We took the bus into the city, and almost immediately began to feel the Chicagoan vibe of Marseille. The bus station was highly reminiscent of Chicago's train stations, complete with the constant whirring by of people heading off to do their important business, the smells of McDonald's and sandwich shops, and the fluttering about of countless pigeons.
After exiting the station, we went off in search of food, but first encountered something much more interesting. Although the cloudy day's visibility was low and we couldn't yet make out what the signs held up by crowd members said, we could hear the rhythm of the drums being played in what we gathered must be a "manifestation." As we got closer, we started to notice all the rainbow flags and signs mentioning things like "égalité" and "droits"; it was a protest for equal rights for all sexualities.
We took a short break to grab some falafels for lunch, and once we emerged from the restau, we found that the crowd had gotten into a parade formation, with the drummers placed directly outside the restaurant doors. Once the drums had worded their way past us, we saw a man with a bullhorn leading the crowd in the french version of a "What do we want? And when do we want it?" chant, which went something like "Qu'est-ce que vous voulez? Egalité! Et quand le voulez vous? Maintenant!"
Our next destination was on the other side of the parade, so due to the process of traversing the procession we like to consider that we were in a parade in France. That one had not been expressly placed on my bucket list at any point, but it's still a pretty fun thing to say that I've done.
After getting a block over, such as to travel parallel to the parade, we discovered that the national police were keeping close tabs on the manifestation. The french national police are an intimidating sight to behold, emerging from their armored trucks, bedecked in severe-looking black uniforms complete with shin guards and harsh facial expressions. To my knowledge, they were never called into any actual action that day, but they were nevertheless quite a sight to behold.
The sights in the city that day were most certainly not limited to people; the architecture, landscapes, and water of the area are absolutely beautiful. Despite the overall gloom of the day that seemed to be perpetually on the brink of rain, the docks were a sight that can hardly be done justice by words or photographs. As we were drawing near the water, the scenery was still very urban consisting of darker colors and tall buildings, looking like an older version of Chicago, and then we suddenly emerged into this wide open area, bathed in a surprising amount of light shining through the clouds, showing off the vast waters opening up before us. The primary word escaping the lips of our mouths was simply "wow," playing on repeat as we snapped photos that invariably failed to capture the effect of the view.
You can tell through the commerce of the city that it is incredibly proud of its port; the seafood restaurants placed immediately adjacent to the water were predictable enough, and we also saw maritime-themed bookstores and antique shops, complete with those enormous antiquated scuba suits that are more commonly seen on Scooby Doo than in real life these days -- unless, of course, you're in Marseille. By the end of the evening, I would have greatly appreciated one of those to wear.
Being young and bold, we all assumed that we were prepared for anything on this trip, but the increasingly miserable weather in combination with our lack of umbrellas, proved to be our undoing that night, making us quickly forget any and all beauty that we might have observed earlier in the day. Few of us in the program brought decently waterproof shoes with us to Europe, and as the Marseillais rain began to fall upon us, I realized that fleece jackets and Toms shoes are rather more on the absorbent side. The general sensation of sogginess did not do much to improve my mood as the group began to realize how ravenously hungry we were once more growing to be. As our soggy search began, we were still in mostly decent moods, until we started noticing how difficult it was to actually find food at that point.
Our first vague attempt at food was at a bookstore/café combo, in which we failed to ever find the café section. The next try was at a promising-looking restau next door, which advertised meals at prices that we deemed acceptable. Upon our entry, we were informed that those were the prices for the lunch menu, while dinner would be closer to €25 per person, which approximates to $35. We're all poor college students, so that wouldn't quite fly with us. We moved on.
For the next half hour or so, we passed by countless restaurants that were either closed for the evening or too costly for us to work with as we wandered through the darkened and rain-soaked streets of Marseille. Several of us also needed to used the bathroom at this point, and public restrooms in France aren't that easy to come by either, so the next open restaurant seemed to be a godsend. We seated ourselves, only to discover that the restaurant was actually closed, so we were once more sent on our not so merry way.
After we had been searching in the rain for over an hour, our quest finally led us to a small, open, decently priced restaurant that was evidently owned by the kindest and friendliest inhabitant of Marseille. The flavor of the food had little to do with the fact that it was one of the most delicious and satisfying meals ever made. We happily ate our meals, comprised largely of fresh Marseillais seafood, including an entire fish, eyeballs and all, that gazed accusingly back at us as we munched away. The accusation of our food was completely worth it at that point. Once we finished up, we worked our way much more contentedly back to our hostel for a night of much needed détente and amusement.
Hostels tend to have a reputation for being disgusting and giving you pillows that smell like feet, and I'm sure that's the case for many, but ours was a much better-smelling experience than that. It was rather convenient that 12 program students went on this trip, because the hostel just so happened to house people in rooms of 6, so although we didn't meet any exciting new french people in our rooms, we got to have two group sleepovers in Europe, plus we didn't have to worry about other people stealing anything from our rooms whenever we were gone or sleeping. In an effort to avoid total isolation from the culture around us, we spent some time in the common area of the hostel, where we made the acquaintance of a french accordion player whose name I couldn't understand at all. We'll just call him Flaurent. Anyhow, we spoke all in French with our new bestest buddy Flaurent for a good 10 minutes before he disappeared, completing our foreign interaction quota for the trip. We ourselves eventually made our way to bed, and later made it all the way to sleep, getting a couple hours of rest before heading out for croissants and some café au lait, then boarding the bus once more to conclude our trip to the French version of Chicago. We went back a week later.
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