Sofitel Marseille Vieux-Port

... year.

Pour conclure, as I feel that this 'essay' will do for now, I've really noticed the French love for dogs...there are more fat dogs here than there are fat people, and they take them everywhere, even into shops and supermarkets. Hygenic?

So, all in all, the first 6 weeks have been awesome. This week I got a pretty bad case of the homesickness and generally feeling a bit low, I forget that for the first time in my life I'm actually living on my own ...

Bonjour avec Aix-en-Provence Cherie
Since the last news we have visited the Cote D'Azur spending time at Monte Carlo and Antibes. We stayed near Antibes at a place called Biot and at night you could hear the seals at nearby Marineland - very strange. It was still quite hot and stickey with more mozzies. Monte Carlo was wall to wall money with billions of dollars in boats and cars. Antibes was similar but it had a lovely old town as well.
We arrived ...

... 8230; window open inviting… people like ants scurrying around below in a hurry to go nowhere… a big porcelain pot over in the corner… But I’ll have to keep looking. There’s one more possibility, another place here close to the gare. I feel like a bird scurrying around with a piece of straw and no place to lay it down. That’s the only thing Jesus said where he really blew it. "Do the ...

... is the brioche sucre; mine is the pan au chocolat. King Tut was panhandling near the Eiffel Tower the other day when I was there. He wasn’t holding his hand out or anything, he was merely swathed in gold lame, wearing his ceremonial headdress, seated next to a donation plate.

I think that all travel experiences include at least one encounter with a crazy driver. Today we were impressed with how badly one guy wanted to pass people. He'd pass one, wait, then ...

... even then. I’m staying where I stayed before and I remember getting a rogue signal occasionally, but I’m not getting it now. I also remember getting one in the train station, but no more, ‘local only,’ no Internet. There must have been complaints from Orange, the telecom monopolists, now probably attempting a WiFi monopoly. They tend to be *******s, and you can quote me on that. So sue me. Hell hath no fury like a telecom ...

Hi Nicholas, this is Parker. I wanted to tell that the bird poop felt very weird. Also, we had a mean owner in the Paris apartment and we wiped it on her dooor knob! The keyboard is very different.At the public beaches some of the women don"t have bikini tops ...

... note writing, pointing at signs, and a lot of patients, we rented our second car, another SmartCar, this one was black. Aix-en-Provence is an old Roman settlement founded in 123 BC. Present day Marseille has grown so large that it has engulfed this ancient settlement. Aix is sometimes called the "city of a thousand fountains". I didn't see a thousand fountains, but there were ...

... and see some historic sites. Driving through the country was beautiful and we had a great time! Driving back into Marseille during rush hour wasn't so much fun, but it's all part of the adventure, right? Carrie left early this morning and I am going to spend the rest of my day in Marseille going for a boat ride out to some of the islands off the city. Then it's off the Venice! Love, Robin

... area. I mainly walked around the city checking out the markets, restaurants and cafes that surrounded the port. I was fortunate enough to land English speaking roomies for a second time (two Americans-JJ and JoJo) at the Vertigo Hotel. I spent my second day there with them wandering around. We all were heading to Spain on the same day (they Barcelona, me Valencia) so we got on the same train together. What should ...