drama-rama

Wine Tuesday was a success. The aftermath was not. So we have these ladies come in to mop and clean the bathroom and such however becuase we asked and begged to have a lock on the door to the apt (i dont think thats a crazy request do you???) they took away the privelege of having the cleaners! What crap right? Anyways it makes me mad, not because we have to clean but because its liek we are being punished for not wanting robbers and rapists (by the way when i went to spell this word the first time i spelled rapper... ) come in as they please! We also didn tknow where to put our garbage bags because nobody told us and hte cleaning ladies usually took them. But Then they stopped becuase apparently that wasnt their job. They freaked out at us because we had a pile of garbage in our apt (as if we liked it that way) adn called us messy and dirty... well we are apparently suppose to put the garbage downstairs in a closet but you need a key. We asked 3 times for a key and they didnt give us one forever so the cleaners KEPT getting irritated with us and leaving us snarky notes about what to do with the garbage because they thought we were just being lazy! So anyways yesterday two ladies came up to our apt to figure out what to do and i pretended not to be here until i heard them complaining about us again so i went out to talk to them and ended up crying haha. They were soooooo irritating. Anyways we finally got the key to get rid of the poubelle. Tuesday night we had a gathering of one extra person and we decided to do some wine tasting. So were were in our empty bedroom/lounge and our neighbour called us to ask us to be quiet. So we moved the shin dig down the hall. We got a call from the same man half an hour after we had been to bed asking us to keep it down. Maybe we were snoring too loudly?? So the next morning we were woken up by crazy psycho lady banging on all our doors saying stuff like 'its not so nice being woken up is it?' and 'i'm not going to wait 10 years for you all to get out here.' so then she started telling us off for being wild party animals. our neighbour complained about us and even said we were the reason that he was late for work! real mature. so we explained that he called us and we moved rooms and then we didn't get a call again until we had already gone to bed. By the way our roommate Anant was able to sleep through our wild party... anyway it was crazy. They treat us like were a nuisance and 9 years old. if the rent wasn't so cheap we would be outta here! We will apparently have to find a new location for Wine Tuesday. chin chin

Katie and Mary Elizabeth:Mennonites

Since we didn't travel that far this weekend, we decided to go on a spiritual journey. Rachel took us to a church that she had been to once for service. It was a special youth service. We were all set to sneak out the back after but they sensed we were foreign. We were invited up to the parish house because one of the womens daughters had done an exchange to England, so of course we automatically had a lot in common. Not so much. She hadn't spoken English in a long time and she was just about to go out the door for a run. Her mom set us up with mango juice and pretzels while we made awkward small talk. At least we both love desperate housewives. They obviously weren't expecting company because they had bras laying out. We ended up staying for a 'quick lunch' which included appetizers. We started with some lettuce, 2 olives and some salmon(which katie didn't eat, because of her small fish allergy), they also served homemade apple juice which was really good! The main meal was pasta, homemade tomato sauce...and hard boiled eggs (the shells were to be disposed of in 'poubelle de table'. Dessert was homemade ice cream and berries. we got some history of mennonites in the area. It was really unexpected but hopefully we made some good contacts from it. They were really great people.

Romantic Weekend Getaways

Our friend/travel companion, Rachel, was celebrating her 21st birthday so we decided to head over to Dijon (that's right, liek the mustard). And to all you Wayne's World fans they also make grey poupon, Holla. The hostel we stayed at was less than stellar. We think Marseille spoiled us because this time around we got a huge whiff of BO mixed with hospital smell when we walked through the door. Anyways we were two to a room and unfortunately we were stuck together (hardy harr). We weren't near the centre at all and had to walk a good 30 mins there and maybe longer on the way back. Highlights of Dijon include:

• The rooves of the buildings were really cool and colourful.
  
• We went to the mustard shop where you could sample some of the mustards. According to our book from the lonely planet "When we walked in tangy odours assaulted out notrils". They had all sorts of different mustards including nut and caramel mustards and PINK mustard.
  
• Then we went to La musee des beaux arts which is known as one of the most outstanding museums in France. This museum was a renovated castle which belonged to the 3 dukes of Burgundy. It was really cool because their tombs were on display among other amazing paintings and breathtaking sculptures.
  
• And of course after a long day of sight seeing we ended the day with delicious crepes! Shocking!
• We got some vin-o and hung out in our rooms chatting away (in french of course mom!) and watching German cops! Then Katie fell asleep and the rest of the gals went out for a night on the town.
• Night on the town: travel time added another few hours to the evening, basically we got real lost. We ended up outside a club and met up with two guys who took us to another one. We had a good time but the drinks were way too overpriced and maybe that's why nobody was drinking or maybe it wasa because you only had to be 16 to get in...
• The next we were all pretty tired (even sleeping beauty) and got up for continental breakfast aka bread. Then we headed back to the centre ville before catching the train.
• When we first got to Dijon we noticed that there were a lot of owl souvenirs in the shops. We found out the story behind these owls by going to a "Notre Dame" church. At this church there is an owl carved in the outside wall. It is said to grant happiness and wisdome to those who stroke it and so now it is all worn down. It was really cool and we all touched it. There are all sorts of superstitions surrounding the owl and the dragon that is right next to.
  

Belfort: Yesterday we took the train to Belfort which is only a 15 mins train ride from Montbeliard. We met up with other language assistants and visited the Citadelle. Belfort is known for the huge Lion carved into the citadelle. this lion was designed by the same guy who did the Statue of Liberty. In our opinion the lion wasn't that spectacular. On our way to the Citadelle there was a huge crowd gathered around for a parade of tanks and army dudes. It was interesting but for some reason our German friends were not a fan! Later on we heard a big bang that scared us half to death, turns out it was the canons going off. After the citadelle we went to a cafe before catching the train back home. We were with people from Germany, England, Austria and Italy and we all thought that this cafe was weird. This cafe was not a typical french cafe. When we first walked in we were not greeted and so we found a booth big enough for us all to sit. Once we were seated a man threw us a coaster and told us to write neatly. Clearly he didn't have the time to take our order himself. Everyone wanted coffee but Mary Elizabeth decided to be different and went for the "Vin Chaud" aka "Hot wine", Delicieuse. It was actually really good, it tasted like wine and apple cider.


P.S. When we were leaving one of the shops there was real hottie waiting outside the door to rate the ladies. Luckily for us we got a "Pas mal de tout" and a "Magnificent".

picture update

We started a second album so follow the link on the right hand side of the page then click on the tab 'simoneakasimone gallery' to see our marseilles pictures! enjoy

also if you want to be our follower...that would be cool! shout out to Katie's mom Cathy who is the only one who really cares...

Who thought we would be wearing shorts in November?

We got paid and we were off. We took a midnight train going annnnnyyyywheeeereeee (well to Marseille because we already had tickets). We were travelling all night and got in early on Saturday morning all set and ready to start the vacay. We dropped off our bags at the hotel adn went for a Marseille adventure. We ended up taking a trolley tour around the city. It was a good time. We ended up at Notre Dame de la Garde. It was an amazing cathedrale that overlooked the entire city of Marseille. Afterwards we went back and did some shopping, don't worry we didn't spend all our moula! After that we had dinner at a restaurant and it was a pretty delicious. That night was Halloween and it was the lamest Halloween we've ever celebrated. France/Europe doesn't really do the whole Halloween thing. We were pretty bummed but we made up for it because we did facials and watch Deal or No Deal in Italiano! It was pretty amusing, especially when the kids came out clapping and singing Crocodillo! We got a good night's sleep becuase the rest of the holiday was going to be out of control!



The next day we dropped off our stuff at thet sweetest hostel around. We shared a room for 6 people with two other people. We didn't become BFFS with these people because one went to bed at 7:30 and the other was a mute. The two of us shared a loft while Mhairi and Rachel shared a bunk bed. That day went to the market did some browsing and then hopped on a boat to the most amzing island and castle in the world. We got to the island explored the caslte. This castle, chateau d'if, was the castle that Alexandre Dumas wrote about in the tales of Monte Cristo. It was built in the 16th century and it was turned into a jail for the protestants, so needless to say there was some pretty cool history behind this castle. The best part of this adventure was definitely the view and the landscape. The ocean was beuatiful and it was really just breathtaking. After all the walking and exploring we went to the Cinemas and then just hung out at the hostel hoping to meet some Austraaaaaaaaaaalians! On our way to the Cinemas we took a ride on an old school carousel. It was romantic. Once we got to the hostel we sat out on the terrace of the hostel and met a few lame girls from the states and a bunch of German Footballers. Then we met Ruben. He is from Holland and talked our ears off about anything and everything, nice guy though. Mhairi and Mary Elizabeth were determined to find some Austraaaalians so they went out with Ruben in search of a bar. Luckily enough they did meet one guy from northern Ireland and a jiu jitsu master from AUSTRALIA, who by the way was rocking a sweet stache.

On Monday we went on another trolley tour through the old city. The train stranded us in a random part of town to take a look at a whole lot of nothing. Then we read in our travel books about a bar that served drinks for only 2 euros. So we found our way there only to find that it was closed. We weren't that disappointed because we were fortunate enough to go through the red light district. There were actually prostitutes sitting outside all decked up. It was kind of scary but really hard not to look at the thigh high red leather (err, pleather) boots, fur vests and black lip liner. Their genders were questionnable. By this time it was getting late so we wanted to head back to the hostel to meet friends. We were hanging out with Rubenski and met his roomates Angie and Mark. THEY WERE CANADIAN, well, Mark was QUEBECOIS, but we guess it's the same thang. We hung out all night talking and laughing. Things turned serious because Mhairi and Mark got engaged! Well not really but they hit it off and he gave her a guitar pick.


Our final day in Marseille was by far the best day. We met up with Mark and the 5 of us made our way to a Museum. The architecture of this museum was amazing and detailed. We went the park because we had some time to waste and we had ourselvles the perfect french picnic. We ate grapes, baguettes, chocolates, cheese, and Mark treated us to 4 bottles of wine. It was a great afternoon follwed by an evening of drinks at Petit Nice. We headed back to the hostel so a game of Asshole and Spoons which after a few more bottles of wine turned into Extreme Spoons. It was an awesome day. We headed out that night at around 11 and arrived back in Montbeliard around 7am.


Heads up about Marseille:

• The garbage has not been picked up in 18 years. There are literally heaps of it everywhere. We even say a toilet in one of the heaps. It's pretty impressive that we only saw one rat the whole time we were there. That rat was at our hostel...
• They have the best baguettes in the world and their crepes are over priced
• The men in Montbeliard aren't nearly as bad as the men in Marseille! They are so aggressive! For example we were walking up a hill and these guys turned around and just said "wow". Then we laughhed in their face and they didn't know what to do! Also we had the pleasure of getting flipped off by a drunken man swinging around a lamp post. By the way, they prefer blondes.
  

Les vacances de touissant!

Well, after three weeks of working we were thankful for a two week break. We kicked the break off with a trip to Besancon for a doctor's appointment in order to validate our Visa. We woke up at 5:20 am to catch the train only to miss it and end up being 30 minutes late for the appointment. Luckily we met up with a couple (Leona and Nathan from Ontario who have been married a month) who are also languagge assistants in the next town. Unfortunately they helped us find the office, it was bizarre! First of all we had to ring a bell to get into the building adn then once we were there, there wasn't a receptionist. A frantic woman came in to the waiting room grabbed our passports and ran away with them. This was normal compared to the time spent with the doc. When we first walked into the office we were told to lay down on the table and he did a little tap on our chest,back knees and then squeezed our arms and ankles. Then he literally pulled us off the table and pointed to the scale to weigh us and measure our height. Next was the most crucial part of the appointment, our chest x-rays. Why, you may ask? We don't know but we have a copy of it. So the doctor's visit was very informative and it really proved that we were healthy and fit enough to teach english. What a relief. Then we went off to validate our Visas so we guess it's official, see you in 6 months!





Then we went to the train station and met up with Mhairi for a fun filled day of sight seeing in Besancon. We started off with some window shopping and then we were off to the Citadelle. The Citadelle was out of control. The Halifax Citadel has nothing on this bad boy. It was IN-TENTS! It wasn't just an old stone wall but it had several museums, a zoo, a beautiful view overlooking the city, and puppets! It wasn't quite a zoo but random animals all over the place. For example, in the mote there were evil looking moneys. The zoo was really cool because there were animals that you don't typically see in a canadian zoo. There were FLAMINGOS and kangaroos! It was so huge that we spent the whole day there. We caught the train back to Montbeliard and ended up running into Nathan and Leona again. Which made for great conversation and debates learning about thier first month of marriage and what a sweet honeymoon they are on for 7 months in France.