I'm drinking a coffee with a chocolatine at Bar à Pain. Two elderly ladies are sitting next to me accompanied by two poodles. A man walks by with a dog unleashed. It's a big dog, gently sniffing around, so it seems, but the poodles think differently. They go in a frenzy and start yapping. The lady agrees with her poodles. "Vous avez vu ce monstre!" she hisses.
A man rings the doorbell of a house. A woman answers through the speaker: "Tu as pris les courses?" [Did you bring the shopping?] The man makes a sound: "Ufff..." The woman : "Réponds à la question!" [Answer the question!]
A woman crosses the street during red light. I'm considering to do the same but then she meets my eyes and says: "Ne fais pas comme moi!"[Don't do like me!]
In Marseille they don't eat pommes frites, they eat "panisse". Panisse are fries made of chick pea flower and they are in the form of half moons. I'm at a bar in Endoume and am giving the panisse an inquiring look. "C'est pas gras," the bartender says, "c'est bon pour le régime!" [It's not greasy, it's good for diet!]
A bit before arriving at the bar, I already tackled La Tarte Tropézienne, which consists of a brioche with a nice layer of orange blossomed flavored cream in between. It's amazing and I ate it in one go. Wikipedia says it was created in 1955 by Alexandre Micka, who was making the meals for the film crew of Et Dieu créa la femme. It was Brigitte Bardot herself who named the pastry. The conversation is said to have gone as followed:
“You should give a name to your dessert” recommended Brigitte Bardot one day.
“Why not calling it the Saint-Tropez Pie?”
I'm eating at La boîte a Sardines for lunch. There's a heatwave going on: "La Canicule" they call it in French. On TV there're special adds warning elderly people to stay indoors and drink a lot of water and no alcohol. But it's full of elderly people at La Boîte and they are drinking wine. I look at them, wondering silently: "Shouldn't you be inside?" But I guess when you're old there are always other people who you consider to be older.
My sister is watching the soap series Plus Belle La Vie about people in Marseille. It's kind of like The Bold and the Beautiful but then with really beautiful people. I tell my sister it looks very unreal but then after some time in Marseille I realise people do look like that. It might also be the strong contrast, after German life, to meet people who have aesthetics.
Meringue, this huge sugary thing, is everywhere in Marseille. I wonder who eats it, because the French all look so thin. It's also a mystery to me how at noon they can eat a menu including desert, drink a bottle of wine, and finish it off with an amaretto. Do they take a nap at work?