B&B Hotel Aix-En-Provence

Really beautiful train ride along the coast (which in a way it is a shame that the railway is right on the beach) Marseille is a bigger city and not so quaint but the port area is nice. Flew out of Marseille to Lisbon. I know not quite geographically logicall

... I stammer back
"Meguez?! How do you know Merguez?! Where did you first eat Merguez?"
"Canada"
He's shocked to hear that we've heard of Merguez in Canada. "Maybe the Algerian community is making it there" he guesses.

The places is packed, with a fun atmosphere. There's only the one man behind the counter, though once in a while a customer will go back to help themselves to a pop or more ketchup. There's plenty of banter, though most of it I don't ...

... a tour around the military port and the bay. Saw some very big and scary-lookin’ boats, but apart from them the bay was beautiful, with lots of fishing platforms out in the water, and it was a lovely sunny day. After disembarkment, thanking the pirate-looking guides on our way, we headed to the Stade Mayol, which had a bit of a festival atmosphere, the restaurants cooking outside and selling drinks. At the gates, the steward took the cap of my water bottle from me ...

We have at long last arrived in France! We ended up scrapping the visit to Marseille, both since travellers we've met said its not worth the visit, and since we heard it's not really the place to be wandering around the streets at 10 at night looking for a place to stay. So instead we caught the bus up to Aix-en-Provence, which is pretty much the cutest town on the entire planet. We're pretty sure we were the only people ...

... planning at all!

But tonight we’re talking a relaxing voyage by boat over the Medeterranian. Which will be followed by another. A few relaxing sailing days it would seems. Not exactly what I thought we were going to be doing, but it will work. We have our own berth with a shower and bed. Oh the luxuries never end! At least these 2 fools will rest well tonight and prepare for what lies ahead.

We headed off to our nearest big town yeterday - Aix - population of around 150 000. Has a clear 'old city' and 'new city'. Since we were going to the markets we headed to the old city. Unfortunately for me driving in this area is a bit hairy...but fun. I decided to follow a taxi to get out but he was a slightly better driver than me. At one stage we had beepers going on 2 corners ...

... each cheek greeting and piled luggage into her TINY car. She was quick to say that her name is Camille, NOT Madame Jore, and to use the informal "tu" when speaking with her not the formal "vous" that young people normally use with adults. My French is pretty shaky but Camille is incredibly patient and skilled at communicating. With her help I will be fluent in no time! I would say her only drawback is she smokes... but so does everyone else in France so I ...

... this experience...although to be fair, they didn't even seem as interested as usual.The Yemen Pavilion: 20 stands sold the exact same assortment of cheap and massive jewelry. That is all. Water? Apparently Yemen has nothing to share with the world about water, but they do have humongous cheap beaded necklaces.We'll stop torturing you there, but we had similar experiences in the Chinese, Hungarian, Bulgarian, etc. pavilions. I have to say that I was ...

... Il y bien séparation entre les « Eglises et l'Etat ». Voilà un des apports salutaires de la colonie tant décriée. Et heureusement qu'il y a cette séparation· Mais malgré la bonne vieille école laïque, on retrouve les différences religieuses bien ancrées chez les élites au pouvoir. Ces strates se sup**posent à celles de la structure coutumière et à celle de l'ethnie et du tribalisme Prenons par exemple un tôli** chez Peugeot. Il est tôli** comme n'importe où. Mais en ...

... do in Italy, that deciding where to go initially was difficult. I wanted to go to Rome, but Rome has always been a dream of mine and I wanted to see more than one destination because I was in Europe for a short time and I only had 10 days, and I would have wanted to spend all my time in Rome and not go anywhere else, so I decided to drop Rome for this trip (sad, huh). Also, I wanted to go Milan, but everything looked very ...