Marseille

It's 20h and I'm really wiped out...

Yesterday afternoon we had a great Mexican dinner with Bryan and Kiana and the kids, starting around 16h, and although they left fairly early, and we had long since stopped drinking Coronas and Margaritas (only one each, actually, plus one bottle of white wine for the three of us) Maggie and I were quite tired. I fell asleep with the boys, in fact around 21h, and so awoke in the early morning and tossed and turned until it was time to get up.

As relaxing as a seven hour train trip sounds, there were some anxieties. After walking the kids to school and returning to our home to make lunch and finish packing up to leave, I had trouble getting to the Gare Midi because of a traffic jam on the Avenue de la Couronne, and I ended up taking the local train to the station, arriving just in the very nick of time. Then, as much as I wanted to sleep, I had a very pleasant but also quite talkative seat mate, who had let quite an interesting life, and spent much of the time listening to his story, so was only able to crash when he did.

Arriving in Marseille, at the Gare St. Charles was super easy, and the hotel here is steps away. I put down my bags at the desk, and walked downtown in search of some Lillet, and a nice place to eat dinner. The afternoon sun was quite hot, and I had to strip off my sweater and leather jacket, and by the time I found a turkish kebap place it was 18h. The dinner was great: lamb brochettes with couscous and salad and bread, eight euros. I was still pretty hot, and must have drank two or three litres of water, and walked back to the hotel, stopping at a Moroccan fruit market to grab a couple of bananas and a few fresh strawberries for a supplement to breakfast tomorrow.

There is only one other person in the dorm so far, a guy from Seattle named Joel who has been on work-study in London for four months, and seems to be doing what they all do after they are done their term of study: tour around Western Europe for a few weeks and hit all the sites.

Well, that's about it, I'm turning in with a good book by Bill Bryson, entitled "Made in America", which explores the birth and development of American English, and investigates the historical events that shaped it along the way.

Good night!