I decamped to Marseille on my last full day in France last week, since I had a flight before 11 am and didn't want to add another hour coming from Aix. I will have to visit the city again, hopefully before I'm too old to negotiate the steps to the train station:
I walked around a bit, up through the Panier district, where I caught this view of the Vieux Port:
But this is probably a better view:
I finished the evening at this little corner bar near my hotel. If it were in Chicago, it would just have an Old Style sign out front:
And that's it for Europe, for now. I'll aim to get back to Provence in 2 years or so, and I'll bring my real camera.
A week ago Sunday, my friends picked me up in Aix-en-Provence and took me to their house in St-Martin-de-la-Brasque, about 30 km north, just south of the Luberon massif. I can see the appeal:
We then drove about 10 km to the Commune of Lourmarin, which may be even prettier than Aix:
Yes, Provence really does look like that. I really need to go back.
Let me tell you how much I suffered in Aix-en-Provence. I mean, just look at this stuff, starting with the street my hotel was on:
The Passage Agard, off Cours Mirabeau:
The Fontaine du Roi René at the east end of Cours Mirabeau:
Rue Aumône Vielle:
Finally, the Palais de Justice (the local courthouse) just past 9am on the 23rd:
Tomorrow: Lourmarin and St-Martin-de-la-Brasque.
I can scarcely believe I took these 10 days ago, on Friday the 20th. I already posted about my walk from Borough Market back to King's X; this is where I started:
You can get a lovely snack there for just a few quid. In my case, a container of fresh olives, some bread, and some cheese set me back about £6. Next time, I'll try something from Mei Mei.
Later, I scored one of the rare pork baps at Southampton Arms. Someone else really wanted a bite, too:
Sorry, little guy, I can't give you any of this—oh darn I just dropped a bit of pork on the ground. (Lucky dog.)
Finally, this screen shot shows why I love Europe so much. (It's in French because I switched my phone's language settings to help practice while I was preparing for the trip.) The blue dot in the center-left shows where my train was at 20:06 France time (18:06 UTC) on Saturday the 21st. The stuff in the upper-right corner shows my phone's GPS utility. If you look at the left side of that box, you can see "Vitesse 303;" i.e., a speed of 303 km/h, or 190 mph. And that isn't even the train's top normal operating speed.
If we elect people in this country who actually care about climate change, we could have trains like that here, too. But given the proportion of the electorate who plan to vote for the convicted-felon rapist demented geriatric XPOTUS in five weeks, I am not optimistic.
I had the opportunity, but not the energy, to bugger off from Heathrow for an hour and a half or so connecting from Marseille. Instead I found a vacant privacy pod in the Galleries South lounge, and had a decent lunch. Plus I'm about to have a G&T.
I've loaded up my Surface with a few articles, but I really only want to call attention to one of them. Bruce Schneier has an op-ed in the New York Times with his perspective on the Hezbollah pager attack and supply-chain vulnerabilities in general. I may even read that before turning my Surface off.
Next stop: Chicago, home, and dog.
I've arrived in Marseille, after a short but perfectly pleasant trip from Aix-en-Provence by basic commuter train. I didn't realize the Gare Marseille was on a hill, however, so it took me a few minutes to sort out how to get to ground level.
Just going to dump three photos from yesterday and this morning, then figure out what to explore in the 2 hours of daylight I have left. The principal goal: scoring a slice of the famed Marseille-style pizza that the New York Times assures me is second-best in Europe after Napoli.
Anyway, this is the view across the street from my friends' house, which they built at the edge of their small village about 40 km north of Aix:
We drove for a bit after lunch to Lourmarin for ice cream and a stroll:
Back in Aix, we had some pretty heavy rain come through overnight, leaving behind clear blue skies and lots of (not too hot) sun:
Once I get back to Chicago I'll have the tools to organize and process my photos better. Now, though: exploring Marseille.
I love actually experiencing the 21st Century. Right now I'm hurtling through the suburbs of Lyon at 265 km/h (down from 300 km/h earlier) on my way to Provence. The Eurostar from London started with an insane scrum at St Pancras—they really mean it when they advise you to arrive 75 minutes before departure—but it arrived at Paris Gare du Nord a minute early. The only impediment to getting onto this train came in the form of several consecutive people who couldn't figure out how to get RER tickets from the machine. Pro tip: use exact change. Also, note to SNCF: your tickent machine UI sucks.
I expect I'll have more interesting things to write about tomorrow as I explore Aix-in-Provence. Monday mid-day I'll relocate to Marseille, then fly back to Chicago through Heathrow on Tuesday.
For now, I'm going back to my book.
In about 23 hours I should be taking off from O'Hare on my favorite flight, American Airlines 90, the best flight I've found to snap into a European time zone in just one night. People tend to prefer the evening flights that get to Heathrow the next morning so they "don't lose a day," but I've found that even when flying business or first class (and thus getting actual sleep for a couple of hours) I lose the first day in Europe anyway. Sleeping on planes just sucks.
American 90, on the other hand, takes off from Chicago before 9am (most days) and gets to Heathrow before 22:30 (most days). That's still early enough to catch the Tube or Elizabeth Line, though on a couple of occasions I've had to catch the Night Bus. More important, for 48 weeks of the year, 22:30 in London is 16:30 in Chicago. Assuming I get to the Tube by 23:00, I'll be at my hotel before midnight and asleep before 2. Next morning, I'm totally fine.
I also like that the flight rarely sells out. Just look at my good luck tomorrow:
My whole row is empty, and so is the one in front. Even if they sell half of those seats in the next 22 hours, I expect they won't fill the middle seats in our row, with aisles and windows still available nearby.
Even though the flight works great for jet lag just because of its schedule, I still got up wicked early this morning to help the process along. Cassie and I took a 5½-kilometer walk around the neighborhood and caught Our Lady of Lourdes just as the sun came up:
Not a bad way to start the day.
The intersection of my vacation next week and my group's usual work-from-home schedule means I won't come back to my office for two weeks. Other than saving a few bucks on Metra this month, I'm also getting just a bit more time with Cassie before I leave her for a week.
I've also just finished an invasive refactoring of our product's unit tests, so while those are running I either stare out my window or read all these things:
- Yes, Virginia (and Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina), you are much better off than you were four years ago.
- The Illinois Attorney General has filed an environmental suit against Trump Tower for refusing to fix its water-intake system.
- A New York City cop who fought against "courtesy cards" won a $175,000 settlement from the city.
- A developer plans to raze a 175-year-old house in Glencoe, Ill., designed by William Boyington, because we can't have nice things anymore.
- Speaking of not having nice things, after £175m spent and 12 years of construction, the Old Street roundabout in Islington, London, looks...about the same as before.
Finally, the New York Times ran a story in its Travel section Tuesday claiming Marseille has some of the best pizza in Europe. I will research this assertion and report back on the 24th.
I mentioned that the weather today is amazing, but yesterday's was also pretty good (if a bit humid). Cassie and I walked about 18 km throughout the day and spent most of the rest of the day outside.
But Cassie's day started pretty well even before we set out:
Sadly, neither of us could get to the last little bit of peanut butter at the bottom of the jar. (I labeled it "dog" because no one wants to get her peanut butter confused with the jar for people.)
We trundled off to the Horner Park DFA early in the afternoon:
And met her friend Butters, who decided to dig a hole next to a bench and settle into it:
(Apparently Butters does this often.)
We also had a slice at Jimmy's Pizza and some QT at Spiteful Brewing, finally getting home to some real couch time around 8.
Finally, I want to show some puzzling user experience design. I changed my phone to French because I'm visiting Provence next month and I need the practice. I'm also using Duolingo to build my skills, and in fact just started CEFR level B1 today.
Most of my apps immediately started displaying French messages, and Garmin even started sending me emails in French. One app didn't seem to get the memo, though. See if you can guess which.
Bien fait, Duolingo!