Almost French

France is like a maddening, moody lover who inspires emotional highs and lows. One minute it fills you with a rush of passion, the next you're full of fury, itching to smack the mouth of some sneering shopkeeper or smug civil servant. Yes, it's a love-hate relationship. But it's charged with so much mystery, longing and that French specialty- seduction- that we can't resist coming back for more."
-- Almost French- Sarah Turnbull

I borrowed this book from the people that I am babysitting for and it is very true. It is pretty much exactly how I feel about France at this moment and many of my friends here agree. I love France. I love being here, traveling, living, experiencing. But sometimes it is just really frustrating: not understanding the language completely, getting confused over cultural differences, trying to do the simplest thing and failing because of something as simple as a mispronounced word. And yet I wouldn't change where I am right now for anything. I am lucky and grateful to be here. And I am happy. Each day I learn something new, meet someone interesting. Yesterday on the bus ride home from Pertuis (where I babysit) I talked to the bus driver the entire time. He is a really cool guy and he has traveled a lot of places. I realize how much I like speaking French, especially to strangers. Telling them about myself. Finding out about them. I just love the feeling of being able to communicate in a different language. Speaking to people that speak no English is one of the best feelings I have over here because if I didn't speak French, there would be no way to communicate. It sounds cliche but language is a beautiful thing.

Walking around in Aix right now is amazing. It is decorated for the holidays (I'll post pictures soon I promise) and on every street there are sapins (christmas trees) lining the streets and decorations hanging from the tops of the buildings. The main street, Cours Mirabeau, comes alive at night. Little shops were built for the holiday that sell things from soap to chocolate in the shape of cheese to toy helicopters. They sell "barbe a papa" which literally means papa's beard but we know it as cotton candy. There is also vin chaud which is red wine heated with spices like nutmeg and cinnamon. There are even carnival rides like bumper cars! At night everyone walks along the street, chatting in French and English listening to the music coming from the speakers lining the road. Christmas was my favorite time of year before, but now it is even moreso. We put a christmas tree up in our house as well. We decorated it with homemade decorations. Less expensive and better memories. :-D

Traveling around is also amazing. A couple weekends ago I went to Gap with my friend. Gap is a city in the Alps about 3 hours away from here by train. I had an awesome time. We got there friday night and the guy we were staying with (Tom) made us dinner and we talked for awhile and played some games. His house was awesome. It was in the middle of the country and he had a woodburning heater that kept us nice and warm, a bookshelf full of some of my favorite authors (Jack Kerouac and Paulo Coehlo), and a beautiful view.



On saturday we took a hike up a mountain near his house. At the beginning of the hike we could hear nothing but the twinkling of bells around the necks of the cows in a nearby field. Walking up that mountain made me realize how out of shape I really was, but the view at the top was definately worth it.





Saqib and I realized also that when the french hike, they eat well. Actually they eat well all the time, but for our hike Tom packed a pasta salad, a baguette, cheese, carrots, yogurt, apples, snack bars, and who knows what else he could have fit in his backpack. We joked that next time we were going to have fondue as well. We finished the hike and went back to his house and had some tea and got warm. That night we went to a party with a bunch of French people and ate so much food, so many deserts, it was amazing. Sunday we went on a little walk to the chapel and chateau that were near Tom's house. The Alps were so beautiful and it was such a nice day.



Sunday night we had to take the train back to Aix, but that could never be a bad thing, coming home to France. :-D

Alex is here now. The next 2 months are going to be great fun!

Quick Update

Last week was super busy. In fact the past couple weeks have been. Last week was midterms and I had a test in pretty much all my classes. Some of them went well, others not so much. I just wanted to post a few pics of the past couple weeks. A couple weeks ago it snowed here. It was amazing! No one was expecting it, including the French, though somehow no one looked as excited as we were. My friends and I were running through the streets taking pictures. :-P







Oddly the snow cleared up by the weekend and I went to Luberon on saturday and I went rock climbing on sunday. Luberon was cool. We went to three different cities: Apt, Roussillon, and Gourdes. We got to see Albert Camus's grave site also.





This is the park we went to in Roussillon:






For Thanksgiving our group had a dinner at a restaurant. We had duck. It was not the best duck I have ever had. Roomie pic for thanksgiving:



We also had our own thanksgiving at our house on the saturday after. We invited a bunch of people over and everyone brought a dish. We had sooo much food. We had salads, rotissary chicken, pizza, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams. Jenae even made pumpkin pie. :-D It was like real thanksgiving, but in France. A lot of people that were there had never had thanksgiving before so it was fun to do.