Day 14

So today we got up at 10 AM and had breakfast. They ate soooo much it was insane! Two bowls of cereal each with Nutella dollops on the top, two yogurt cups each, bread with Nutella, and chocolate chip cookies! Then we went to the beach around 11:30 and laid in the sun, incredibly thrilling. I then wanted to go swimming so we went in for about 15 minutes then came back out. It was so much fun, the waves were huge and rolling and almost swamped me every time they came by. I wanted to stay in longer but oh well. They then went back to lying in the sun, I tried to cover up as much as possible so as not to get a sunburn because there was no shade anywhere! We had lunch on the beach, which we packed. We had pizza which one of them cooked earlier and there was a not so delicious layer of charcoal along to bottom of the slices which were already thin crust to begin with. After the pizza we had pasta with tomato sauce and then they had more Nutella on bread and apples with nutella on them and more cookies! Way too much food! We stayed on the beach until 3:30, much too long in my opinion and I did come away with a burn on the backs of my legs and a very appealing triangle on my lower back due to my t-shirt riding up in the wind. Then, though they didn’t want to, I got us all going to see Notre-Dame de la Garde, a really old cathedral. Because we couldn’t get to go to the Chateau d’If due to weather conditions and stupid school groups, I wanted to get some kind of sightseeing in before we left the oldest city in France. So we took the bus, the church is on the top of a hill so it looks down over all of Marseille. When the bus mounted the hill I got off and was amazed. The building is made with alternating stripes of white and pale green stones and its tall tower is topped with a huge gold statue. I had 15 minutes to explore before the next bus came so I was a bit rushed. I walked up the stairs, up to the top level then entered the arched doorway. There were two spinning clear glass doors, one entrance the other exit, on either side of a carved dark wooden panel. Because of this I couldn’t see in to the room, I could only see the votive candles off to either side which lined the inner walls. So I spun through the right door and what I saw took my breath away. The room was long and rectangular with stunning glittering gold floral mosaics lining the arched and vaulted ceilings. There was decoration and mosaic everywhere, on every surface and the entire room shone and glittered from the candlelight. There was a service going on and the crowded room was full of beautiful singing which only added to the atmosphere. I could not believe it, it was like every slide I had seen of ancient churches in art history class come to life! Amazing!
After that thrilling experience, we went back to the apartment, cleaned and packed up then caught the bus, the subway, the train, then finally picked up by Margaux’s dad and came back to her house. For dinner, salad, sausage, pizza, then yogurt and fruit. And then shower and bed.