It was Monday today. The sun in Marseilles was still shining brightly and the sky was so pure. This morning we went to Marseilles Junior High School to experience the English and French courses.
Initially, Anqing Foreign Language School’s senior high students gathered together at Pierre High School at 8 A.M. Then we took the subway and bus to arrive at Marseilles Junior High School where our junior high students had already waited for us.
Arriving in France, I felt as if I was a cell phone without signals shielded by others. I have never learnt French. However, quite many Frenchmen could speak English, which meant I could communicate with them in English. On the contrary, I’ve been learning English for over ten years, yet could not use it to communicate. Obviously, I studied dumb English, although I scored well in each exam!
After the experiential courses, our teachers and students dined at the school canteen. We had the same lunch as our French counterparts. Nonetheless, different national conditions explained the differences in lunch composition.
After lunch, we took the bus and underground to get to the wharf near the Marseilles Old Port. Afterwards, we got on a small train to head for the Church of Our Lady.
The small train circled around the Vieux Port of the Mediterranean. The picturesque landscape was fabulous, but we felt a little cold because of the strong wind. On the other hand, the small train, full of tourists, left the coast and went on the up grade. Pretty soon we arrived at our destination--the Church of Our Lady which was luxurious. We assumed it was the grandest church in Marseilles!
When students stayed with their host families during the weekend, we arranged our pleasure trip as well. We found out the most worthy places to visit were churches and monasteries. There were a great many of them in Marseilles, among which several had a long history and were well preserved with historical atmosphere. On Sunday morning, we reached the St. Victor’s Monastery in Marseilles which impressed us deeply. Despite her long historical standing, we still could feel her luxury in those years. Today we arrived at the Church of Our Lady and understood that the most luxurious places in Marseilles were churches and monasteries. As a matter of fact, the church culture was a significant component of European culture. Church and monastery fully embodied her sacredness and artistic air in terms of religious culture, architecture, painting, music and history. We fully realized the importance of religious belief in Marseilles people’s mind through this Marseilles trip.
In a nutshell, seeing the Goddess hold her baby, the God full of love as well as the most luxurious church worshiping the Goddess, we thought deeply and were quite touched in that we felt amazed by the worship of humanity, love and faith highly praised by the Marseilles people, or Frenchmen, the Europeans, even the westerners!