As April begins I have come to the saddening realization that I have only two more months of school and about three more months in Europe. Now this may seem like a long time, but it is going to go by super fast for me. I have already gotten emails from the CSU director telling us how to close out accounts and electricity and things like that. Not happy...Ok but on to exciting and fun news :-D
As I write this I am sitting in our favorite burger place after having finished my burger and moved on to drinking pastis. For those of you that don't know pastis is a drink native to this region. It is a mixture of the alcohol pastis and water. At the moment my pastis also has grenadine in it. Its a wonderful thing. :-D Anyways, the last few weekends have been full of fun and friends. For the weekend of Easter break I had a friend come from Germany to rock climb with me. He came on thursday night, just in time for our "Fete du fromage et du vin" or Wine and Cheese Party at our house for our French Couchsurfer friends. They brought us lots of wine and cheese of different types and even a list of which wines are good with which cheeses
On Saturday Nils (the German friend), Raul (a friend from Nicaragua) and I went rock climbing up at Mont Sainte Victoire, a mountain great for hiking, climbing and camping that is about 20 minutes outside of Aix. It was great fun, I hadn't climbed with people that I liked and that spoke English in awhile so it was a nice change. We tried climbing again on Sunday and we brought some more people with us, but it was much too windy, we could barley even walk up the mountain, much less climb on it. It was fun getting out to Sainte Victoire again though. Monday we didn't even try, instead we stayed at my house and joined in the Easter Festivities (we had the day off of school), which included eating dyed easter eggs, eating chocolate, eating food from a potluck, pretty much just eating. :-P We played some games as well though. It was good fun.
This past weekend I took a day trip by myself. I needed to get out of Aix and have some time to myself. I paid the euro that it costs to get to Arles on a bus and headed out at 8 in the morning. I got to Arles and explored downtown for a little while. I went to the amphitheater, which is one of the oldest in France.
Then I took a bus about 10 minutes outside of Arles to an old Abby. I am so glad that I went out there. It was so beautiful, it was in the middle of fields and it was so old.
It had a crypt underneath that looked really cool as well. I got to go up in the tower and it was such an amazing view! Arles is the city far away in this picture:
After visiting the Abby and waiting around for the bus to come get me, I had a really nice lunch back in Arles. It was the second best meal that I have had in Europe I must say, the first being in Lubeck, Germany. It was roast beef sitting atop a bed of delicious noodles, followed by homemade caramel creme.
After lunch I explored some of the cafes and areas where VanGogh had painted. Apparently Arles was one of his favorite subjects. Before I caught the bus back to Aix, I had to check out one more thing, Les Alychamps, an old cemetary. It had old tombs and trees lining the walkway to a chapel
And it was in general really cool. No one is buried there anymore, but it was the perfect time of day for the light to jump off of the stained glass windows in the chapel and to notice the silence that still held the area in its grasp.
I grabbed the bus back to Aix in the late afternoon, but not before grabbing some banana gelato. :-D
The last couple days have been filled with laziness and a lot of reading because of the rain. I have begun to read a lot again, especially with the sale that just happened at the English bookstore. I got 5 books for 7 Euros. Amazing. I have also started to swim again. I finally found a good pool and I am going to start going there as often as possible, I had forgotten how much I missed and loved swimming. However, the pools here are a lot different than in the states. Yes they look the same, but its the people that make it so strange. As some may know, France is not big on exercise. Yes there are the giant rugby and futball teams that are super fit, but in general exercise is not a big thing. So the picine (pool) is mainly for socializing and "leisure swimming." Groups of two or three will get in the public side of the pool (which is about 30 feet wide) and will just swim leasurely along, talking about their day, about their new boots, and probably about that strange American girl who is trying to swim laps peacefully but has to keep trying to dodge the chatty French faux-swimmers. *whew* can you tell that it frustrates me? Just a little? Its just very strange having to dodge people while swimming laps. But it is good exercise and is a lot of fun.
So my friend sent me an email this week and he asked me what daily life here was like. And I realized that a lot of you guys back in the states are probably interested in that and I have just been lazy and been writing alot about my travels and not alot about my life here in Aix. So now is the time for that I think.
I know that I have written some about the cafe's here and that is one of the main things of daily life. There are plazas that are just surrounded with little cafe's and there are also little cafe's down random streets, something that is totally foreign to the states. A lot of people can be seen at cafe's throughout the day but the main times are in the morning (when they "prend un cafe" take a coffee and read the newspaper) and in the late afternoon (when they take a beer or coffee between lunch (2pm) and dinner (9pm). Now when I say "coffee" and when you order a "cafe" at a cafe here they bring you the American equivalent of a shot of espresso. If you want an American Coffee you have to order a "cafe au lait" or a coffee with milk. And as much as I hate to admit it, I have begun to like them. Before I came here I hated coffee. But sometimes I just have a craving to get a cafe au lait while I sit and read my book or write.
The marche or market is also a big thing here. I might have said this before but there is a fresh food market every day, not just one or two days a week like in Chico and Fullerton. This everyday market has stuff like fruits, vegetables, cheese, meat, honey, fish, breads, and some other specialties. There is also a bigger market that is held in certain places around the town on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. In addition to the normal market goods, the big markets have organic foods, flowers, clothing, spices, books, trinkets, soaps, and much more. Whenever I need to buy fruits or vegies or other essentials I usually wake up early and go to the market, since there is one about a minutes walk from my house.
My daily life here also obviously consists of school. I go to classes 4 times a week, I don't have class on wednesdays. I live about a block from my school which is nice, I can roll out of bed and still make it to class on time.
Boulangeries (Bakeries) are also scattered around the city. They have all sorts of wonderful bread. For dinner or breakfast we just go to the bakery and get a baguette (70 centimes) to eat with our food. The bakeries also have tartes. The strawberry tartes are my favorite. They are amazing. I will definitely miss bakeries when I go back to the states.
Hmm besides that I suppose that life here isn't that much different, besides the obvious French element. I go to school, make food or go to a restaurant, hang out with friends etc. I think that the things I mentioned, the cafes, market, and bakeries, are some of the main things that I will miss just because they aren't the same in the US.
Well I guess that is all for now. Hopefully everyone is doin well. Leave some comments dangit.
