Joyeuse Toussaint! (+pictures)

The past few days in Marseille have gone by in a blur. A sometimes-rainy blur, I might add. Some highlights, not necessarily in order:

• Exploring the Cours Julien neighborhood on my own while Mara rested at home (stupid bronchitis!), and window-shopping. I also picked up some souvenirs... :) I also bought the requisite tourist pair of sunglasses for €5 when it was sunny out, because of course I left my own at home.
• Waking up and checking the clocks in confusion with Mara today as we realized that France does, in fact, observe Daylight Savings Time.
•  Eating moules frites (mussels with fries) at Bar de la Marine, which is where Colin Firth proposes to the Portuguese girl in Love Actually. We had actually watched Love Actually the night before, so it was a dream come true to just waltz down the street and find ourselves in the movies! I also felt very accomplished, trying new seafood - mussels are weird-looking (like tiny, tiny brains in shells) but the sauce they were in went really well with fries.
• Drinking tea and cookies at Teavora, just around the corner from Mara's place. The floors are made of sand and you sit on lovely puffy pillows in a dimly lit room strung with tapestries and pretty lights. I had a vanilla tea (delicious) and a macaron, speculoos cookie and mini muffin or something. Someone stop me, seriously. Unfortunately, someone STOLE my pink umbrella at Teavora, which mystifies me, because it was the only pink one among the umbrellas at the entrance. Clearly someone was jealous. So I had to buy a new one, which is not pink and not nearly as good. :(
• Not really a highlight, but supporting Mara through some tough roommate troubles. They said some really rude things to her (while I was here, even), so today she and I went to explore a different neighborhood where she might be able to get her own studio.
• A French couple next to me and Mara on the métro who looked sideways at us while we were speaking English. The woman said to the man, "Tu comprends quelque chose?" Do you understand any of that? I looked at her with a smile, in a silent gesture of camaraderie, to indicate that I understood her. Yet despite this, she still felt she could talk about us in front of our faces, and she even nodded at me before turning to her friend and whispering knowingly: "Chinoise..."
• Kinder Bueno (always), more pain au chocolat (and yes, last time I did find it when I was scavenging - in fact, I ate two uggh), and navettes (a Marseillais specialty), below.
  
   
  
   And now! Some real pictures at last. :D
  
  

  

  Me in front of the Palais Longchamp on my first day

  
  

  

  Mara and I at the manifestation

  
  

  

  Drinking a traditional pastis at Love Sushi

  
  

  

  Notre Dame de la Garde from about halfway up

  
  

  

  Art at N.D. de la Garde

  
  

  

  View from the top, facing roughly west (that's the Mediterranean!)

  
  

  

  Les assistantes américaines

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  

  Moules frites

  

  At Bar de la Marine

  

  A better view of the bar's famous staircase