I made it to France.. but did my bags?

I made it! France is still here everyone, so no worries!

I flew with two other girls from IU, Allie and Hillary, from Indy to St. Paul, St. Paul to Paris, and Paris to Marseille. Leaving was really tough but that wasn't a surprise. I did my best to pull it together but I cried until I got to the scanners at security. I think the inevitable stress of going through security probably took my mind off of some of the sad things. The first flight was pretty uneventful.. we were a little delayed but I feel like all flights these days seem to be delayed. The flight to Paris was long and I was freezing cold the entire time! They showed three movies and so I saw the Social Network for the first time. It actually wasn't that bad at all. The food on the plane wasn't that bad. The brownie they gave us was perfect because I cried again when I had to turn off my phone for good. Comfort food is the best :)

We got into Paris when it was still dark and no matter how hard we looked we really couldn't recognize any of the major monuments.. fail! We had about a 3 hour layover and then the plane was delayed. I barely remember the flight to Marseille because I just kept falling asleep! I do remember looking out of the window and seeing this really green and beautiful scenery.. but then I fell asleep again. I woke up when we landed in Marseille and we were so very happy to be done with the whole plane business for the day. We got one of those baggage dollies and waited for the baggage to come. We all got our first bags in no time.. seemed like a good sign, right? Wrong. Eventually the carousel stopped moving and along with about 20 other people we marched over to the Air France lost baggage claims place. They were pretty friendly and said that most likely the bags were in Paris but did not make it in time from customs to be loaded on to the plane. I find this to be exceptionally stupid because the delay even gave them an extra hour! Typical France... completely inefficient! They took our information and we gave them the address to the hotel and they said we might even get them this afternoon! (We did not! Hmph!) We took a cab from Marseille to Aix-en-Provence.. I think it was about 25-30 minutes in the cab?

Allie and I checked into the hotel, but we're in different rooms. My roommate is actually one of the Michiganers and so that is cool! After I got my stuff in the room Allie and I went to find some food. We ended up meeting with my hotel roommate Ashley and her friend, Matt, at a pub. We had these pizza-like things and drinks. It was pretty good.. not the best but I was starving so that made it even better. Afterwards Allie and I had Nutella crepes. Amaaaaaaazing as always. ahh. I enjoyed every single bite to the fullest!

Later we went and hung out with Allie's hotel roomies who are both from IU. Then we tried to go find the apartment where these other girls are staying. This adventure turned into us just walking in basically a giant loop around Aix. No apartment to be found! The funniest thing happened though because the main street has lots of trees with these beautiful lights on them and so naturally there are a lot of birds. Well as we were walking Marley started saying "Oh my God! Oh my God... what is in my hair? Did a bird just poop in my hair?" ... Answer? Yep!!! Hahahaha it was sooo funny. Then about 10 minutes later something from the trees fell into Jessica's hair. Not poop, thankfully. After the poop fiasco we walked to this store and the girls bought some wine and cork screw. We took it back to the hotel and sat around drinking our Bordeaux and talking about all the great places we want to visit. I can't wait :)

Tomorrow is the guided tour of aix and a few other things.. hopefully that will help me not get so lost. The city is really neat and the streets are all cobblestone. The buildings, especially at night, look fake... kind of like sets on the Hollywood back tour. They look straight out of some quaint movie. I love that! I also love the main street because it's lined with trees which are all lit up from the holidays. There is this giant fountain at the end too which is really pretty! Can't wait to see what else is here tomorrow!

Hopefully I'll have time to update soon :)

Miss you all.

Love,

  Liv