Week 3 in Marseille!

Bon Jour from France!!  

Hope you all are finding your rest in the finished work of Jesus on this Sunday!

Here is a quick recap from our 3rd week in Marseille:

We had a several days of planning and prep for the English camp that will take place the week of July 4th for the church.  The interns will run it and so there is lots to do to get everything together!  It is like a VBS but also teaching middle schoolers how to speak English.  The theme is USA.  The church has an ongoing English Club for adults through their church throughout the year.  They have made some wonderful connections in the community this way and many of the kids coming to English camp in a couple weeks are their children!  The end of the year celebration for the adult English Club was this week on Thursday night.  The interns worked hard on presentations for the VBS week and shortened them for the adults Thursday night.  The theme for the party was USA and we decorated with red, white and blue.  The interns were very busy Thursday cooking a very "American" meal.  They had BBQ, potato salad, green bean casserole and cornbread.  It was a lovely evening!

Claire and Mei

English Club celebration dinner outside the church

Justine and her "host" family

Katie and friends (some of her Host family)

Another neat thing that happened this week that I did not document is the Festival of Music on Tuesday night!  Every summer, Marseille has one night to celebrate music.  It is a big deal here and you can find people set up on most street corner playing music, even if they are not the most skilled.  

Early in the night, Pete set up a place for us to sing.  Basically, it was an outdoor area in the middle of several shops.  Kevin played hymns on his guitar and we sang some Indelible Grace songs.  It was fun and we even had some super cute little girls that decided to dance while we sang.  It was in an area of town close to the church.  We had a few people stop to talk to Pete!

Later that night, we heard people at the end of our street setting up music, so we let the kids stay up late and we went down to enjoy.  Some people were playing along with a cd.  Kevin asked to join and play electric guitar and they let him!  They played a blues song and everyone enjoyed it!

On Friday we packed up everything and cleaned our other apartment and moved into our new place for the month of July!  We are so thankful for the family letting us stay here!! They have 2 boys, age 8 and 4 and they have a beautiful place!  They even have toys and english books our kids can read!  Yay!  It is amazing how content 3 kids can be with toys when they have been without them for almost a month!  They have a cool mat on the floor that looks like a city and trucks and cars and people to make-belivie.  This new place has more room so we do not feel like we are stepping on each other and it also has fast internet! Yay!  That is how I was able to upload more pics this time!

On Saturday, we took our day off and took the one hour train ride to Avignon.  We left at 8:15am because we have a book about flea markets in France and heard we had to get there early because they pack up around noon!  The book was right about that and right about how AWESOME it was!!!  I could have looked all day, but we only had a couple hours to comb through it.  I took lots of pics to give you a taste.  Toward the end, we had to bribe the kids with popsicles because they had already used the 10 euros each to keep them busy.  So worth it though!

Notice the Castle in the background!

Katie

Claire

It went on for what felt like 2 football fields!  This flea market is here every Sat. so if you are ever in the area, you should stop by!!

City walls of Avignon

Palais Des Papes

Justine on the streets of Avignon

Candy store in Avignon

Isaac and his cool hat he got here

Mei in Avignon

Isaac on the train back to Marseille

Flea Market finds

A view from our new balcony

Orange Freestyle Cup Skateboarders

This is a free competition that was going on down on the beach this week.  It was fun to watch!  The finals are this afternoon and Kevin took the kids to watch.  There were even some Americans here competing.  

Hope you have a lovely week!

Week 2 in Marseille

Last week after the interns arrived, we spent the rest of the week doing orientation.  We also got to know Marseille alittle more by seeing some of the most beautiful sites!  Here are the intern girls in front of the old harbor.  They were looking toward one of the oldest churches in Marseille that is rich in history.  We got to tour the church and learn some amazing history of this region.  If you look to the right in the above you will see the round domes of the Notre-Dame.  The next picture is from the top of there overlooking the city!

Justine, Katie, Claire, and Alisa on top of the 505 ft perch at Basilique Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde

On Friday we were able to hear from a retired pastor here in France that explained the history of the French church from 1500-present.  It was so great to hear him talk about how God has worked in this country.  We even got to hear him sing some of the original Psalms they use to sing in the church in French in this region.  Ruth hung out with my kids so I got to be a part of this wonderful day of learning.  

Friday night we were invited to go to our neighbors' apartment upstairs.  We had met her a few times and said Hi to her and one time Pete was with us and translated that she wanted us to come upstairs on Friday for drinks and snacks.  This is a pretty big deal, because in this culture many people don't invite you up to there place after a couple of meetings.  Pete said this was an honor.  So Friday night, we took Alisa with us to help us translate.  Mrs. Suzie was very happy we brought her along and that we could communicate.  Suzie and Alisa hit it off and she wants her to come back and see her!  Alisa will be here past the summer so it was good to get her connected with her.  We had a lovely time getting to know her and she even told us about a big yard sale (here they say Clean out Your Attic Sale) close by on Sunday.  She said she would love to show us Sunday.  We set up a time after church to meet her.  

On Saturday we planned a very fun activity on our off day.  We went with Pete and Ruth's son, Charlie and some others to the Calanque.  These are limestone cliffs shaped by years of rain and wind and the sea.  It is so beautiful!  You could could spend a couple days hiking the whole 12 miles of these beautiful cliffs, but we decided the the 45 min hike one way was enough.  Here is what we saw:

That little island on the left looks like Neverland.  That is where we swam!

Katie taking a leap!

Here is our hiking group!

So after church on Sunday, we did go to the sale with our neighbor.  We ended up back at the Longchamp Park.  We came home and watched a family movie about baseball we had brought.  

This week is a busy week planning the English Camp the interns with help run in a couple weeks.  They also are helping throw a big party Thursday night for the English clubs.  So i will be hanging out with the kids and exploring more of the city with the kids.  We also move apartments the end of the week.  

Hope you are enjoying your summer! 

First week in Marseille

Our first full week in Marseille has past and we are settling into our new life for the summer.  The kids are pros at the transport system and can tell us which Metro to hop on when:)  Isaac has a very good

sense of direction(even better than Kevin:)

Cooper and Mei had separate meltdowns this am that ended with them saying they were really homesick and just wanted to go home.  I know this is normal and we talked with them about how normal it is to miss home and our dog.  They both voiced how much they did miss their dog, Lucy.  So we decided to eat a quick lunch and explore a new beach.  This was one close to where Pete and Ruth Mitchell live and they enjoy it.  So when we get off the bus, we see a promising sign that said "Gelato" so we tucked that info away for later.  The water was perfect and calm and the kids loved splashing about in the sea.  We of course brought our ball that goes most places with us.  Some teenage girls even asked to kick the ball around with the boys.  They could not organize because the girls did not speak English and went splashing away back into the water.  It was fun to see some kids learning to sail out in the inlet.  There was one motor boat pulling a bunch of mini sailboat all in a row.  Like a mother duck followed by the babies!  You can see the blue sails in the picture.  The kids thought that would be fun to do, but I told them I am pretty sure they could not do it because they would need to know how to speak French to do it:)  Behind the sail boats it the city of Marseille, or at least part of it.  We are going to go on more of a tour later this week.

This is Gabriel.  Isaac was on his team one of the many times we have been to the park playing soccer.  It was so cute to see them high-fiving after they make a goal.  I hope we see this kid again!  He is so sweet!

We got our monthly bus/tram/metro passes so we can hop on and off several times a day easily! yay!!

Mei at the Longchamp park overlooking Marseille.  She got bored at the park and I told her we could do a photo shoot.  She is a good little model!

The French church we are working with at the Flash Mob/gospel choir this past weekend.  They did this in the middle of a busy mall.  The French people in general have a great interest in "gospel" choirs and people will sing in them, even if they are not Christians.  Many people stopped to watch and enjoy.  It was a great event for the church and fun too!  

click here if you want to see it!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of_LgLWHy9Y

Here is one picture from the park that Mei took!  I thought she did a good job!  She gets bored watching the boys play, so now she loves taking pictures, too!

We went to the next apartment that we will have for the month of July on Monday and met the nice family that lives there.  They have 2 boys and more space to spread out.  We are going to love living there I think!  Another week and a few days in our current place then we move down the street!

Tonight I went to the airport with Pete to pick up our 3 girl interns!  So happy to see them all arrive safe! Our first team meeting is in the am!  

Marseille day 1!

So we made it back to Marseille after a very long 12 1/2 hr train ride.  It was not as bad as the ride over the first time because we were not jet lagged this time and most of the way was either first class or hugging the beautiful coast of Italy/France.  We traveled through Milan and went through some very beautiful mountains in Italy.  Very glad that day is over, though.

The first full day in Marseille was spent finding food and finding our way around our new summer home.
After we got breakfast, we made a trip to the local grocery store.  We brought two big bags to help us carry our groceries back the three blocks to our apartment.
Our morning was also spent doing lots of laundry!  We do have a washing machine in our place, but no dryer.  This is a new experience for us to not have a dryer.  The apartment has a very small balcony that opens to the street four stories up.  When I first opened it to the street, I noticed a line that was strung across the balcony with clothes pins attached with another what looked like a small drying rack on one side.  The apartment is about two rooms wide and has wonderful doors/windows that open up to get the breeze across the house.  There is no a/c either, but it has been pretty here so far so that has not been too day.  After I did the laundry I was very happy for the line and drying rack outside for all our clothes.  I eventually found a hidden mud room that had a very small room with another window and more lines for drying!

We are working on not being the very loud Americans that we normally are.  We are learning to not walk loudly up and down the stairs and learning little bits of French everyday.  We are also learning to watch were we step when walking down the street because we are living in a big city now and the dogs are happy to go wherever they please.  We are finding the bakeries with the yummy baguettes and croissants, although they have very strange hours here, usually closed in the middle day.

One of our other adventures the first day was riding the local Tram line that runs down our street.  We also rode the Metro and the Bus all in one day.  That was our work for the day.  Our play was finding the best park close by.  Thing we found it!  It is called Longchamps and is very beautiful!  It has many open spaces for soccer and Frisbee and even a-little baseball.  They boys brought their gloves and got lots of attention throwing, because baseball is rare in France.  Soccer is the main sport!  We even has an American guy walk by and could not believe we were playing baseball!  We ended up playing soccer with he and his boys.  We met a few other people and had a fun pick up soccer game.  We will be here a lot this summer and it seems if you bring balls you will always make friends!

I think I have bummed enough time down the street at the McDs who is the only local place by us with wifi that we have found.   xoxo

Venice

I finally found internet here in Marseille so I can upload the pics from a couple days ago in Venice!


So we arrived in Venice about 2:30pm after a 4 hr ride on the fast train from Rome.  We got first class tickets, which is what the lady told us we needed to get when we reserved it.  We were so thankful to have it!  It had 4 seats facing each other and they had a shared table that we used to play card games!  We brought a new Monopoly card game that was pretty fun, although it did end in tears a few times.  We played pass the pigs, which is always fun!
Of course when we got to Venice, it was raining again.  We hopped on our water taxi that took us to our stop by our hotel.  You can notice from the picture that Mei has a couple balloons attached to her backpack.  I think I forgot to tell you we saw a big wedding party get off the train in Vernazza on our way to Rome.  They were there for a wedding that day in Vernazza.  We ran into a few people there for the wedding at breakfast and they told us the wedding would be that day on top of the castle in Vernazza!  It was so fun to see the bride and about 40 people all dressed up get off the train before we got on.  They had decorated the train with bows and balloons.  We grabbed a few and tied them to backpacks:)

                                                       This is Mei going into our hotel in Venice

We only had one afternoon/night in Venice so we put on our rain gear and pressed on to San Marco Square!  This is on top of the famous Rialto Bridge, which is very close to where we stayed.

Bird boy in San Marco Square!!

Isaac was not afraid of the pigeons!  Thankful the rain let up!

We toured around some of the famous sites there and had to find dinner.  Everyone was kind of sick of pizza and pasta, because we have had that everyday for a week!  So we spotted a Hard Rock Cafe and decided some American food would be good for the little bit of homesickness that was settling in.  We went back after grabbing our last bit of Gelato and turned in early because we had to catch a very early train back to Marseille, France to unpack for the summer! 

Vernazza day 2 (revisited!)

Now that my internet is running better, I can revisit my Vernazza day 2 post and hopefully upload some fun pics!  One day 2 we took a boat over to town 1 in the 5 towns of Cinque Terra:  Riomaggiore.  Here we did some snorkeling and both boys saw some real fish!  This was the first time Isaac has ever tried it and he loved it!  Cooper of course was very excited to see some big fish!  The only time he has ever snorkeled was in FL and saw tiny fish! We ate more pizza and took a boat back to Vernazza.  Right as we were pulling up to Vernazza, the sky opened up and it started pouring rain!  It was kind of a crazy fun memory to see Vernazza all wet and everyone ducking under restaurant umbrellas and shop canopies.  We escaped pretty quickly and opened our window to watch the people down below.  The decision was made to get pizza to go for the kids and put on a movie on our computer in the room.  The Kevin and I escaped up the hill to the Castle Restaurant, but this time alone for a quick dinner date.  They had my phone to text if they needed and the town is so tiny they could walk up the stairs if they needed.  They did great!  Yay!  A much need hour and a half away from the kids!  This has been a fun time with them, but we were thankful to get a quick date.

Riomaggiore

Riomaggiore

the Vernazza harbor rocks

Coop at the castle restaurant  day 1

pizza, pizza and more pizza!!  That is mostly what these kids have eaten in Italy!

out our window in Vernazza!

Mei climbing on the Vernazza rocks

Coop snorkeling! 

Isaac and Mei in the surf at Riomaggiore

fruit stand in Riomaggiore

I have many more pics, but that is all for now!