I slept most of the time during the flight… last thing I remembered was the plane taking off… I forgt  how afraid of flying I am… especially at taking off and landing… the rapid change in pressure terrifies me….

Although Charles de Gaulle is one of the biggest airports in the world (and worst) …my connecting flight is from Orly airport, which is the other side of Paris!  I honestly and wholeheartedly will not complain… I can think of a worse fate than going by bus through Paris… PARIS!

6:30 AM

Bus is late; I am getting nervous that I won’t make my flight…

I CAN’t believe they made me pay the bus trip! Air France must be THE worst airline on earth…service sucks!

10:00 AM

I am here in Marseille… Men are beautiful, women are beautiful, children are beautiful, buildings are beautiful, even dogs are beautiful…. and the light! Oh my God I can’t believe the quality of light here… it is so bright that I felt like a vampire who is getting out of darkness… no wonder all those famous painters came here… the light is BRIGHT!

8:30 PM

On my plan for the first day was a trip to the public beach… Apparently there is no such thing as a private beach here… no Mariotte hotel , no Mevenpick… no need to pay 50 or 30 JDs to access the beach… the beach belongs to the everyone… not only those who can afford it …

I obviously had the “shat il 3am” in Aqaba in mind… garbabge everywhere and unattractive guys staring with those dirty,  hungry looks….Needless to say I was not excited about the prospect of getting wet and salty in a public beach…. but could not tell my hosts since they are being all generous and perfectly companionable…

Ohh…. the public beach…it was like bringing a picture in a perfectly glossy magazine to life!……It is the most beautiful spot on earth…it is clean… human beings are chilling there in peace…  everyone is busy with their own thing, no one is staring (except for me of course…) I wonder what would happen if these ladies go on the public beach dresses or undressed, they way they are there…  Everything is just beautiful.

 Got to go for another meal… that bagutte they eat here… i can safely wonder if the french invented breads…. with that thought…. je vais etre de retour …

Sand Castle

Public Beach

 

Those men are actually fishing!

On a different note, i have been reading The Black Book… . It’s PERFECTLY CORKING…. and no… i am not reading it because of the silly Turkish series fad… I’ve been hearing about Orhan Pamuk all my adult life, but I had no idea he really wrote so well; I always suspected him of going largely on his reputation… but honestly that guy trully deserves his Nobel prize…