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So, this is my first blog entry ever. I always wanted to just write some stuff but didn't really know what to write about, so anyways, here it is.
First of all, let me say that I had quite a few prejudices conercing the French. The two most important being:
1. they don't like to speak foreign languages, even if they know them, they will usually insinst on speaking french.
2. they don't like Germans.
Also, I don't like the french language at all. It sounds nice, but speaking french or trying to understand it is pretty annoying to me, but I study Tourism and Travel Management, so speaking many languages is kind of important. Because of all this, I didn't really like my friends' choice of going to France instead of Spain, Portugal or maybe Italy, but it was cheap since we had rented a whole house, so I decided to go anyways.
On wednesday, september 3rd we headed out to Marseille for 10 days of vacation. The group consisted of 2 couples, a guy and a girl who were in a relationship but who traveled alone and 3 singles (including myself), so we were 9 people in total (4 guys and 5 girls). Six of us traveled in a friend's van and the other three followed in an Opel Corsa.
We met up at 11.30 pm and traveled for about 12 hours, arriving in Marseille around noon. Our hostess was a kind lady, probably in her late 60s, who lived in the house directly next to ours.
The area we lived in wasn't quite what I had expected, I was convinced we would live somewhere close to the beach outside of Marseille with lots of empty space around the house (the advert said 300 meters to the beach), but actually we lived directly in Marseille, in a rather dirty area. My disappointment would soon fade though, because the house itsself was very nice. It was a small two-story building, very cozy and bright colors, and a cute garden in which we would spend most of the 10 days to come.
The lady showed us around and everything financial went smoothly, so after unpacking and distributing the rooms we all wanted to head out to the beach, even if the weather was rather cloudy. We packed all our stuff and decided to just head out and ask along the way. We probably looked rather stupid with our sunglasses, shorts and towels walking through the middle of Marseille, but hey, it was our vacation so we dind't really care.
Unfortunately, finding the beach wasn't as easy as we had imagined, as it was more like 3000 meters from our house instead of 300.
The people we asked were all very nice, but the directions they gave us were rather misleading, so we walked for about a whole hour before finally finding the so-called "Plage de Prado". It was a small beach in the southwest of Marseille, and rather empty too because of the weather. exhausted, but happy we jumped right into the water of the Mediterranean, which was still pleasantly warm. we chilled there the whole rest of the day, having fun in the water and flying kites which a friend had brought along.
At around 7.30 pm we headed back to our house, this time actually going into the right direct thanks to a map of the city which we stumbled upon.
Thanks to the 5 girls we cooked almost every evening (well, they did), on the first evening we decided on spaghetti.
When we were done eating it was around 9 pm, and we realized that we had no alcohol in the house.
We were all really tired from the day, but everone was keen on drinking since it was the first night of our vacation.
So us guys headed out once more, and after another hour of walking we actually found what was probably the last supermarket to be open until 10 pm. We actually arrived there at 9.58 pm, leaving with a few beers, a bottle of vodka and two bottles of wine after the manager kindly told us that the store was about to close.
After having our first beer right in front of the shop we went back (slowly). Marseille is supposedly the most criminal city in France (and the 2nd largest after Paris with 800.000 inhabitants) and we kinda got the feeling that this was true, because literally every house or shop had some killer dog guarding it.
We had a great first night, playing drinking games and getting hammered and I fell into my bed feeling like a stone at around 3 am
Part 2 soon to come...
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On September 14 2008 20:21 InFiNitY[pG] wrote:
2. they don't like Germans.
We don't like French too.
i mean come on...... everyone knows what they speak about french T_T
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Imo French people dont hate German people. Germany is even quite popular among the population in the North-East.
Historically the elite is Germanophile and all the good students used to learn German to get in the best classes. Of course there are still some cliche about German people but way less than about American or English.
+ Three of my best bnet firends are German 
About Marseilles, i dont live in this city but yea you are right criminality is said to be high although it really depends of the neighborhood / areas. I think you need to avoid blocks in the quartiers nords and other poor areas ( but who wants to visit it lol ).
Edit: You should have gone to Corsica  . It is expensive but landscapes are so beautiful. + you can go mountain / beach in the same day lol.
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Awesome can't wait to read more. I would have gone to spain or italy because they have such unique areas. I'm not saying going to france sucks but the other choices sounded much better.
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i expected some pics 
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pics will follow within the next blog(s), but I didn't take many myself, as I only had my cellphone cam.
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On September 14 2008 21:50 Boblion wrote:Imo French people dont hate German people. Germany is even quite popular among the population in the North-East. Historically the elite is Germanophile and all the good students used to learn German to get in the best classes. Of course there are still some cliche about German people but way less than about American or English. + Three of my best bnet firends are German About Marseilles, i dont live in this city but yea you are right criminality is said to be high although it really depends of the neighborhood / areas. I think you need to avoid blocks in the quartiers nords and other poor areas ( but who wants to visit it lol ). Edit: You should have gone to Corsica . It is expensive but landscapes are so beautiful. + you can go mountain / beach in the same day lol.
I was gonna say, I'm pretty sure the French like the English less.
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On September 15 2008 03:21 Klive5ive wrote:
I was gonna say, I'm pretty sure the French like the English less.
And the English like the French less than the French like the English.
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Mon professeur a mon ecole de cuisine est Francais.
edit: living in quebec sucks big time. Its like an ongoing war between english people and french people. Always trying to 'discreetly' assimilate us. Its quite ironic how Le bloc Quebecois (political party) wants a free Quebec, and by free they mean no more English in the streets or in stores. They tore down the only movie theater that showed English movies :@
edit2: wait this has nothing to do with the OP sorry
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I wonder why the two nations don't like each other...? lol.
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I don't think we hate each other, we just like to make fun of each other but theres no real hate there. I mean they eat frogs and snails man what do u expect :D It's just like northern germans make fun of bavarians, nothing more
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Physician
United States4146 Posts
the key is to stink of pastis and start all ur conversations with one word of french.. then all is fine; I was very near there 2 month ago too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solliès-Pont , had a great time and even stopped by Marseille for some most excellent bouillabaisse!
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Yea, i really hope you have tried pastis :p.
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French people love Germans. I'm serious here. Brits, on the other hand...
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On September 15 2008 09:34 Matoo- wrote:
French people love Germans. I'm serious here. Brits, on the other hand...
french people love germans?
i know brits don't.
one would think france would hate germans considering their history.
if you don't believe countries hold long-term grudges, just look at korea (south) and japan.
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Well there are many differences. French people hated a lot the German during the 1870 <--> 1918 period because they were the bad guys who took the Alsace and the Lorraine. But after the whole WW2 trauma among both populations, people started to think that cooperation might be a better choice and they started the European Union.
Moreover i don't think that the comparison is accurate because Japanese people were racist towards South Koreans whereas the German werent toward the "normal" French ( 99% of the exactions / murders were against gays, resistants, jews and commies ).
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I will write this in a later blog anyways, but just let me tell you that my prejudices were completely off, at least for the people i met / talked to down there.
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Love travel blogs, but we need pics!
As for the Brits, I know that they are not very liked amongst the German and French but I've always wondered how does it feel having to learn the English language and being so influenced by it. Do you French guys, for example, think, "fuck, I knew we should have kept Louisiana!" or whatever? lol
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Yes! Everyday it pissed me off that canada and Louisiana are no longuer french because of evil english people. And they burned Jeane d'arc !
More seriously I don't know why french people don't like brits, maybe because they are on their island and they are not doing like the other country in Europe. They drive on the left, they don't use Euro, they are more on ally of the United States than France or Germany.
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+ They beat us twice at rugby world cup semi-final !
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I hope you Canadian and USA people realise that it's just all banter really.
If a German of French person came to England they'd be treated really well, and no-one would actually hate them.
We just joke about it in pubs and stuff, but then in the South-East we take the piss out of the Welsh far more!
There are obviously some exceptions (notably huggish football fans), but then they are probably more likely to start a fight with someone from a local rival club, than they are with people abroad.
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^
Above answers are both totally valid. A british guy coming to France will be welcomed very well. On a case-by-case basis there is no problem with brits. Actually, I think most people like them. Royalty and stuff. Cliché but hey.
The uneasiness that can be perceived sometimes is not about the people but about the UK as an entity, mostly because of the aforementioned issues (USA-oriented politics, unwillingness to be a proactive member of the EU).
Despite WW2, Germany has been the historical main partner of France since the beginning of the EU. And there are many points separating them from japanese people : like said before, even during the occupation they did not treat french people the same way the japanese treated korean and chinese people, and very important also, their attitude today towards WW2 is not like japanese's (even if I'm personally against the concept of mourning endlessly about something your ancestors did, it's still very important to keep the memory running and recognize all what happened and was done back then).
But yeah that's mostly politics and nobody is going to be bm against a brit or german. Except retards of course, like the drunk bastard who wanted to fight me in a club when I was in China just after the torch relay drama, but hey, there are people like that everywhere.
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EPT
