up there, and we should have ordered our sandwiches from her if we'd wanted to sit up there.  I asked, "So we can't sit up there at all?"  She said, "You can, it just costs more."

How much more?  

It was only two euros more for the two of us to have a place to sit, and we found that to be worth the price...our feet hurt and it was drizzling outside.  We paid the two euros, took our sandwiches up, and figured we'd order something to drink from the waitress so that we weren't taking a table from her.  

She brought us our requested bottle of Evian water (normal size) and two glasses with ice in each one, and laid the bill down on the table.

Five euros.

FIVE EUROS!!!???  For a bottle of Evian water?  Five euros for the exact same bottle of water I can buy from an illegal immigrant for one euro or from a machine for two?  Five euros for water that I could get from a street fountain for FREE?

I kept saying, "This is ridiculous" over and over.  Once I finally calmed down, I called her back over and said as politely as possible, "I'm sorry.  But this is too expensive for a bottle of water.  We changed our minds and won't pay five euros for water."  She slammed her hand on the table to pick up the ticket, snatched the bottle and glasses and STORMED off.  

We left shortly after, crossed the street, and went to Laduree, a fancy schmancy desert place.  I've been there many times, and always get the same thing: 8 macarons for 10 euros.  As we were in line, eyeing all the deserts, we kept drooling over the chocolat eclair, so I decided to get us that as well.  

We hand our ticket to the cashier--for 8 macarons and 1 chocolat eclair.  She says a number that sounds like "four" to me, but I simply couldn't hear the whole thing.  I ask her to repeat it please, and she says in English, "47 euros."

I simply freeze on the spot and stare at her.  Prince(ss) Harry starts sputtering.  I don't think we could get any words out.  I was thinking, "Are the prices higher because it's the night before Easter?  How much did that eclair cost!?"  There was a really long line behind me, so I was a little embarrassed to have to make the same scene I had JUST MADE across the street about something costing too much.

Apparently my face spoke much more clearly than my mouth, because before I could get any words out, the cashier apologized, shook her head, explained that she was tired, and had typed in something wrong.  She recalculated and told us the correct amount, to which I was able to breathe again.

We had a good laugh over our almost-cost-us-47-euros chocolat eclair about how it cost less than a bottle of water.

Luxemburg

I went to country#25 yesterday: Luxemburg.  It was so beautiful!  I liked it better than Monaco!  I'll have pictures soon.  

Prince(ss) Harry (from my living on the farm in VA days and before that, the seminary days) is here (in Paris).  She keeps me laughing by telling me stories from her last two years living in a village in the mountains in India.  I sure do love her.  We have two more days to hang out with all my dead boyfriends: Hugo, Monet, Rodin, etc.

Happy Easter everyone!

Brocante

When I went to Chambery last month, my kindred spirit and I ate at a restaurant where I noticed a sign that I really liked.  It was painted wood, in rustic colors, and had a scene from the Alps on it.  I mentioned to her that I liked it, but wouldn't want one exactly like it, because I don't like skiers (which was what the scene was).  The next day, we stumbled upon a brocante, which is a yard/antique sale.  When French people clean out their houses to get rid of their junk, the "junk" happens to be antiques!  Someone in a book called a brocante a "magpie collection of bits and pieces of domestic history rescued from attics all over Provence."  (Peter Mayle, "A Year in Provence, " pg. 93).  Anyway, as we walked through the brocante, I found my dream sign.  Same painted wood style, same rustic colors, a scene from the Alps, and a bonus: the rock-climbers are two-dimensional!  I've had it sitting across from my bed ever since, and can't stop staring at it.
We walked a little further through the brocante, and found an old, leather-bound book with a cross on the front.  The pages were gold-tipped, and there were beautiful drawings inside.  A sign said, "Bible, 5 euros."  I couldn't believe my eyes!  I bought it, and found it dated from somewhere between 1887 and 1907...but it turns out it isn't a Bible, but a prayer book.  It's still beautiful to me.
Today, here in Marseille, there was another brocante.  It was HUGE!  My friends and I strolled through it for hours and hours.  We found several more prayer books like the one I'd bought in Chambery, and a French copy of Thomas A.Kempis' "Imitation of Christ" from the late 1800's.  All of my friends that I was with had not been to a brocante before, so it was fun to watch them discover their own personal treasures.  Then, under a tree, I saw this cute little table.  When I asked the man how much it was, I expected to hear between 30 and 50 euros.  When he said, "5 euros," I responded, "SOLD!"  My friend JellyBean looked at me as I picked up the table and said, "WHAT are you going to do with that!?"  I told her, "Take it home.  I'll be back in a minute!"  And sure enough, I went home with my table, and then carried on searching through the treasures at the brocante.  I did not find my dream Singer sewing machine...which I will find one of these days and happily purchase.

I bought a few presents at the brocante as well...so some of you need to be checking your mail boxes soon.  :)

A Moment in Noailles

Marseille is full of people who are not of French origin.  Many of the people here ARE French--they were born and raised here, which makes them French by citizenship.  But their parents are from North or West Africa, and they are oh-so-not typical French.  There are pocket areas in town where you can go and forget that you are in France.  One of these areas is called Noailles.

I love Noailles.  It is vibrant, colorful, always moving, never quiet, and full of life.  The streets are narrow, the buildings painted in colorful graffiti, the sidewalks covered with people just hanging out and talking.  The stores sell North African spices, West African musical instruments, and clothing from both parts of the continent.  

I was walking through the area the other night and as I found myself right in the middle of the street market, I had a moment.

You know in the movies when someone is in the middle of a very busy, noisy, populated place and they feel overwhelmed?  The camera makes it look the world is spinning around the person, and as the noise increases, you think they are either going to freak out or pass out.  As I stood there in the market, it felt much like that--the spinning and loud noise--except not in a negative sense at all.  It took me a minute to figure out what it was that brought the feeling, the moment.

I could only hear Arabic.

My French has reached a place where I understand the conversations I hear around me on the street.  So at any given moment, I'll be walking down the street, and hear snippets of conversations in either French, English, or ever Portuguese.  I understand it all.  My ear has gotten used to it and I sort of tune it out and don't hear the noise.  But as I stood in Noailles, and only Arabic was being spoken, my brain kicked into gear, causing me to understand that I wasn't understanding anything I was hearing.  And I was hearing a cacophony.

It was beautiful and made my world spin for a moment.  

I kept walking the length of the market, listening to the Arabic and enjoying myself.  As I came to the end of the street, I stepped back into France.  The moment had passed.

New home = New Blog Design

Well, I left Paris four months ago...and have barely blogged since then.  But as I was working on the website for work the other day, and was frustrated with the layout and template for it, I thought to myself, "Better Country needs a new look too!"  Since I don't live in Paris anymore, it seemed that maybe I should change the Paris theme to the blog.  But I'm way too distracted to take time to look for a new template for this blog...but my friend, Mrs. X (that's her name cause she's married and she lives in X), is into digital scrapbooking (I don't actually know what that is, but I didn't have the heart to tell her, but she's gonna read this and find out), and told me that she would come up with my new template for me.

And voila!  Didn't she do a great job?!  I just gave her the picture from up top that I took while in Morocco and then let her go to town.  Okay, I was a little more picky than that...as you all can imagine and she can testify.  But I'm happy with it.

Does it will mean I'm going to blog more?  Probably not.  Especially since I've been given the responsibility of taking care of the work website...and come this summer, there's supposed to be a weekly new post on it.  I don't envision much blogging to come.  But, as I am planning my trip to America, and DO plan on blogging then, I thought I'd go ahead and start gearing up with a new design for the blog now.  Look at me--planning ahead!  :)

I still love Marseille.  I miss Paris sometimes, especially the MMTATI's and the Superheroes.  But I'm going there next month to visit with Prince(ss) Harry, who might be able to convince me to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower.  But Marseille...oh, the sunshine!  oh, the Mistral!  oh, the graffiti!  oh, all the Arabic!  I sure do love it here.

Here's a sure-fire sign that I love it here.  I went to the prefecture last week to pick up my visa (it wasn't ready, though), and when I came home I actually said the words, "I love the prefecture!"  My friend looked at me and said, "Did you hear what you just said?"  I laughed at myself.  My reason had been because I was surrounded by Arabic and didn't hear French the whole time I sat there waiting in vain.  So Marseille has rubbed off on me enough that I even enjoyed a pointless trip to the prefecture.  Ha.

Perhaps I'll blog again within the next month or so.   I'll keep you posted.  Get it?  Posted?  hahahahaha.