Marseille & Lyon

We spent most of a day in Marseilles, which spell check informs me has an "s" at the end if you write it in English.

Also, did you also know that "accordance" is not generally used in everyday speech? Yep. We go back to the States in less than two weeks. Culture shock here we come.

In any case, Marseilles is charming. I think I read somewhere that it has like 1/4 the population of Paris which seems about right; not too crowded but not depressively empty either. Oh good. "Depressively" seems to be another of my own inventions, thank you spell check.

On a side note: you know, it is probably so much the better that we're coming home in 11 days because instead of achieving my desired levels of fluency in a foreign language, we now have a cockeyed situation in which I start speaking the wrong language at the wrong time. At the bank the other day I ended up blurting sentences like this: "Yes actually, nous sommes ici depuis Septembre. So that means that nous avons ete ici pendant presque nine, I mean neuf, mois. Months."

DERANGED.

I'm glad the bank guy thought it was hilarious. Laugh it up, fuzzball.

Spell check is telling me to change "depuis" into "deputize." Thank you again for your diligence, dear spell check. In any case, getting back to Marseille, okay, essentially it's a nice town and you could probably go there when it's sunny and that might be really great too, but if not, be aware that in February it is cold although not unbearable. And the off-season is probably less crowded/expensive so choose your poison.

We start this evening with one of my favorite photos: MIL being slinky. Anchors aweigh, mee-ow!

A trireme (HA! take THAT spell check!) carved on a wall, overlooking the harbor OOOHHH see what I did there...? (Gotta get my kicks from somewhere.)Harbor. Said obvious narrator. User of fragments. Destroyer of spell check.A little baby boat for Henry.

Yeah that's a cool church on the hill isn't it, good thing I'm not too lazy to find out what it is. Ahem.Or this one. An encyclopedia I am not. But in other news, it's like thisclose to the sea.Front door. (Of the church...not of a house...but you knew that.)Window overlooking the sea. (Again, it's the outside window of the...oh never mind.)Mosaic time. Now this one is actually of somebody's house, APPROVAL.After wandering around for a bit and dealing with highly inconvenient restaurant hours we found a Moroccan restaurant willing to open up (Marseille has a high concentration of immigrants) and the food was pretty good. Mostly I just have to say that all Arabic music rocks. Bring on that desert yodel.

By the end of the day, Henry loved this town:Henry also loved the restaurant in Lyon where we stopped for lunch the next day on our way back up to Bar-le-Duc:He's wearing sunglasses to shield himself from the glare of his own coolness. And here's a neat castle up on the hill in Lyon.

You know, (or possibly you don't) I think by the end of Megatrip 2010 my batteries were lower than my camera's for probably the first time ever, meaning I have about six photos of Lyon. Total.

But basically we did what you should always do if you only have a couple hours to spare in a French city: pop into an authentic-looking restaurant and eat your brains out. It's the best and most French experience you could possibly have, certainly better than wandering around the sidewalks looking at stuff.

Also, the looks you get from French people when you waltz into a restaurant with a noisy toddler are pretty epic. We like to amuse ourselves by counting down the seconds until they've gulped their last Perrier and escaped.

Speaking of escape, my goodness--that's the END of Megatrip 2010!!!

Which now frees up more blog page space for the original, Blog-given right of every blogger: to pass countless hours examining my own bellybutton and the fancies that flit around my head as opposed to an endless recitation of what I did for the last two weeks of February.

I'm just saying, you'll probably end up wishing Megatrip had been longer.