Marseilles & Aix

Marseilles was a pleasant surprise. Except for the second degree burns I've received from its sunrays (and I'm quite serious).
Kendra and I met up at Gare de Lyon to get the train there. Surprisingly, it was a short 3 hour trip. We talked the whole way and excitedly watched the really really pretty scenery pass us by.
We got into Marseilles and easily found our hotel near the station. After we dropped off our bags, we went out into the city for a little late night promenade.
Marseilles is dirty, I will admitt that. But it wasn't disgusting, it was just kinda like parts of NYC where they just can't keep up with the litter. And it smelled like NYC a lot during the day, or like seafood. I don't know why people complain about Marseilles so much, it's really quite pleasant. And to add to the trip, Kendra and I spoke in French most of the trip. That was fun, too.
Kendra and I stopped first to get a seafood dinner at a little plaza area Place Thiars. I ordered a bouillabaisse for us to share. I didn't realize how rich and gravy-like they were supposed to be. Full of fish, yes, but not exactly what I had in mind. Glad I did it, but I prefer the bouillabaisse in NYC....
After our nice dinner, we continued our walk down and around the port. We found a bunch of memorials and forts and nice rocky beach scenes. The only issue we really had was that men kept cat calling us as we walked around. It was constant during the whole trip, to the point where we tried avoiding going anywhere with men.
We got back to the hotel late because we discovered these crazy cow statues all over the city, and felt compelled to take pictures. But when we did get back, we crashed.

In the morning we woke up late and walked to their L'Arc de Triomphe to catch the bus to Aix en Provence. We stopped by a Tunisian bakery first though because we were curious as to what the treats tasted like. We bought a box of treats and split them all. Let me just say that I'm never eating treats again because they are completely LOADED with honey sugar and fried. We felt disgusting the whole day because of those treats, and it was only the first day!
Aix was really really nice, too. It's this small city with really nice architecture and everything is close to each other. The town, I know, has been used in lots of movies for its beauty and quaint places. We walked around, took pictures, joined the market that was all around the town, and even found Sciences Po Aix! Yes, we even went inside...
But unfortunately, it was far too hot to do any extensive walking without getting completely exhausted. So, after a few hours, we finally headed back to Marseilles where we tried looking for light dresses to wear and ended up concluding that a nap was much needed in our A/C room.
We woke up in the evening and decided to take one of the local busses around the city so we could see more. We went by the beaches and saw a lot of rocky shores. The view was really quite amazing. It ended at La Plage de Prado, where we got back on the bus to the port.
We then went out for dinner on the port again. This time it was all veggies and salade and fruit for me. I couldn't deal with the Tunisian overload, still. We chilled out until it was dark, which is when we went for another tour around Marseilles, and we ventured to the other side of the port to where the Hôtel de Ville is. We got very lost, found some really interesting streets and alley ways, and concluded the trip with a view of the Cathédrale de la Major, which looks strangely like the Duomo in Florence. I was interested in the Italian reminents I found in Marseilles. Some of the locals stopped us to talk, but their accents were very strong, so those didn't last too long.
Got to the hotel and crashed hard again.

The next day we had concluded to take a boatride around the Vieux Portes of Marseilles. It was funny because we were the youngest people on the boat as well as the only English speakers. Another 3.5 hours of pure French for us. The French people, you could tell, didn't know what to think about us.
But the boatride was breathtaking. The view of Marseilles (France's oldest city, you know) from sea itself was amazing to see. We were going past these huge rocks and coves and the water was so green and blue and fresh! The best part was we would go to these coves in the middle of nowhere that obviously had no ways of car transport, and yet people lived in these areas! There would be a resto, a café, and houses next to these boats! And the beaches looked amazing, too. The water was SO BLUE! And the villages were SO SMALL! But people were there, we saw them!
Kendra and I were so excited to see these really paradisal areas that we started singing and dancing on the boat. The French people stared.
We got back to quickly grab some food for the trip back to Paris and got onto the train with our fruit and cereal. That is when we discovered our really bad sunburns.
And now my sunburn has turned into a shoulderful of blisters that keep getting bigger and bigger.
I'm going to the doctor today, this is ridiculous (and PAINFUL).