Rugby, Avignon, et l'Escalade

Things I learned the past 2 weeks:

-I know nothing about Aix-en-Provence, and I am a bad tour guide
-I can't explain English grammar, how sad I don't even know my own language
-When I am lazy and don't want to do something but actually do it, it turns out amazing.
-I love France (ok I think I already knew that)


So I had a dream (or I would call it a nightmare) last week that all of the CSU people had to go home after only one semester and I went home not knowing French. I was really angry and really sad and I was crying the whole time. I woke up and decided I needed to try harder and get on top of things. So far it has gone good.

Last weekend was the semi finals of Rugby. My friends and I painted our faces bleu blanc et rouge (frances colors) and watched the game.



It was France versus England so it was a HUGE game here. Everyone was psyched and it was wild. We sat at a table with English guys and we kept arguing with them that France was better. Talkin big and stuff like that. Unfortunately, when it came down to it, France could not keep up and they lost right at the end 14-9. :-( We were all very sad.

This weekend the CSU group went to Avignon. It was very beautiful but le mistral has begun. Le mistral is the winter wind and it was freezing and incredibly windy. But we still had a good time.



Christa and I bein cool: :-D



We went to the palais de papes, which is the largest cathedral in france. It is also the number one tourist attraction in France apparently, even though I had never heard of it. It was pretty cool, we got little listening things where we could listen to all the information we needed to know. The pope used to reside there apparently. I wanted to explore the places that were locked off to the public, but unfortunately I could not.





I could get up to the top of one section though and it was so pretty there:


My friend Aaron and I at the top:


We also went to Le Pont du Gard, which is a giant old bridge. It was windy there too but we made up for it by havin lots of fun. :-D



A few of us got up onto the top level of the bridge and we sneakily transversed it.


We just hung out at the bridge for awhile after that then we went home.


The rest of the weekend was amazing too. For the past 23 hours I was surrounded by only French and I spoke only french. I spent the night at a french girls house with her mom and I had dinner with them. Then today I went rock climbing with them and a bunch of other people. I miss rock climbing. We went to a place that was really good and we could see really far. I climbed about 6 times and I made it to the top of all of them. So proud. I learned a bunch of french words for rock climbing gear and everything. The cold day ended with some nice warm hot chocolate and french conversation. :-D