Cassis

Oh man where to begin today. I woke up and had breakfast and then learned that we would be swimming so for a second day I skipped washing my hair. I left the house and realized that the new contact I had put in was not in. And already being one down because I dropped on somewhere once, it was a big deal. Luckily I had given myself extra time and went back and found it on the floor right whre I had apparently not ut it in but though that I did. Then I went and met Julia and Lauren and Kelan at the Cezanne Statue and then they showed me the way to the bus. We met up with two other girls from our school who were also going to Cassis so we decided to join forces. I think it was thought of last night but I’m not really sure. So we met up with them and then went and found the bus to take us to Aubagne which we would transfer there to Cassis. They all have these cool cards that give them each bus ride for 2 euros. I learned I need to get one. My trip costed about 9 euros there and the card is free so now that I know about it I should do that.

So we got on the bus and started our day. The first trip took about an hour and we were all pretty tired. We then transferred pretty easily to the 68 bus to Cassis. We were following directions for which stop to get off by a friend of ours who had gone there before. So when the train said that stop we ran and pushed the stop button. But unluckily for us it stopped at the stop before that one that it had announced previously and not at the one it said was next. So we were obligated to get out. This wasn’t so bad because it wasn’t very far from the city and it was all downhill. So we descended and then arrived at the harbor.

We decided to get some coffee and tea at a café to wake ourselves up and then Kelan and I wanted to go swimming. We sat down at this place called Le Golfe and it was pretty great service. The tea was pretty freakin’ hot so I didn’t drink it until the girls who had coffee had finished theirs and I felt obligated to drink mine. But Kelan did the same so it wasn’t so bad. Then we used the restrooms that weren’t too gross and I changed into my swim suit. I guess the other little like room/stall was really ghetto Kelan said so we used the one I was in after that. The waiters were really nice even though we had lots of change to give them but they were cool. After that we made a plan to split up so that people who wanted to go to the beach could to swim and those who didn’t want to swim could go walk around. I obviously chose to swim.

We walked a bit uphill to get to the beach that we knew of. It was really cool. It was a rock beach but the rcks were super cool. There was also like a plateau out that you could see the light house and stuff. It was pretty cool. We took a bunch of pictures including one where I “fell” off a cliff which I will post once Kelan puts his pictures up. It was a bit stormy in the morning so a lot of those pictures are cloudier than later. For a while we had one of us swimmers watching our stuff but then we decided that where we put it was kind of out of sight and w could see it from the beach. There weren’t a lot of people so we weren’t too worried. The water was a bit cool but refreshing. The other thought it was a bit too cold, but again I go in the Pacific until I go numb. After that I collected a few cool rocks and then we got dressed skillfully with towels because we didn’t have a bathroom and then went to meet up with the others.

We went and got sandwiches at a cheeper place. I got a grapefruit soda which was really good. Schwepps Augrum it was called I think. It was really good. I had a steak frite sandwich on a half of a baguette. It was reeeeeallly good with ketchup AH-mazing! Then we left to go look at times for some boats. They had found a boat tour of some of the Calaques (sp?) which are like inlets of water in the middle of like cliffs. They are supposedly really cool and special. You could see 3 for 10 euros or 5 for 15 or 10 for 20. I wanted to do that but everyone wanted to walk to them. So we tried to go to the tourism office but it was closed. In the meantime, we went and got ice cream and I bought postcards. We went and found the way easierly accessed sand beach and looked at the water while we waited ten minutes for the tourism office to open.  I was still on board with the boat option myself… Just because of cliffs meaning hills and hills meaning Vocal cord problems…. But they got a map and the lady said it was easy to get to. So we decided to try after hitting up the self-cleaning public bathrooms. Note to anyone ever using these. Let the person in front of you shut the door. Then it cleans, then you go in. One of the girls was telling us how she had gotten stuck in one because she didn’t let the door close and she had gotten caught in it while it was cleaning. And they literally spray water EVERYWHERE.

We ended up going past the first rock beach that we had gone to and went up further up hill… I started to feel it but then we got to this big hill and I was just like yeah no way that is happening without some serious pain or without taking half an hour. I had stopped to guage my level and they were already like almost half way up. I said nope and then called one of the girls and told them to go on ahead and I would se them when they came back and that I would go to the beach. They said okay and left. I walked really defeatedly back down the hill. It took me about 2 5 minutes to get back to town and the whole time I was just thinking how much it sucks that I have to deal with this. And not only that but like that I miss having someone who knows me here that like takes me seriously when I say yeah I am not sure I will be able to do that can we do the boats instead. I just know that had I said that to any of my friends we would have worked around it or decided to do something else. But here that isn’t the case… And that makes me sad but I also understand other people wanting to do what they want. But I feel like if someone had told me that I would have taken it more seriously and like… offered to go back with them or something? I dunno. Not a big deal but it was a moment where I missed having someone that I knew…

So when I got back to town I was almost run over by a little tourist bus thing that drives you around the city. I said Hey I got probably an hour and a half to kill I should do that! So I did. It was 7 Euros for a 45 minute trip. It was pretty cool. I tried to record the commentary but I am not sure how well that worked. But I tried!  Also it took me literally the same route as my group took so I passed them on the train when they were sitting looking at one of the Calaquages or however they are spelled. I waved and they were very confused. We went up a little further and stopped on this like plateau thing and took some pictures. Some nice older ladies asked me to take their pictures which I of course did. Then we got back on the train and went back down. It was cool but I didn’t get the greatest view of the inlet things but that is okay. I still had a good time. After I got back into town I was still killing time so I bought a big water at the casino and then walked around a bit. There was a clothing market but everything was SUPER expensive especially for a market! I walked around a tourist store looking at different things and then decided to sit and just people watch for a while. I saw a very adorable little girl eat a two scoop ice cream and when I say eat I mean of course drip and make a mess everywhere.

After a while longer we all met back up in town and I could tell everyone was VERY cranky. (Maybe good thing I wasn’t on the walk!) I guess they had take a wrong turn and hiked up and down a huge hill when they could have gone straight because someone read the map wrong. So everyone was grumpy and trying to find the bus station for the bus that was leaving at 5. So I tried to gently help find us on the map but the map was horrible and had none of the streets we were near on it and instead a big cartoon picture covering up our location. Helpful! Especially for the tourists looking at the map made for tourists! So that was not so good. So then people were cranky and mad at each other over directions. I decided to just be one less voice and go with the flow.

We eventually found out where we were and going and started like booking it there. Which I wasn’t really sure why because we had twenty minutes… But okay. On the way I asked one of the girls what had happened and she told me about the direction mishap with the big hill. She was nice. I had seen her around in some of my classes but never really talked to her. Now I did! When we got to the bus we learned SURPRISE! There is no 5 o’clock bus! The next one is at 5:40! So we sat around and everyone took a much needed break. We were sitting and they were complaining how we weren’t going to be back by 6 or 6:30. I was like eh I didn’t really have plans for today so makes no difference to me… I found a chenille (caterpillar, go read yesterdays blog if you didn’t know that!) crossing the sidewalk. I pointed him out to Julia and then slowly everyone saw and we started watching waiting for him to get stepped on since he blended in o well. Luckily he didn’t because I probably would have been sad… But he made it and then we watched him try to climb the sidewalk ramp. He eventually got there. Then someone had the smart idea to look at the bus schedule for our connector bus. There was one at 6:15 and then the next one was at 7:25. We were hoping to not have to sit around an hour and make the 6:15.

Unfortunately for us though our bus was 15 minutes late! So once we got on it became apparent that we were going to have to wait. So we were hoping when we got to the Aubagne station that we would be able to run and catch it if maybe it was late also.

Nope. So then we started looking at the schedule and we were wrong and the next bus wasn’t until 8:15… Soooo We said we have over an hour and a half and are stuck here. We went and looked at the train station to see what it was and we found we could go from Marseille to Aix. But to go to Marseille as out of the way and would only get us back 20 minutes faster. We decided to not and to go find dinner in Aubagne. We walked around and found the populous and not deserted part of town and sat down at a place that wasn’t too expensive to find out they hadn’t started serving dinner yet as it wasn’t past 8 yet. So we decided to leave and go to a sushi place. Luckily they had non-sushi / fish stuff. I was prepared to get a vegetable sushi thing but then they had a chicken teriyaki on special so I chose that. I t was a nice little place and the people were really nice. Though to be completely honest it was a bit strange to see an Asian heritage looking person speaking French… Not that they can’t or shouldn’t by any means but it was very odd for my American brain. But they were nice. We got free water which is not always a thing. At lunch water people had to pay 2.50 Euros for a plain bottle of water! OUCH!

But it was good. The food was super good and we got to use the bathrooms that weren’t very sketch. Then someone was like oh what’s over in that tank a turtle? I of course immediately went and looked. Nope not a turtle. TWO TURTLES!!!! They were so cool! When you walked over they would come over to see you in the tank. One like jumped on top of the other to get a closer look! They were really cool. Their tank was so small I wanted to steal them and bring them home. But I was good and did not do that. Even though I did want to… They were SO cool! Now I really want not one but two! So they can be friends! My day was made and I didn’t care about our bizarre travels back home anymore.

So then we got back to the bus station and looked and were waiting around. We bought some food from the vending machine in the station to eat on the bus. While we were munching before the bus got there Kelan suddenly decided to make sure we were waiting in the right spot. Well we were. But the girls had read the schedule wrong and the 6:15 train had been the last train of the night back to Aix… Sooo that was a problem… So we were like well CRAP. NOW WHAT?!

So we decided to go ask the train station guy what he knew even though the buses and trains have no connection. We decided to go ask and see what we should do now. I noted that their machine to take bills for tickets was out of order when we walked by. We got to the guy and he was like there is a bus RIGHT NOW that is going to Marseille that you could use to get to Aix. And we were like oh great when does it leave and he was like well NOW. And we were like wait what when is the next one? And he was like well I think this is the last one. WHAT. So we were like where do we buy tickets can we buy them on the train like what do we do and he was like yeah maybe you would have to ask the conductor. So of course we literally had to BOOK it up probably 5 regular floors of stairs and then across this elevated hallway and then back down the stairs to even get TO the train. Then Kelan like ran and asked if we could pay on the train and the guy was like yeah but get on quick right now. And literally we hadn’t even sat down before the train started moving. It was not even ten seconds that we had been on the train. Yeah that close. No exaggeration. So we were VERY relieved!

The conductors came by and were like freaking out that they had to sell us 6 tickets. Everyone on the train was staring at us because we looked pretty freakin’ American at that point. We didn’t really care though after how much travel troubles we had been having it was 3 hours later and we were finally getting started towards home 2 hours later than we had intended to BE there. We finally got paid and figured out and then we all started to breathe again. I drank water and got my vocal cords under control which took a minute and ten we all took a deep breath. Kelan and I had sat ourselves down next to this college aged guy who thought we were pretty funny as we had created quite a spectacle of getting to the train. He goes to school in Marseille and was like yeah good thing that you guys were buying tickets and stuff because I didn’t. Hm. I guess they don’t really check? But whatever I like having a clear conscience. But yeah. The bus ride felt really short because we went to Marseille. Once we got there (same train station for Lyon, Cassidy) we took a bus that one of the girls knew back to Aix. It was crazy.

When we finally got here we were so relieved and like the whole thing was so crazy that Kean and Julia and I decided to go grab a quick shot at Wohoo before Julia went to go drink at a friend of hers place that has an apartment and Kelan and I went home. I was exhausted but wanted to be social. It was fine and done pretty quick. I had a shot of Lemonello which wasn’t too strong feeling so that was nice. I didn’t really notice any alcoholic effects probably because dinner just diluted it but that was okay with me. I bet it will still help me sleep well tonight. Though after this day that isn’t too hard!

I came home and told Madame what all had happened and she got a kick out of it. Making memories she said and that was the same take that I took on it. None of us were too upset about the travel situation we all just kind of laughed at it so that was better than freaking out.

I asked Madame if I could take a shower tonight or tomorrow morning and she was like ehhhh it would be better tonight but you need to go fast. So I literally MAYBE used 2 minutes of water. I did the Drum Corps shower when the water is freezing but I did it with hot water. Washed everything too. Win. Thanks Drum Corps you taught me something useful!

Then we watched the end of Fort Boyard and the group did really well tonight. Then I wrote this, quickly posted it and now I want to go to sleep because I still have a full and jam-packed day of Monaco tomorrow!