Back To Marseille June 20, 2009
Posted by gordonwatts in Marseille, travel.1 comment so far
Term is done. It was done a week ago. Next week I move back to Marseille for three months. Those of you who have followed this blog for a while know that I spent 2007-2008 there. Well… I’m going back. Ironically, in 2007-2008 I was really hoping that I’d see first collision at CERN when I was there (it is less than 4 hours door-to-door from Marseille to CERN). This time there is no hope (there was a power outage there today – I wonder if that affected the LHC’s state? Nope, not really!). I was lucky enough that IN2P3 had some money available to help fund my three month trip (thanks IN2P3!).
To celebrate my return there I put together a synth of some 1000-odd pictures I took of the train station when I was there last time. There is lots of cool stuff up there (check out this one of the Hubble repair mission).
Synth’s are a very cool way to arrange a large collection of photo’s of a single subject. At any rate, enjoy it. I’m going a little crazy trying to get everything ready for the trip!
BTW – I wasn’t able to make this 1000 image synth until I got my new computer with huge amounts of memory – during the synth process it always ran out of memory! The irony here is that synth code is 32 bit. I guess Windows 64 bit gives just a bit more memory space to 32 bit programs than the 32 bit version of windows!
It’s Over August 30, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Marseille.add a comment
Well. This is it. I’ve been living in Marseille, France, for 14 months now. And tonight is the last night. Tomorrow we all board a plane for Ottawa. A week later I’ll be back in Seattle busy preparing for class. It has been a great year.
I’d like to thank everyone that hosted me at CPPM, the in2p3 lab at Marseille. Especially Laurent, Lorenzo, Remi, Georges, Cecile, Jessica, Karim, Sylvain, Mossadek, Eric, and Fanny (without Fanny I’d still be stuck in some line waiting for France to let me in!). There are many others as well. Without their help I never would have learned nearly as much as I did, nor would we have had such a great time.
And thanks to DOE and IN2P3 for providing some funding, which made this possible. Without that this never would have happened, especially considering how weak the dollar was this year!
We are going to miss Marseille!!
Bye Bye, Marseille! August 28, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Marseille.add a comment
Only about 6 hours left in Marseille. Frantically packing. Knee deep in garbage, recycling, and boxes! How is this all going to get to the train station, exactly!? We’re going to miss this place!
Who Is Eating Our Boxes? August 27, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Marseille.add a comment
First the good news: unlike last time, all 12 boxes that we shipped back to the USA have arrived. We gave 5 or 6 more to go, so I hope this sort of luck holds.
The bad news: it is questionable to say they arrived intact. Check out the shape of these guys. It looks like an animal was munching on them in transit.
Seriously. Are these boxes just tossed in a pile into a container, and that container contains spikes and poles sticking out at random angles. The Container Of (Box) Death. From the damage it looks like they were used in some sort of Olympics event. Perhaps the little heard of “Drop Kick The Box” contest? Only very pointy shoes may be worn. Extra points for tearing a corner of a box completely off!!
I don’t understand why the postal service can’t figure out how to ship boxes overseas. At least, with them being intact. All those red boxes you see there — those were boxes sold by the post-office that were meant for over-seas shipping. So there is no excuse “you are using the wrong box!.” I’d love to put a GPS and an accelerometer in a box or two and see where the damage occurs. I suppose the GPS probably wouldn’t ever work as the box is always inside… but is this damage sustained through out the trip? Or just in a particular port? Or what!?
Shipping 5 boxes when we moved out was no better. Only 3 of the 5 arrived. The other two “disappeared” (both of them disappeared in France). We had insured them from the USA side, but they demanded original receipts and the deadline they gave me was impossible because I wouldn’t be back in the USA soon enough to make it. No wonder insurance is cheap for shipping! This time we didn’t even insure. We will take some valuable stuff by carry on and UPS, and the stuff we can afford to loose by the postal service.
Sheesh!
WTF Moments August 11, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Marseille, life.add a comment
That isn’t what you think. “WTF” is abbreviated as “Welcome to France!” — but is basically the same. My wife discovered this coined on David Lebovitz’s blog. He is an American who moved to Paris back in 2002 – a pastry chef. And he frequently writes about how strange France can seem to an American (see his post on 5 great business to open in France – we have have experienced all of them).
Our building here in Marseille is about 100 years old. It has a spiral stairway that accesses all five floors. A very small elevator is installed in the middle of the spiral and carries people up and own. Much to the consternation of us occupants, it has a tendency to stop between floors. Since it does get stuck every now and then, the few moments when the doors open between floors and you aren’t sure they will close again can be a bit nerve wracking. Last time the stuck thing happen the elevator guy came by. I explained, in my broken English, the problem. He fixed it apparently. That was several months ago. Last week, however, he ran our buzzer and came up to talk to Paula. He explained why the elevator keeps getting stuck: the workers in the business that occupies the 3rd floor apartment smoke too much. Hmm… My wife finally worked it out that they use the elevator so much that some key bit overheats, expands, and causes it to stop between floors. Not that he would replace it, but he did come all the way out to the building to inform us…
Banks are weird here. In the USA they are much more consumer oriented. For example, our ATM cards all have a limit: no more than 350 euros per 7 days. France is much more of a cash society than is the USA, so 350 in a week can sometimes be cramped — but no problem, we have two cards, and we can each withdraw. So unless we are traveling this has never been a problem. But… it turns out… lets say you try to withdraw 200 euros. It fails. So you try again and you manage to get out 150. The next day you try to get out another 50. Nope — you are over the limit! You go to the bank and complain! They look at the ATM record and tell you that you’ve withdrawn more than your allowed 350. After you direct them to look at your bank account they agree that the first 200 euros wasn’t real. Will they fix the ATM card so you can withdraw? Nope – sorry — you have to wait until Saturday!!
WTF!
You Know It Is Vacation When… August 7, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Marseille, life.3 comments
This is August (I still claim June never happened). In most of Europe, and definitely in France, this is vacation time. Literally – things shut down for a whole month. Restaurants are closed. Even the beaches we hang out at are more empty. The tourist beaches are more full, of course. The halls of the lab here in Marseille are just long stretches of closed doorways.
But you know how I really know it is vacation time? They have stopped filling up the soda machine here. Can you imagine in the USA a Coke or Pepsi machine being allowed to stand empty for 2 or 3 weeks? I think not. But even more telling here in France… the coffee vending machine was broken for four days straight!
Any what am I doing going to the office every day!?
Less Than Two Weeks!?!? August 1, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Marseille.3 comments
Holy cow. We realized that we will be sleeping in our Marseille bed for less than 14 days! Then we are off to Paris for the last few days and finally back to North America. What happened to the month of June!? Did anyone out there actually experience the month of June!? Yeah — I didn’t think so. Someone pulled a fast one on us. How did this year go so fast!? I’m going to miss this place! I can’t believe I’ve lived over here for a whole year already!
300,000 Euro Firework July 24, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Marseille.add a comment
I wrote that while my experience at the Marseille fireworks weren’t all that great – the fireworks themselves were. One of the most stunning was when they made the fort at the end of the Vieux Port drip fire. I was only able to get one good picture of it, and that was at the very end. But it was perhaps my all time favorite firework.
Today I read how much it cost. 300,000 euros — 471,000 dollars! Holy cow!!
Bastille Day: Marseille could do a lot better July 18, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Marseille.4 comments
France, of course, doesn’t have July 4th. But they have something very similar — Bastille day. The is the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prison – which is seen as the start of modern France. So, a lot like July 4th for us back in the USA. Celebration is similar: by afternoon all the stores are closed, BBQ, and lots of fireworks.
Marseille, being the second largest city in France, is no exception. The close off the Old Port to cars and it just gets mobbed with people. Families, kids, you name it – they are there. It is a big party. Except, this time it wasn’t so family friendly. Actually, it wasn’t friendly at all!
First, technical difficulties prevented the 10pm start of the fireworks. They finally went off at midnight, after a good fraction of people had given up. Fortunately, by that time, Paula and our kid had gone home to bed. They managed to catch the fireworks over the tops of buildings.
Second, groups of kids set off fireworks. These aren’t small fireworks. Big ones. Ones that will do damage to your feet if they are near. This effectively cleared out certain sections of the street down on the Old Port. This was ok – you could spot these sections and avoid them if you wanted to. What was not ok was every now and then they would lob one of these large fireworks into the crowd that was patiently waiting for the real fireworks to start!
Third, when the fireworks finally started, everyone turned to concentrate on them rather than the explosions from the kids behind us. The kids then banded together — about 50 of them — in a scrum, and charged the crowd. Their aim was to push us into the water: we were standing on the edge of the dock. The dock is only about 8 inches above the water, so this is no big deal as long as you can swim. But the kids (some small)? And people were sitting down enjoying themselves when this scrum comes trampling in? And they were harsh. The second time they charged the crowd people got fed up and fought back. It wasn’t pretty, but they left us alone after that. Where the #*#^^@^^#@ were the police? There wasn’t one to be seen anywhere at that point. It was crowd justice, pure and simple. This is not the way a real city behaves – certainly not the second largest one in all of France.
I feel bad writing that. This town’s reputation is worse than the reality. Heck, I love this town. We will most likely return next year if we can swing the money situation too. So I feel a little like I’m betraying the town. But still, I was pretty mad.
The fireworks, on the other hand, were amazing. They had a row of barges up and down the middle of the water in the port, and they shot fireworks off them, racing up and down the line. Very cool. And the old fort dripping with fire was incredible – one of the most fantastic displays I’ve ever seen. I had only a hand-held camera, but I did what I could.
Goes Bang! in the Night July 18, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Marseille.2 comments
See those shutters that are half open in the picture I took from our bedroom window here in Marseille? Those things are loud! Here in Marseille, when the Mistral blows, only things that are bolted down stay in one place. This includes things like shutters. And when the wind grabs a hold of them they make a horrible racket. Here in downtown Marseille you can hear the noise from them hitting the walls all night long – crack! bang! Makes it hard to sleep!
