La Marseillaise

Posted: September 11th, 2007 | Filed under: Travel | Tags: boat trip, cocteau, crack, dawn, diary, english teacher, locals, marseille, notebook, russian orthodox cathedral, south of france, Travel, villefranche | No Comments »

I haven’t said much about my trip to the South of France. Not like three years ago when I kept a diary during the holiday and posted it when I got back. I tried to do that again, but my notebook has exactly one page filled.

If I ever go again, I’ll skip Nice. I should have remembered that from 2004. I don’t really like the place very much. I could have spent a lot more time in Marseille, somewhere I feel quite at home. I wish I had. I could have spent more time relaxing too.

It wasn’t until the final days that I started to be not so stressed. Maybe I was a little too active. Up at the crack of dawn to take pictures. Walking everywhere, even if the locals said where I was going was too far to walk. It never was.

I’ll remember the stunning Cocteau church in Villefranche and the evening boat trip off the coast of Marseille where, for a short while, I befriended a Parisian English-teacher who said ‘actually’ every other sentence. The teacher, the  Polish lecturer with the weirdest speech impediment – imagine the Welsh LL-sound, every other word – and I drank our complimentary wine while the sun set slowly behind the Frioul Islands.

Perhaps the best part was the 1st class train ride back to Paris and from there to Brussels. Will absolutely choose to do that again over flying, if time permits. Trains are good.

But now I have started my new job. I am soaking in a new environment and new tasks to do. It doesn’t quite feel like I have a shorter commute just yet, the extra hours sleep are needed for my brain and body to recover.

It looks like I’ll want to be in Dublin about three weeks from now, it’s that time of year again. I haven’t got the date yet, but unless it’s on a weekend, I’ve no chance of going. I’ll be there in spirit.