Marseille

As mentioned, I went to Marseille two weekends ago with my friends from the program Chris and Ryan. We took the TGV—the high speed train of which the French are very proud—down Friday and returned on Monday afternoon. Our hostel, called London Connection despite the fact that the owners were definitely not from Britain, was not exactly the Ritz-Carlton. In fact, it might have actually been the crappiest hostel I've ever stayed in. It's possible that the owners, who slept in the same room as us, might have illegally turned a two or three person apartment into a 25-person hostel. (Luckily, however, the internet reviews that said the hostel was infested with bed bugs proved untrue.) We did not spend much time at the hostel.

The weather was absolutely beautiful—about 70 degrees and sunny—and thus we spent a ton of time walking around and sitting at café terraces. Despite a phenomenal location, Marseille isn't as touristy as you'd think. It's actually pretty gritty and dirty. The city also seems really diverse, which was cool. (One of my friend's host mom warned us that the Arabs could "descend" at any time. This never seemed to be a problem.)

One day we took a 30-minute bus to nearby Aix-en-Provence, where we spent a lovely afternoon and evening walking around with another friend from the program who has an apartment there.

Below are some pictures from the trip: