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Diana Kot's travel journal. Some pictures www.instagram.com/catidiana Articles www.facebook.com/catidiana Videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHI8QPW7XQDwz4hwN2B7z-A
It's amazing how small design solutions can brighten up your life. Look at the design of the Montpellier ticket. The ticket tells us that a new tram line #5 will be opened in 2025 and shows its future design. I googled a photo of how it will be implemented.
Each tram line in Montpellier has its own theme. I was going to the center on the orange tram #2 and its theme was flowers. This is what the trams look like, but decor inside is actually very calm.
Last night I received a message that the train I planned to take to Montpellier this morning was cancelled. More precisely like that. The train was not cancelled, it has simply changed its route and does not stop in Marseille or anywhere nearby.
And for some reason there was no refund or anything. Probably because I didn't select option "insure my trip for 3 extra euros" when I was buying the ticket. So, the options was: partial refund or reschedule trip for 20 extra euros.
I don’t know why my trip to France didn’t work out so well. As a result, I go on Flixbus. 3 hours on the bus instead of 1.5 hours on the train. At least the weather is good.
What do you think about electric scooters? French government is trying gradually to get rid of them. And in Marseille, locals actively “help” by participating in the folk game “ride and throw scooter into the sea.” Of course, all this has a very negative impact on the environment. Here is an unusual “monument” to this problem - on the embankment of Marseille there are dozens of scooters raised from the bottom of the sea.
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I was today years old when I found out what the “nutri-score” marking means on products. I simply ignored it all this time and didn’t pay attention. This marking was invented in European countries to help consumers choose healthier products. Protein, fiber, fruits, vegetables are the highest grade A, but the more calories, saturated fat, sugar, salt and preservatives a product contains, the lower the grade.
So, in my refrigerator, vegetables, eggs, baby food and cereals had a score of A. Greek yogurt and canned tuna had a score of B. Hummus and almost all cheeses had a score of C. But the worst of all was feta with score of D.
Markings are not legally required, but in France and Spain they are highly recommended by the government, so they are on almost all products - but not all. But for example Italian government is against this scale, so I didn't find “nutri-score” on the box of my Italian pasta.
I'm still sick and spent my entire day in bed so there's not much to entertain you with. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my career decisions and where I should go next. I always wanted to do something meaningful, but as soon as study turned into real work, I was disappointed.
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Anxiety - when you should get up somewhere very early and as a result not able to sleep at all. What do you do in such situations?
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Wild French tech: tickets machine in Marseille metro.
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4 days of daily posts and we are already losing people on this channel 😑. In the end, the best and the most patient will remain.
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Navettes are dry biscuits shaped as small boats, popular traditional cookies in Provence region, especially in Marseille.
At first I wanted to buy them at a bakery, but the bakery near me ran out of them. In the city center I came across a huge store of French sweets, and there these cookies lay in such huge mountains. Many types: vanilla, almond, orange...
But in the end I regret that I bought something from them. The price is simply huge: 5 euros per 100 grams, and the cookies are heavy. In Spain I bought polvoron for 5 euros per kilo!!
Apparently it’s better to look for fresh ones in bakeries; navette turned out to be very dry and I didn’t feel any difference between the different types.
Continuing the theme with Spanish polvoron, in France their variety is called mantecaos. But for some reason they are also drier and less tasty. In general, Spain wins in all aspects so far :)
Can someone explain me why on Earth I just passed passport control in Marseille airport after the flight from Spain? The most ridiculous way to waste 45 minutes of my life.
Another mystery: why the main airport of the south of France is so ugly.
And this is how I found my luggage. WTF????
My stereotype about French people is that they are rude and arrogant. I'm going to France in a week. I will be in Marseille for 1.5 months and a month in the suburbs of Paris.
I wonder if you would like more messages in this channel: what do I do, how do I eat, where do I go? We can organize a French marathon. Vote in the poll about what you think.
I stayed at a very strange hotel today. The bathroom is shared between two rooms. That is, the entrance to it is from mine and from the opposite room. I don't know who my neighbor is. But after him/her, the bathroom is littered with a lot of dark short hair. It's like someone washed the dog. Apparently a very interesting man, should I knock the door?
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I never wanted to lighten my hair, but you can't argue with nature, I’m going grey. And after much persuasion, I went for lightening. To be honest, the result upset me. I liked my natural color much better. Which one do you like more?
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My short visit to Gibraltar is over.
Surprisingly, when leaving it, you are not checked by Gibraltar border control, only Spanish one. Moreover, the officer simply saw that I had some kind of document in my hands, and did not even took to verify that it was mine. In fact, a lot of Spanish people and Gibraltarians walk back and forth across the border every day, the controls are very relaxed.
Gibraltar can really be visited in 1 day. Take the cable car up and walk down, visiting all the sights. Buses run from the center to the Europa lighthouse every half hour. You can watch the sunset there.
I haven’t been to the eastern shore, where the beaches are, I tried to explore the western port shore - but there’s nothing particularly interesting. But since it takes 2.5 hours by bus from Malaga, I decided to stay longer.
I have Austrian umbrella and hiking raincoat that can cover 3 people.
Also me when I need it:
What I like about bus trips is these random stops when a driver says something in foreign language and everyone is leaving the bus, only you don't understand what's going on.
Then someone explains you in broken English that we have a stop at this gas station for 30 minutes and all of the sudden you drink lungo with your very first madeleine and it's perfect.
I've been living in an apartment with Netflix for 2 weeks now. As it turned out, I have cheap tariff and it constantly shows me advertisements.
Overall the experience was rather negative. Netflix is a time sucker. I thought it would be cool to watch it in the background while I work, but I end up constantly getting distracted. So no Netflix, no TikTok, it would be good to remove all social networks and streaming services from life.
How do you limit yourself?
When I was little, I thought that the price of a train ticket depended only on the distance of the trip. Then high-speed trains appeared, and of course they are more expensive than regular trains at the same distances. In some European countries there are several carriers and the price is determined by competition. Once I even traveled for 1 euro on FlixTrain.
Everything is complicated in France. Private companies compete with regional, government-subsidized company. You can go for 13 euros at 7 am, or you can go for 21 euros at 9 am with Intercity (with wi-fi, places for bikes and option to buy a snack) . You can also travel for 30 euros on a regional train (30 minutes longer btw:).
Just an hour's drive from Marseille is Calanque Park. This is a very beautiful park, a combination of rocks and sea with a lot of walking routes.
It also has very developed bus transport, you can get to different villages and hike from different points. The perfect escape from Marseille to explore and hike. Buses run frequently and the entire park area is included in the 24/72 hour ticket from the instruction video.
I wanted to go to 2 places, but my battery died on the beginning of the first one. I was only able to walk 16k steps and briefly see a small part of the coastal walk.
Also, on the recommendation from Anya, I tried torsade au chocolat. I bought it at the grocery store for 1 euro. In general, store-bought pastries are much worse than those from a bakery, but I still really liked the torsade au chocolat. So, waiting for more recommendations:)
This weekend there is a series of events from couchsurfing "couchcrush" in Marseille and I was really looking forward to it. But unfortunately, due to the weather, many events were canceled.
We planned a hike on Sunday, but the forecast is a rain all day. As it turned out, during this week of wind and rain in Marseille, I also managed to get sick. Yesterday I took sick leave, but the plan to recover in 1 day, unfortunately, did not work. As a result, today I only had enough energy to visit the farmers market and bakery cafe.
The choice is quite small - what they bake is what you eat. I took Pain Suisse because it just came out of the oven. How it differs from Pain au Chocolat is a mystery - I read that the only difference is in the chocolate and glaze on the surface. For the price - one Pain Suisse plus cappuccino cost me 6.30 euros.... So the rarity of our tests is not only due to the high calorie of pastries, but also to the prices.
I'm still looking for cheap places to buy groceries. Today I tested a very cozy fruiteria. Until I saw the check.
Yellow cauliflower costs 6 euros PER PIECE. I bought a regular white one and it cost 4 euros. A PIECE. If I knew that the price was not per kilogram, I would not have chosen the smallest one.
Netflix is insane. I'm watching the film adaptation of the book "The Three Body Problem".
The fact that the main white male character was replaced by 2 women and one black man, adding a love drama, is acceptable, I guess.
But what really struck me: one of the characters speaks russian. Also subtitles: “speaks Belarusian.”
France is famous for its bakeries and pastries. Send me a list of your favorite French pastries (and don't forget the croissant) and I'll test everything and find the best!!! However, tests will be done 1-2 times a week because I am already the sweetest bun.
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Since no one objected, today we begin our French marathon! Have no idea how I'm going to entertain you in the next 2.5 months but we will figure out something.
Today I used the express baggage check-in service for the first time from Ryanair. Oddly enough, the automatic check-in area is huge, but there are almost no people in it. And for a reason. Everything is very confusing.
Employees walk around the area and instruct everyone. First you scan the scale code. You should also connect your app with scales via Bluetooth. You weigh your luggage. For the first time in my life, I was overweight and had to put things into hand luggage. Then the scale prints out a luggage sticker for you. And you go to the baggage check-in line.
There you scan the line code and the printed sticker code 2 more times. Briefly speaking. I didn't learn how to do it. And I would expect to see functionality for tracking my luggage in the application. But there's nothing there!
Yesterday I was walking down the street and saw a 30-meter line for ice cream. This morning I returned and there were only 2 customers in front of me.
This is a very famous ice cream shop that has been working in Granada since 1936. Their signature dessert is called "cassata".
Is it worth standing in such a huge line for it? Definitely not. Reminds me of the "lakomka" variety, if you know what I mean.
I feel that I need to start Spanish trash salon reviews because it's total bulshit. And it has 4.8 reviews score on Google map.
I want to go home. I want normal manicure. I want massage and lashes for decent price.
Today my apartment was flooded. If you thought our construction industry was bad, a house in Spain cannot withstand ordinary rain.
At first I thought that the highest apartment above me was flooded, and water leaked from them. But it turned out that no - the woman upstairs did not sleep all night and cleaned her balcony. Owners: insure your home. Renters: be prepared for anything.
But not a single story has yet compared to the one that happened to me in Vitebsk 7 years ago. One of my upstairs neighbors flushed chicken soup with chicken legs down the toilet. The legs got stuck in the pipe at the basement level, and I was on the 1st floor. And everything that was subsequently flushed down the toilet by the residents of this 9-story building ended up in my apartment.
Facts about Gibraltar:
1. Traffic on the roads is right-hand. But there are a lot of additional markings and signs, apparently so that British people do not get confused.
2. Time zone as in Spain, GMT+1
3. Currency - pound sterling. Almost everywhere you can pay by card, the exception is the city bus where payment is only in cash. You can pay in pounds and euros, but don't expect any change with euros.
4. Type G sockets!!! WTF!! I was shocked. The hostel gave me an adapter, but it seemed like I took the only one they have.
5. Almost immediately my mobile roaming turned on. If you do not have roaming on your SIM card, even Spanish, you will be left without connection.
6. Absolutely all signs/signs/plates are in English. For some reason I expected that there would be dubbing in Spanish, but no. 100% English everywhere. At the same time, there are a lot of Spanish workers, and in the stores there is a lot of food in Spanish packaging.
P.S. Check the car number on the picture
So, I'm in Gibraltar.
Crossing the border is quite interesting. On the Spanish side they didn’t stamp in my passport. Apparently because I have a resident card. But in general, few people were stamped. On the Gibraltar side, 99% of people simply showed their passports to the border guard and moved on. No stamps. Apparently these are citizens of the European Union.
But I was detained. They asked if I have a resident card. How long am I traveling for and do I have a hotel reservation? They asked to show it. They took my phone and wrote down the hotel contacts :) they wrote down my phone number. And then I waited 5 minutes and they slapped this stamp on my passport. This is a short-term visa for 21 days, but as you can see, it was carefully written on mine when I promised to leave.
After passing the border, you need to cross the runway of Gibraltar Airport on foot. And here I am:)
