My flight to Marseilles was easy and
quick, just an hour and a half on a narrow little plane. I switched
seats with a couple kids who were traveling alone and wanted to sit
together. Lucky for me, I got a row of two all to myself in the back.
So I got to stretch out and kick my feet up for the first time in a
while! Took a nice nap for the majority of the flight and when I woke
up, we were just arriving over Marseilles. Below, it was overcast and
the water was grey – not the best first sight of France, but I
wouldn’t be staying there anyway, so I wasn’t concerned.
The plane was so little, that they
couldn’t hook us up to a jetway. Instead, we walked out of the
plane, and down some steps right onto the tarmac! I’ve only had to
do this once before, in Iceland, where the plane and the airport were
both so tiny! My pack rode with the cargo during this flight, so I
picked it off the cart on the tarmac and continued inside, where my
bigger suitcase was one of the first off the carousel. Talk about
timing!
The Marseilles-Provence Airport is not
as new as Madrid-Barajas, but also not as large or central. Coming in
from the tarmac, the baggage carousel was right in front of you, and
no more than 200 yards away was the exit into the parking lot.
However, for such a small airport, I
did have some troubles. One of which was getting money! Oh la la
la la la la! Quel grand problème! With no ATM in sight (and none
in Madrid, either, so I was completely Euro-less), I was forced to
use the dreaded (and expensive) exchange counter. I only exchanged 40
USD, which only got me about 29 Euro! Not. Happy. But I only needed a
few bucks to 1) Call my lovely host C that the shuttle bus (Navette)
I was taking was running a bit lat and 2) Pay for said bus.
Alors, just like that, I managed
to find a pay phone (in the 21st century! Imagine that…),
read the bus schedule (depart à 17:30), and ask for
directions to the bus. While I did have to have the directions
repeated a few times (go straight and turn right, go straight and
turn right, go straight and turn right) I managed to communicate with
the people at the airport! Granted, this did not require advanced
French skills, but it reassured me that, even in semi-crisis mode, I
could in fact communicate.
Arriving in Aix en bus, I was
met swiftly by C, who whisked me off through town (I caught quick
glimses of motorbikes, sidestreets, and pizza places) to their house!
Quelle belle maison! I am in love with this house: it is so
old-French with tall ceilings, a long walk to the door, balconies,
and flowers. I forget that this is Southern France, so the vegetation
is closer to, as C puts it, Monterey, California than ol’ New York.
Despite the overcast evening, the air was warm (to me at least). I
(re) met J and A, had an easy meal, settled into my room for the
week, shot a note off to the fam (I’m safe!), and went to bed just
two hours after arriving. Finally: close to fourteen hours after
leaving my home in NY, I was in Aix!
xxo, S
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