Day 7: Wandering Until You’re Lost #everydayadventure
Because I grew up speaking Spanish, I’ve noticed that I Spanish-ize every French word I try to say or read. This means that not only do I mispronounce most things, but that I do so in the weirdest way possible. One of my friends told me that some of the things I say sound almost Italian.
Today for our second breakfast, my friend Jake ordered a tiny cup of coffee. I love this because I see so many French men drinking miniature cups of black coffee.
In France, if you simply order “un café” you will have bought a tiny cup of strong coffee. Even our mugs in the hotel look more like small tea cups. At college, my oversized mug often doubled as a medium-sized bowl.
Adventure: Terrace by the Sea
Some of my friends and I explored the mall Les Terrasses du port, which overlooks the Château d’IF, the prison island found in Count of Monte Cristo.
The ‘terrace’ part of the mall overlooks the brilliant Mediterranean Sea. The terrace has railings to make you feel like you are on a giant cruise ship, staring out at the sea.
We eat lunch at Vapiano, an Italian restaurant. At the door, you are handed a card and then you walk in and pick up your own menu. Everyone stands near the bars of pizza, pasta, lasagna, and salad.
After you make your choice, you order at that specific bar where the chefs scan your card to place your order on it. Then you can watch them make it right in front of you.
Adventure: Hidden Bookstores
I got off of the tram at Noailles, where there are rows of inexpensive clothing stores and small businesses and restaurants. I wandered for about an hour, going into several stores but not really finding anything. When I circled back toward the tram, I found a tiny bookstore hidden next to a car repair shop.
I may not be able to read the books, but I can still look at them, touch the covers, and smell the pages. This bookstore had used books, which meant that most of the books had worn yellowed pages.
After book-admiring, I walked to the door and saw a stand of postcards. They were simple and vintage, but priced at 50 cents instead of 4 or 5 euros. I pulled out a stack and flipped through them.
I recognized most of the pictures, and then I saw a postcard of the Parc Borély, the park across from the beach, where the mansion donated the yard as a park. The park I’ve biked through a few times now. I bought the postcard. For 50 cents, I just might buy postcards of all of my favorite places in Marseille.
Adventure: Wandering Defined.
“So what do you do when you go off by yourself?” Shelby asked me at Vapiano.
“I just wander. I walk and usually don’t have any plan. When I come to two streets, I look down both, then pick whichever looks more interesting.”
My ‘wandering’ has worked perfectly to get me completely lost at least once a day. Or more.
This time, however, I walked for over an hour before tracking down a Metro stop. I got off the tram around 3:40 and set of to find the metro. I didn’t find it until 4:45, which is a little crazy because the Metro stop wasn’t that far from where I first stepped off.
But I walked 30 minutes in the wrong direction before realizing it. During this walk, I bought an Orangina (carbonated orange juice), my favorite drink here.
The day was warm and sunny, but the streets weren’t overly crowded, and I found many interesting little bookstores, antique stores, and clothing stores. I found a small thrift-store type store, though some of the clothes still had tags.
The prices there were the best I’d seen yet. Most shirts and shorts were 5 euros or under. The “dressing room” was really just a sectioned of corner with a set of short doors in front of it.
I found shorts and a tank, and while buying them, I talked to the store owner, a friendly man from Afghanistan who knew English because he’d lived in the UK for five years. I asked him how to get to the Metro and he, of course, pointed me back the way I’d been walking for 30 minutes.
It took another half hour and the help of three different people before I could safely sit down on the Metro. Often, wandering means that you have to deal with the unplanned and enjoy the cool places you find when you are completely hopelessly lost.
For me, at least, wandering means walking until you are lost. Because usually that’s when you find an adventure, that’s when you find places you would have never found with a map.
