1/26/2020
(Above: A harbor in Marseille set up with a fish market and with an approaching storm in the background.)
Active Summary: This morning I woke, showered (more in TIL… yes, that sounds interesting doesn’t it?), packed up my bag in a much more organized fashion than it was*, and then wrote for over an hour. This was ensued by my brother and I venturing outside.
We commenced to walk down to the docks but stopped along the way at a bakery where I procured two very tasty croissants for 1.8 euros and my brother procured a brownie for 2.6 euros. After sharing the delicacies, we continued our journey where we saw many interesting sights, most of which are mentioned either in the commentary or shown in the pictures/videos below.
By the time we were heading back to the room, it was raining quite hard so we stopped by the Musée Cantini. Little did we know it was a museum dedicated to a fashion photographer named Man Ray. It was a thankfully small exhibition, and the attendants were kindly enough to give us English Pamphlets so we at least had some idea of what we were looking at. The descriptions were elegant enough, but very few of the exhibits were of interest to me. The most interesting portion was an old 1940 article about Ultra-violet light and a poem-advertisement – the latter being interesting simply because advertisement back in the early 1900’s was much more classy/clever than advertisement today.
We lasted about 40 minutes in that Museum before it was time to venture out into the rain once more. A rapid walk back to the room commenced, and now, I’m presently compiling the morning’s pictures and videos for this post. Be aware that the audio is quite loud in the ensuring videos.
(9:21 PM Update:) There has been some technical difficulties in regard to my internet connection here, but it is resolved for the moment, and I should not have to contend with it any more. In regard to travel-shenanigans, my brother and I returned at ~ 8:30 PM from a trip to “Wok me Now”, an Indonesian restaurant. They served up quite a plate of noodles that I ate in its entirety. Afterward, my brother and I ventured to a nearby bakery where we procured some sweets to celebrate our final – er… second to final – night in France.
Lychee tea. A sweet beverage that tastes like the fruit it describes. 
A bottle of good bubbly water. 
A bowl full of rice noodles, beef, shrimp, flat-peas, onion, scallions, and a few weird-but-tasty crunchy things to the side. 
A close-up of the stirred beef & shrimp bowl. 
My brother’s Beef & Egg bowl with different, yellow noodles. 
A strawberry-creme tart. 
A ‘Paris brest’. I wonder why they named it that… 
Inside the strawberry tart. 
Inside the brest. 
A pinwheel of absolute deliciousness. 
A closer look at why it was so delicious. 
Another look – this time with flash. Behold the layers! (Stuffed with some sort of syrup and nuts). This ranks up there with the Napoleon we had in Cassis.
TIL: Over the course of our stay in Aix and Marseille, I have noted that hot water becomes a valuable commodity after 8:00 PM at night. I’m not certain if this is because people are told to turn their hot water heaters after 8PM, if they do so of their own volition due to high utility costs, or if the city turns off gas to apartments after 8 PM, but after that time, one must be very sparing with the hot water or suffer a fate as I did last night: no shower… or shower beneath some very frigid (near freezing) water.
I also learned how to answer the question ‘where are you from’ when asked. French folks sometimes understand United States or America, and rarely, Florida (Floor-ih-dah). However, when pronouncing my home state in the French way, Floride (Floor-eed) or la Floride (lah floor-eed), I have experienced a high success rate, and they commence to exclaim: ‘Ah! Miami!’ or ‘Ah! Disney World!’.
Commentary: Despite the day’s grey sky, chilliness, and prevalent moisture, Marseille demonstrated itself to be a one-of-a-kind city. I saw things during our walk this morning that I don’t think I could have imagined – a very lively bakerwoman of unknown nationality who spoke to us in good albeit accented English, a somewhat ‘showy’ climber scaling centuries-old architecture to music and drums, a fish market that I was tempted to patronize yet could not due to an insufficient kitchen, a band of many individuals dressed in very odd/colorful costumes beneath a reflective awning, a full opera house, a fashion museum, and the list goes on – and it all occurred despite the inclement weather.
La Verdura – a fruit/vegetable market on the Castellane Square. 
A prime croissant acquired for breakfast. 
Some sort of state building with fountains and ‘spikes’ out front. 
An ascending street in Marseille. 
The Marseille Chamber of Commerce building. 
Oddly, the building was being scaled by a man. 
A reflective awning at the harbor with many people (including a band) beneath it. 
My brother and I beneath that awning. 
The opera house appeared quite full despite (or maybe because of) the morning’s poor weather. 
The first exhibit – hangers – within the Man Ray exhibit. 
A token exhibit in the fashion museum. 
A poetic advertisement. ** 
Article from 1940 about Ultra-Violet light in regard to beauty and health.*** 
A close-up of the fountain seen earlier in front of the state building. 
A close-up of the first day’s PAX statue. 
A rainy central avenue through Marseille.
Final Note: Tomorrow we are flying to Catania in Sicily. It will be interesting to see what the flight process consists of when moving ‘domestically’ within Europe.
*In preparation for the flight to Sicily.
** Hi-res image: https://imgur.com/a/B9PJMP8
*** Hi-res image: https://imgur.com/a/VJVGKn0
Talk about diversity… you two had more unique experiences in a couple hours than I have had in… well a very long time