Marseille

Today my program organized a trip to Marseille, which is apparently second only to Paris when it comes to France's biggest cities. It's on the Mediterranean, and I got a bunch of amazing pictures of the ocean! The sun was shining the whole day and I got quite sunburned! To the right is the view from our bus. It only took about 25 minutes to get to Marseille from Aix.


The picture on the left (2nd row of pictures) is of the little islands just off the coast. You can take a special boat just for tourists to go there and spend there. You can barely see it, but the little island that is just in front of the bigger island- to the far left- is where the Chateau D'IF is. This is the castle in which the movie/book The Count of Monte Cristo takes place- the one Edmond Dantes escapes from in the beginning.
Ok, I only added this because my mom wanted a picture with me in it. I look awful because it was really hot and we were all sweating really badly. The view here is gorgeous, though, isn't it? It makes the heat almost bearable. Here, I was walking up the steps to the Notre Dame de La Garde, Marseille's big church. There were so many different languages being spoken by all the tourists! It was the first time I really heard people speaking Italian and it was exciting for me! The bus ride there was a little scary because, like the Sacre Coeur in Paris, this church was on a HUGE hill. We were on one of those big greyhounds, and it was like going up the streets in San Francisco. I really didn't think we were going to make it!
This picture is of my two closest friends in the program so far, Katie (left) and Celina (right). Both are juniors at IU like me.
This one to the right is of the Notre Dame de la Garde. It was so huge!
This one in the middle is a fountain we stopped at for about ten minutes. I don't know what it's called, but it was so gorgeous. I've never seen anything like it.