IKEA Backpacker, La Valentine

❝She is a free Bird, she is an explorer with wings to fly❞

Tattoo info;
Coordination numbers of IKEA La Valentine location in Marseille, France, made in summer 2014 and made in Marseille as memory for my 6 months backpacker program. Bird done in Sweden in the same year, symbol for Free Women exploring the World.

IKEA La Valentine, Marseille FRANCE;

Just one month before my departure from Belfast my next project arrived. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry... Marseille, France a project within IKEA Food. For the first 20min I was so miserable, the only place I didn’t want to have since a bad experience to Paris in 2007, by that time I had told myself, been there done that... but luckily my backpacker friend cheered me up for the next 20min talking about how nice the French Riviera was, how closed I was to everything since Marseille, my new destination is placed just there. After opening google and checked it out I change my mind. I had never been in the south of France before and honestly my biggest fear wasn’t the country itself it was the language. To be in a country where the English level almost not exist. But by having the picture of the French Riviera on my mind I felt motivated and looked on the adventure with new eyes. I left Belfast airport with tears in my eyes in the middle of March, it was hard to leave my new friends and a place I had start to love even if it was a cold and rainy place but the love within the people and the warmth it made me feel it was a bit  painful. I spend the next 2 weeks back in my store in Norway for document my project and for prepare me for the next, since it was over with my ex since a couple of month I was offer to stay with on of my closest friend but my stuff was still in his place, something I would need to deal with much later...

It was beginning of April and it was time to leave to Marseille and France for a 6 months period. I had for one months been looking for an apt to rent and I had find the perfect little place near the port of the center of Marseille. 6 months of summer was waiting me around the corner, I was so exited but in the same time so stressed how I would be manage to live in a place where people almost not speak or know English. Luckily when I arrived to my new town my contact person from the store welcomed me at my new apt, she had organised everything concerning my arrival to Marseille. It was early spring and the sky was blue and the sun shining, I had finally arrived to the paradise. I remember my first week exploring the streets of Marseille, I had got one week before starting my new project, a week to find my way and my new town. I remember my long walks across the coast, reading my little guidance about the city and about the most common French words and sentences you needed to know to be able to communicate in different situations... I was told from friends and family to pay attention, Marseille isn’t a safe town they said, there’s a lot of criminality so watch out. I can be honest that I never felt insecure or unsafe but the most enoying things was the guys yelling after you in the street or not leaving you alone, the way they look at you and talk to you when I was on my own or with my girlfriends when they were visiting. This was met typically immigrants paste the border from Tunise or Maroc. I never preciate the way they treated or looked at me and by that time I think people was not used to see a girl with a style like me, shaved hair and plenty of tattoos, I know I drag a lot of attention with my look but I never asked for that, I’m just the way I am and I like to not be like anyone else. I tried to not put to much attention to this, I made my life and stayed most of my time alone when I didn’t had visits from my friends. I had continue focusing on my training and I spend a lot of time running, running in Marseille was amazing, I found my running path quite fast, along the coast, la corniche and the parc of Borely, a tour of 10km, I did it a few time a week and covered up the rest of time in the gym, it took me 2 gym to discover before I found the good one. Life was good and I loved to be in the south.

A week after I settled I started my project in IKEA La Valentine, a project within IKEA Food. My mission was to convert IKEA visitor into Restaurant customer. My first months would turn out to become the same as I had past in Belfast, a research of the guidance of IKEA Food throughout the store, how we communicate and drag our visitors into customers, what we offer and how we steer them to the restaurant, café and bistro. It was my first experience in IKEA Food and with a team which only spoke French except the managers within the team but honestly I have never felt so welcome as I felt within this team. They all was curious about me and who I was, I remember my first day when I arrived to work when they turned on the song “Isabelle a les yeux bleus” I came to hear that song many time after that and today it’s a nice memory from this time and team. The time with the team and project was amazing, even if no one spoke English we learned how to communicate and have fun together through out the day, the team learned me all about IKEA Food and include me and saw me as one of the team even if I was working on my own things. During some time I got an assistant with me, a girl who made her internship with IKEA Food, she was supporting my project from a marketing perspective and we became good friends and start hanging together on our free time as well together with another guy from the team. JP a really funny guy, he didn’t spoke any English but together we some how learned to communicate with each other and he took us on many crazy adventures. He was gay and he introduced us to the gay world of Marseille and introduce us for all his friends. I came to spend a lot of time with JP and we turned out to become really good friends and we still keep in contact even today. 

My time in Marseille flew fast, I enjoyed every minute of it, probably the best 6 months of my life. I never thought 6 months in France would turned out like that. Even if it was one of the best period of my life it also would became the  start of a fight when it came to my health for the next 5 years.

// Isabell