Check please

So I said the hostel in Marseille was quaint comfy and quirky...it is quaint. Comfy? Not anymore. Quirky? Definitely.



The guy running the place, Jean, is a complete creeper. If he lived in the states, we would be on the sex offender registry. I wouldn't be surprised if he was in France (that is saying a lot) and just never informed his visitors. It is akin to how he isn't actually running a hostel. Or dealing hash. Or trying to nail every girl that comes into his hostel even though he is a 50 year old fatty. Including my sister.



The man does have his game down though. Every night we stayed there he would take a different girl on his moped on a romantic drive through Marseille to a scenic port tucked away in the cliffside. Then after buying them a drink he would drive back, stop by the side of the road, and pick a flower to put in the girls hair. It would have been smooth if he hadn't outright asked the girls for a kiss... or tried to massage them constantly... or tell them how sensual he thought they were... or brought out a vibrator at a bbq on the deck of the hostel.



Yes you read that right.



He is a waste of air. Aside from him, Marseille is a nice enough place. Its laid back, has beautiful people, and beautiful scenery.



They are so laid back though that they never pick up after their dog makes une doo doo. Or any trash in general. There are some beautiful people. Some being the operative word. Unfortunately everyone thinks they are. This includes 80 year old women and men that like treating every beach as a nude beach and girls that apparently have never heard the term muffin top.



While on the topic of beaches, apparently no men under the age of 40 have chest or facial hair. I got a lot of looks at the beach. I have yet to determine if that was a good or bad thing. I am assuming bad since everyone ran out of the water once I got in.



But we are not in Marseille. We are comfortably situated high on the shin of Italy in Florence. It is amazing. Especially compared to Rome. Rome stank, was hot, muggy, expensive, the people were incredibly rude and pushy. The only thing it had going for it was crumbly old buildings. Those were worth the stop. One day was more than enough.



To jump back a bit... the rest of Ireland was great and pretending to be a photographer for national geographic does work if you are trying to get on to the grounds of an old Irish castle. And apparently it is not a big deal if you smack a chandelier off the ceiling of a restaurant with your enormously oversized back pack. So feel free to do that, I did.



Cherbourg has very little to offer aside from a truck filled with slaughtered pigs.



Paris is great and I can see why so many of my friends love it. It is an incredibly gorgeous city. A place for lovers without a doubt (they are all about PDA). It was a tad weird being there with my sister. C'est la vie.



Prior to leaving, Hannah had mentioned to me the lack of accommodations for anyone with any sort of disabilitiy and she could not have been more right. As many issues that I have with the US, it has to be said that everyone accommodates the widest range of people. Aside from that the French need to change their policies on tripod usage on national monuments and escargot is not half bad. 2 days wasn't enough time and I hope to get back sometime in the near future.



The same could be said of Tours and the Loire Valley. We only had a day but had some spectacular food (foie gras is amazing but incredibly bad in so many ways), biked out to the Chateau Villandry, and enjoyed some local wine.



And that prety much sums up the trip thus far. Tomorrow we are going to the Boboli Gardens and Uffizi. No idea what is going on after that but possibly Venice, Interlochen, or straight to Munich.

Ciao!