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This is what happens when I travel without Cara. I have no idea what I’m visiting, where I am, or the significance of anything I see. All I know is that I’ve been to Marseille and I’ve seen a lot of stuff so far. Usually when people ask me if I’ve seen [insert famous thing or place here] I’ll look over to Cara and ask her if I’ve seen it or done that or whatever. I don’t keep track of things like that.

Mostly because I don’t care. I just like the travelling part and the seeing part. The remembering and understanding what I’m seeing part I usually leave to Cara.

I should have brought the camera, because the big golden statue and the church is actually kind of pretty.

Speaking of "stuff".. I am very happy to report that in the back of the van lies four blue and white rubbermaid containers. 1.03 square meters of Henri and Cara’s stuff. After a rather dreary night on the boat (yes, I actually did trip that kid, and it worked because he never came back) I arrived at 7:32am and drove off to find the shipping place. Folks, if you’re ever in Europe and decide to use "mappy" to try and find something.. you should know that it only gives you about 25% of the streets you’ll actually see. This means that if you’re anything like me you’ll get very very lost and wind up seeing more of the city then you want to at that moment.

Eventually, I found the place and the nice lady was helpful enough to immediately find Yohanne, who spoke great English. I also learned a new French word, today. I have no idea how to spell it, but it sounds like "fir" and means "street light". So anyway, Yohanne took my 200 Euros and then gave me a slip of paper. I can’t say that slip of paper was all so wonderful. You’d think for 200 Euros they’d have it embossed with an official stamp or something — maybe even some of that nifty silver glitter-pen writing or something. But now, all my paper had was some chicken scratch French writing that would supposedly get me into the warehouse AFTER I found the customs people and had them stamp it.

So off to the customs people I went.

I also found out how to say, "You can’t miss it" in French, but this convenient phrase has since left my mind in search of other more appreciative people. You see… I did miss it. I must be a moron, because after 3 hours, 4 different customs buildings, about 3 different helpful people, and even one "follow me in your van and I’ll lead you there" 25 minute drive (which, incidentally, led me to the 4th and yet incorrect customs building), I finally found the place. How did I find it? Simple. I walked into a post office and asked them how I would go about receiving a package that had arrived from Canada.

Bingo. It turns out that there is a 5th customs building in Marseille that is used for importing personal effects. Ya… makes sense, to me too. The little booth/window I needed was on the 3rd floor and the lady was actually very nice and helpful. I think she felt sorry for me.

She had me sign 6 (yes, that’s a SIX) different forms, and then put a big stamp on the paper from the shipping company. He stamp was quite nice. It had three different ink colors and some very official looking animal thingy design along with some room for her signature. I think it’s one of the coolest stamps I’ve every seen, actually. I should have got her to stamp something else with it, because they warehouse people took that paper and kept it.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

After the customs, I decided to celebrate with a cold drink. I splurged and bought a "temptation" tropical can of some kind of fruit pop. It was very tasty. OK, I’m sure that tidbit of gastronomic delight was just what you wanted, right? Hey, it’s my blog and that can of pop (1.50 Euros if you’re interested) was a very good pop.

So now I brought out the map that the shipping guy gave me, which had a little marking of where I needed to go and pick up the pallet of stuff. No problem, right? Wrong. Of course, the place he marked was not the right place. It was close, but not as in the office-next-door close. It was close as in about one kilometer off close. That’s not very close unless you’re planning to drop a nuke on Marseille.

Especially when there are 900 little side streets within that 1 square kilometer and nobody has ever heard of the place you’re looking for.

I finally figured out to stop and look at a phone book, and of course that had the address of the place I needed. I brought that to a pharmacy (where I also bought some allergy pills because I forgot mine back in Corsica — along with my pillow!!), and asked for directions. She gave me precise directions, with a nice red line to follow on the map.

In 10 minutes I was pulling up to the warehouse. I entered the "reception" and immediately walked back out. Folks, there was a WALL of smoke. I don’t mean just a little hazy.. I mean like you couldn’t see past the wall of smoke to what was on the other side. Picture two sets of doors. The first set is the outside doors, where you walk into.. and then you’re in a little walkway area and you have the second set of inside doors. Well, inside this little walkway area was the wall of smoke. I can’t figure this out, but somehow they had managed to route the ventilation of the office into this little area, and of course they were all smoking in the small office. It was really kind of amazing, and the first time I’ve ever seen that happen.

I entered through the wall of smoke and through the inside doors into the office. They all laughed when I entered, and then offered me a cigarette. I don’t understand French humor.

Anyway, it was no problem to get the pallet, although I was a bit surprised when the guy in the forklift actually tried to drive the whole pallet right INTO the van. I’m not a "space visualization" guy, but you’d think someone who stacked trucks with pallets for a living would be, right? Wrong again. This guy must have been one-eyed, because that pallet was definitely not going to fit. No matter how hard he tried, how many times he backed up and tried again.. it was still not going to fit.

Finally, I made some "cutting" motion with my hands to try and get the guy to understand that we could just cut the wrapping (holding the boxes together onto the pallet) and load them into the van by hand. No, he was going to try again. A few more times. Finally, he realizes it isn’t going to fit. He hops off the fork-lift and cuts the packaging and then walks away. Nice. So I loaded the containers onto the van, went back into the smoke-office, signed where I needed to sign in order to get the gate lifted so I could leave…

… and now I have our stuff!

So it didn’t take two days. I already tried to change my ferry ticket to the one that’s leaving tonight, but it’s full. Supposedly. I don’t think it really is, but that’s an easier answer then trying to actually help the stupid English-speaking person when you’d rather talk on the phone, right? Right.

So I decided to just hang out in Marseille. See the sites, etc.

You’re probably wondering why I’m at the top of this hill area at this church thing right? Well, I tried for 1/2 hour to find a free wireless connection, but couldn’t find one. Since I understand how the technology works, I know that the higher you are the more likely you’ll find a signal. This place is the highest in the area, and thus.. here I am. And yes, I found a signal and so I’m writing in my blog and will soon pull out my packed-lunch (thanks Cara!), have some food, and work for a while.

Then it’s off to find a place to park for the night, sleep in the van, and figure out what to do tomorrow until the evening when the ferry leaves. I’ve got a ton of work to do, still, and I loaded my software development tools onto my laptop, so I can program "locally" without an internet connection. It’s not like I want to stay at this church/hill for two days, right? And using my cell to connect to the internet is a bit costly (about .25 euro per minute).