Week 1 in France

We left Dallas at 7am on Thursday and got to Marseille around 4pm on Friday.  All planes, shuttles, cabs, and trains were on time.  The only thing that went wrong on the trip was my body.  Without going into too many details on what exactly was wrong with my body, I'll say that it greatly affected my ability to sit comfortably.  I can't think of too many other times in my life when it could be worst timing for that to go wrong then when I am traveling from Dallas to Marseille. The first night we stayed in our apartment in Marseille was the most painful and worst night of sleep in my life.  I had seen a doctor here that evening and he prescribed an antibiotic and basically said, "take this, if it doesn't get better or the pain is too bad, go to the ER."  The next morning, I went to the ER. Just in case you are thinking I might be typing this from a hospital bed or might still have an iv hooked up, the surgery went fine and I was actually up and about the next morning. As I was waiting to get my anesthesia, I heard 3 songs playing over the hospital PA.  1. Cranberries-Zombies 2. a song by Muse 3. Queen - Somebody to Love I thought it was funny to hear those and nothing french while I was waiting. Anyway, surgery went fine. After a top notch breakfast of a juice box, piece of bread, and a croissant with chocolate in the middle from the hospital (see below) I walked to church on sunday morning and was only a few minutes late to class.

And if you are thinking to yourself, "I bet that ipad is playing some nerdy fantasy movie", you are correct. Lord of the Rings - Two Towers. Below is a picture of the front door into our apt building, a picture along our walk to the church, and then a picture of the front of a church (right side of the church used to be an auto shop).

 

 

 We have no car but are a 10 minute walk from the church, the metro, the hospital, and 5 different bakeries. All of a sudden, Gentry is thinking we need bread and cheese after every meal....I'm ok with it. Here is a very quick and hopefully not too dizzying video tour of our apt.

Our first sunday morning at Chapelle de Fuvaue went well. The church has 3 interns right now from ACU that speak very little France so Gentry is not alone in her struggle with communication.  The church gave Gentry and the 3 wildcats some headphones that had a translator on the other end so they weren't completely lost during the service. It was pretty strange having a normal working day with our same jobs that we had in Dallas. There were some times I forgot we were in France. Being here makes me feel like its just wrong to work 8 hours a day ha....am I too young to be thinking about retirement? One weeknight Gentry and I went to Vieux Port which is the old port in downtown Marseille. We got some ice cream (gelato) that was maybe the best i've ever had and enjoyed the night.

This weekend will be our first real chance to get out and explorer and should make our next post a lot less boring. Some quick things I already miss: -Garbage disposal -Counter space -Outlets that aren't european -My pillow Other than that, we got more than everything we need.  In a few weeks, the only thing i'll be missing is air conditioning.  One thing i will not be missing are fans because we will have about 8 of them in our apartment. I wrote this post a pretty fast so get over any spelling or gramatical errors. I'm sure there are many. Since this is going out to close friends and family only, I can say, we miss you and hope all is well. Mike