Mallory Came to Visit!

Sorry for making everybody wait so long!! I actually had a very eventful weekend...which meant that I would need to write a lengthy post...which meant, of course, that I would put it off until Wednesday night :)

My college roommate (that's weird to say...makes me feel old) and very dear friend Mallory came to visit me this past weekend! For those of you who don't know, Mallory is teaching English through the French Embassy in Lyon, about 3 hours north of where I am. Since she doesn't start until next week, she came down south to see me in Toulon. I went to the train station Saturday afternoon to pick her up, and while I was perusing the postcard section of the gift shop, Mallory snuck up behind me and surprised me with a big hug :) I was so happy to see her that I cried, naturally (yes I know...you're all dying of shock). But really, it felt so good to see a familiar face in person that I just couldn't help it. We went out for lunch, got some macarons, and proceeded to walk around the Centre Ville for a bit. It was my first time exploring the town without my host family, so I was pretty excited! Mal had her suitcase with her, and the big open air market had mostly gone home for the day...so we took the bus home pretty early in the evening.

Here are some pictures from Saturday:

The train station


The plaza outside the train station


MALLY!!!

The next day we went back to the Centre Ville so that we could see the open air market, which only happens in the mornings. I was really excited because I was able to find my way around without getting lost :) I'm a local! haha Walking through the town was beautiful, as usual:






Then we came across my highlight of the day: A classy old French man wearing a fedora, a white scarf, a nice jacket...and a GOLD DOLLAR CHAIN. Kudos to Mallory for her extra sneaky camera shot:


After wandering around for a bit, we headed to the port to grab some crepes! As you can see from the photo, we are mere feet from the ocean :) Or Sea, I should say...Mediterranean Sea, that is...


We walked around the shops for a bit. Because we are right by the largest and oldest military harbor in France, everything has a nautical theme...as you can see:





Afterwards, we still had some time to kill...so we headed back to the center part of town. Here's a shot of the plaza:


To end our afternoon out on the town, we decided to go see a movie. We settled on seeing Ben Affleck's "The Town"...not knowing whether or not it was going to be in French...but figuring we would be fine either way. Turns out the movie was ENTIRELY in French. We understood the main plot points of the movie, but after walking out we couldn't decide if we knew what was going on because we were actually understanding the French...or just because we were watching the movie itself. Like if we had watched it in complete silence, would we have understood any less?? Not sure. But I think it was probably a good movie :)

On Monday I had school, so Mallory hung out and waited for me in the meantime. Afterwards, we grabbed lunch by the beach with a friend from class. It ended up being a bit chilly and extremely windy - for the first and only time since I've been here - so we unfortunately had to forego our beach plans :( We spent a cozy afternoon at home and I dropped Mal back off at the train station after. I have to admit, I felt a bit lonely after she left.

The entire experience was really interesting for me. Of course it goes without saying that I was SO HAPPY to have a familiar face around...especially to speak English with face to face! But a few things happened that I didn't quite expect.

1) I actually felt like a tourist and a foreigner for the first time in the 2 weeks that I've been here. To me, this is my new home. I MOVED here. I was never in "vacation" mode, so to speak. So it was a strange experience to feel like a foreigner. It was a bit of a reality check.

2) I actually felt like a part of the family with my host family. When Mallory joined us for dinner, my host parents would make jokes with me and tell stories to Mallory about all of us living together. I felt like I was part of the entertaining of guests, not being entertained. I felt like part of the family, and that was fun and unexpected.

So it was a fun weekend all around :) This week has been mostly dedicated to work...so we'll see what this coming weekend has to offer. I'll keep you all posted!!