20 july-22 july

20 juillet        

Friday, Friday, Friday! I am always exhausted by the end of the week although I feel like I shouldn’t be since my schedule is relatively calm compared to my normal school life schedule.  But nonetheless, Friday is always a welcome day.  My favorite thing these days is to wake up a few minutes earlier and go and get a freshly baked baguette or pastry at the bakery across the street in the morning to have for breakfast. 

Today we had just one visit to do with Madame Dernaucourt.  Maxime and I were waiting for Marzia to show up at our meeting spot and he got down on one knee to pick something up, then looked up at me and smiled and said “Je suis à tes pieds” (I am at your feet)…I rolled my eyes and laughed at him at another attempt of his to woo me.  By the way…my formation of English sentences really is horrible these days…my verb/pronoun/everything placement is all coming in the French order, but in English.  Bear with me. 

We went to Monoprix and bought ingredients to make a meal with Mme D.  We pasta, sauce, mozzarella, salad, bread, vinaigarette, wine (thank goodness Marzia knew about what wine went with what food, because I am no help in that area), tomatoes, and then a cantaloupe for dessert.  We went to Mme D’s apartment and Marzia was the head chef in cooking the pasta since that is her deal/country.  Maxime and Marzia continued their constant dialogue of arguing about whether French or Italian cuisine is better.  Marzia boiled the water, then added the salt to the water, put in the tortellini for one minute, then put it in the bowl where she had mixed the sauce with water and mixed the pasta together with it.  I assume these are legit methods since she makes this in Italy.  Mme D sat in her wheelchair in the kitchen doorway and guided us around her kitchen by telling us what pan or knife was in what drawer or cupboard.  She was very proud of herself that she had set and prepared the table all by herself!  I was very impressed too because it looked immaculate with fancily folded napkins and everything.  She is paralyzed on one side of her body so I was impressed that she got along and got it all done herself. 

We ate lunch in the usual leisurely way with eating slowly, and about 20 minutes of resting and talking between each course.  Mme D played some of her favorite CDs for us during dinner.  She showed us an Israeli singer that she really liked that reminded me of the Jewish songs we danced to on the boat on the Sea of Galilee.  Next, we watched a Pagnol film called La Fille aux puisatiers.  I had already watched the film with her, but did not mind watching it again to show to Marzia and Maxime.  Mme D served us blackberry ice cream in her fancy ice cream dishes.  After the film, we cleaned up and washed all of the dishes then sat down to cold refreshing drinks and chatted some more.  Mme always makes sure to have orangina for me because she knows I don’t drink alcohol, tea, or coke.  What a sweetie.  I always seem to better enjoy the days when we do fewer, but longer visits like today rather than lots of shorter visits.  I had to try and explain baptisms for the dead to Maxime because he brought up that some French people got mad at our church for baptizing famous deceased people without asking permission.  It was difficult to explain…but I think I communicated the idea pretty good. 

Afterwards, I said to bye to Maxime because he is going back to Gap (dans les Hautes-Alpes) to be with his family for the summer break.  He gave me a hug and thanked me for sharing with him stuff about my religion and wished me the best of luck with the future.  Later, he sent me a text that said « Et Melissa je voulais te dire aussi que tu as l’air d’une fille super avec des valeurs et qui se respecte.  Et ca devient rare ! Be happy J Bye bye. Bisou.»  Roughly translated, that says Melissa I also wanted to tell you that you are a great girl with values that you keep and respect.  And that has become rare!  It made me feel good that I was able to be a missionary example to him.  He will always remember the example that I set and the standards that I have.

Next I headed down to the church for the film night.  I loved again coming there and feeling at home with all of the JAs and the Rutmans.  Soeur Rutman made delicious pizza for everyone and we watched the final Lord of the Rings that was like 4 hours long.  So now I just need to watch the very first one, and then I’ll finally have watched all of these movies.  It was quite an intense/scary/violent movie, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. 

21 juillet    

    

Saturday!  Stephanie and I made plans to sleep in and did just that.  We headed out into town around 11 and did some shopping!  We went to Rue St Ferreol which is like a huge outdoor mall with a pedestrian only road and clothes stores lining the street.  There are mandatory month long sales going on at all of the stores in France right now.  Most things are marked down 40 or 50 percent!  I bought a cute pair of heels, two dresses, and two blouses.  Don’t worry…they weren’t expensive.  We wanted to eat lunch at the Subway up the street, but when we got there it was closed.  All of the lights were on, all the food was in the glass case…the door was just locked and there wasn’t anybody there.  It was supposed to be open too…so French just to close a store for a while in order to have a lunch break because they felt like it.  We got lunch at a bakery and I got a small pizza, orangina, and a delicious raspberry tart sprinkled with powdered sugar and filled with delicious vanilla yogurt custard…dang I’ll miss these so much. 

Next we wanted to go out and see the Calanques.  We didn’t know a whole lot about where they were located or which one of the many was the best to go to, so we picked one that was easiest to get to by bus.  We took the first bus and had a beautiful along the coast of the city and saw people everywhere on the beaches and out windsurfing or boating.  At the end of the bus ride, we had about a 30 minute wait until our next bus came and so we walked down to the shore and found some cute fishing boats and people out lounging on their boats.  We also found an awesome rocky shore line with some awesome big rocks and crashing water on the rocks.  We got some good pictures and I tried to get a little mermaid picture where she pops out on the rock and the water is splashing around….it didn’t work out very well because one I don’t look like a mermaid and it was too dangerous to go all the way down to the level of the water…but it turned out to be a hilarious, quite dumb looking picture J.  We got on our next bus and had a windy, curvy ride with incredible views of cliff formations and the shore line and mountains.  I keep thinking I’ve seen the best view possible of the Mediterranean Sea…but then I am impressed even more the next day with another view.

We arrived at the Callelongue Calanque.  A calanque is an inlet of water between two large cliffs/mountains that makes a natural harbor and the calanques are known for beautifully clear water and beautiful views.  Callelongue was a cute little fishing village with a calanque surrounded by huge rocks perfect for sunbathing and relaxing.  Stephanie weren’t feeling like plunging into the freezing water since it was around 6 in the evening so we found a peaceful location up on some rocks and just relaxed.  We talked and enjoyed the view and watching huge cruise ships pass by pretty constantly out in the distance.  We took the bus back into Marseille and walked around the Prado beach which is the biggest beach in Marseille.  There was a group of African people singing and dancing that we watched for a while.  The shore line was beautiful again but again very cold.  We took the scenic bus route home and drove around the famous Corniche Kennedy which is a famous promenade around the mountain with Notre Dame de la Garde along the coast line.  The sun was just starting to set and there was a patch of rainbow in the sky next to the sun that I attempted to capture on my camera.  We drove past a cool arch memorial that is for the Marseillaise that died in colonizing the area…at least that’s what the girl on the bus told me. 

We went home and tried to watch a movie…but I fell asleep about a half hour in…so watching movies is just not possible for me here.  I never sleep very well at night here and I’m not really sure why.  Starting at like 3 in the morning, I am just awake every half hour or so and have a hard time getting back to sleep…so I usually cannot keep my eyes open anymore starting around 11.   

22 juillet     

Stephanie and I were determined to be on time to choir today and so we left home around 7:50 in order to be at church by 8:40.  But of course, we got texted as we were on our last transportation device to church that choir was cancelled.  Ha.  But it was fine because we just went up to the JA center to use internet.  I played piano for Relief Society and also said the opening prayer.  I also played piano for sacrament meeting again.  I have come to appreciate the bisou now and it doesn’t make me feel awkward anymore.  It’s just part of the culture of loving people and it seems that people are always so excited to see each other and to see me.  The bisou makes sure that everyone says hello to everybody when they come and then say bye again when they leave.  Kind of cool.  In sacrament meeting today, the guy who spoke at the end really impressed me with his talk and testimony.  He talked about how he had been baptized in the 1970s in Marseille and also talked about his experiences in meeting the First Presidency in SLC.  I finally put two and two together when I found out afterwards that he was recently called as the first counselor in THE presiding bishopric.  Super cool that he came to speak and that his whole story started in this city.  I was listening to his talk and enjoying it and then all of a sudden realized that I was easily understanding every word he said…happy feeling J. 

After church, Stephanie and I ate a lunch that we had packed that morning and then went to the Memorial de la Marseillaise which is the museum about the French national hymn/anthem.  It is called the Marseillaise because it was written by a man in Marseille and was sung by soldiers marching from Marseille to Paris on their way to join the revolutionary forces in the 1790s.  I was very impressed with the museum and how well organized it was and the technology that was used.  The first room showed newspaper pages from the times of the revolution.  It also talked about how there are like 50 different versions of the Marseillaise—there are different lyrics with the differing provinces of France and the differing social classes of the time.  They had recorded videos of all these different versions being sung by people dressed in period clothing.  Amusing to watch/listen to.  Then the next room was this video up on the screen, but there were these 3D faces/heads around the bottom of the screen that represented different people or groups of people.  Their faces were an animated screen of some sort and the mouths/faces moved when they talked.  It was legit super creepy, but funny and entertaining.  It was cool that they gave the perspectives of different social classes of people in regards to the revolution and its events.  So that movie told about the events leading up to the writing of the song.  And then the video ends and this epic choral version of the Marseillaise starts playing in the next room…the doors to the next room magically open and you walk into this old stone room (an old jeu de paume room which is a tennis court but has significance for the revolution because important oaths/decision were made in the jeu de paume).  So the Marseillaise is epically playing and was legit super inspring.  Then this video presentation starts, but there are four different walls/types of screens in the room and they are all showing different, but correlating pictures, videos, or text.  It was really cool and I was thoroughly impressed! Good job France.  The videos were basically a review of the French revolution section of my French history class and it correlated the marseillaise and how it represented the values emphasized in that period and in the droits des hommes document (their version of a declaration of independence). 

Next Stephanie and I headed to the other big cathedral in Marseille called Notre Dame de la Major.  Remember that Notre Dame means our lady (talking about virgin Mary) and so basically every town in France has at least one notre dame church/cathedral.  It was a super big and super pretty!  As always, these cathedrals are always incredibly ornate but definitely void of the spirit for me.  There were these incredibly beautiful  red doors with light blue decoration at the front of the church and so Stephanie and I had a mini photo shoot and I tried to set up Stephanie in some model-ish poses, but I’m pretty sure that made her uncomfortable…haha but we both got some good photos.  After we had toured the church, we came back out and I put my camera on a setting that makes the colors super super vibrant and got some more good pictures.  A cool thing about the church was that the stained glass had lots of light purple and light blue which are colors that are kind of representative of the Provence area of France with all of the lavender and the sea/blue clear sky.

Stephanie and I came back to the apartment and just chilled and caught up on journal writing and then went to McDonalds to use the internet…my feelings for McDonalds have grown a lot fonder this trip for their lifesaving free Wi-fi and air conditioning.  A highlight of the night was getting to talk to Dad and Matthew on the phone over the Tango app on our phones.   That hasn’t worked successfully the whole time I’ve been in France so hooray again for McDonalds!  I’m very neutral about my trip in France coming to a close.  I know that I will miss it and that France will always have a special spot in my heart for what it has done for me this summer and the beauty that it has shown me.  But I am also looking forward to coming home and seeing the fam as well as my friends and getting back into Psychology which I have missed this summer.  Oh, and I also am looking forward to having easier communication access J.