On the Way to Marseille

We are not actually on our way to Marseille any longer. In fact, we've been back from our trip for a couple of weeks, and are now on our way to London tomorrow. But as you might have noticed, I haven't blogged for awhile, so I have a lot of catching up to do. In any case, in the middle of September we went to Marseille for a week so that Eric could do research at Les Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer in Aix-en-Provence. (And we managed to sneak in quite a bit of fun in between his trips to the archives.)

Also, we're moving to a new place in the Costwolds, and it's been a little chaotic. But the good news is that I have a lot to blog about, so when we get back from London I should be able to start catching up.  In the meantime, here are some pictures from the airplane to France and from our hotel. 

Here are the kids eating their chocolate on the flight. I always let them pick out a treat for the plane, and I'm pretty sure that's Becca's favorite part about flying. (Also, my computer has apparently finally realized I am in the UK and now it constantly underlines words as spelling mistakes when I write in the American way...so it just underlined favorite since I didn't write "favourite." I refuse to be converted, for the record, so I just stare at a page full of red squiggles as I blog...But it is interesting to realize just how many words we spell differently (and "realize" is one of them!)

Here is Justin taking pictures of the elevator in our hotel. If we all look a pit peaked (or haggard, in my case...) that would be because it took us two hours of wandering around Aix-en-Provence to find our hotel. Why, you ask? Well, because the data on both of our phones wasn't working so we couldn't get a proper map and/or gps. And because all of the roads in Aix were closed around our hotel. And when I say all, I really mean all. It turns out we actually had to drive through construction barriers to get to the road to our hotel. Also, our phones wouldn't work to call the hotel. So we finally stopped in front of "le Pizza Shack" so that I could ask for directions. The guy first helpfully told me to use my phone. Yes, merci beaucoup, pizza man, I did think of that, but I decided I'd rather pull over at almost midnight to this little pizza cafe to ask because that sounded much easier than using my phone...

Anyway, with the eventual help of both waiters and the chef (who really were very nice), the restaurant crew ended up drawing a map on a napkin, and with very emphatic instructions in French about a "sharp right" and a lot of construction, sent me on my way. In a true triumph of humans over computers, we made it to the hotel in a mere ten minutes after that stop. Honestly, even if our phones had worked I don't think we would have found it without those pizza guys, because it was they who explained that we actually had to drive through the barriers to get to the road. Also, I was so glad we were in France where we spoke the language. Otherwise I really think we would have been wandering all night long.

The good part of it all was that Justin declared he could now say "Road Closed" in French because he saw the sign so many times. ("Route Barree", if you're interested.)

Helpfully, literally the minute we walked into our room, my phone's gps started working and announced confidently, "You have arrived." We all had a good laugh.

Our hotel ended up being really nice. It was actually what they call in French an "appart'hotel", meaning it had two rooms, and a little kitchen. Our favorite part was the balcony with views overlooking Aix. It also had a pool, which the kids and I frequented while Eric was in the archives.

Here are some sunset views from our hotel, not on the first night, since it was pitch black when we arrived, but on subsequent nights.

We had a lovely time in Provence: hiked in the Alps, swam in the Med, and visited Roman ruins in Arles. All will follow next week on the blog. Really a perfect trio of experiences for the short time we were there. Fortunately, Eric will need to spend more time in the archives later on, as this was only an exploratory visit, so we will have plenty of time to explore more (and for me to practice my French on poor unsuspecting pizza servers...)