Marseilles and Les Baux

Hey! I’m so sorry that I haven’t written anything new lately, but I’ve been super busy! Let me forewarn you, this post is really long because I had to catch up in time! Ok here we go!

Last weekend we went to Les Baux de Provence which was just fantastic! Les Baux is a place with a huge Roman castle that’s all in ruins. It’s beautiful, and the feeling of walking on ancient grounds with huge fortresses all around was just awe-inspiring. We had been a little worried about the weather, because it had been raining earlier that day, but when we finally arrived at Les Baux, the sun was out and the weather was perfect! So we wandered around and climbed up on all the ruins as much as we could with the time we were allowed. The precarious part of all this fun was that the stairs up to the towers were horribly steep and crooked. The first time we looked at them, my roommate and I just turned to each other with expressions that totally said, “Are you serious?” I don’t know how the Romans did it, I’m hoping that these stairs were a result of the long time the ruins have been around. Otherwise, I don’t know how they could climb them everyday, and in bad shoes! Anyhow, it was worth the treacherous climb to the top just for the amazingly beautiful view from the top. After Les Baux, we got on our bus and headed for le Cloitre de St. Paul, the asylum where Van Gogh spent the last portion of his life. It was also an amazing place to spend some time. I would have liked to stay there longer, but we had to head out pretty quickly. After seeing the olive groves surrounding the asylum, I totally understood why Van Gogh admitted himself to the asylum. The surrounding gardens and olive groves are super peaceful, and I just wanted to grab my journal or a novel, and lie down and relax there for a few days! After St. Paul, we headed over the St. Remy, a small town really near to where we had been. My roommate and I decided we wanted to find the cemetery in town (generally there’s always someone cool buried in every French town, we’ve found), and we wanted to find a big cathedral we saw on the map. So after searching for about a half hour, and walking down many streets that existed only on the map, we finally found it! There wasn’t anyone exciting buried there, but it was a really pretty cemetery, and it was definitely worth all the fun random streets we went down. We also saw the cathedral which was unfortunately closed, but we enjoyed in nonetheless. The exterior was really pretty, and it was really enjoyable. We then boarded the bus and drove back to Aix with all the kids who had come with us.

Our program had set this excursion up so that the kids in our program from Paris had come down and seen all the same stuff with us, so we had befriended a bunch of the Paris kids. We all had dinner together, and it was really fun to hear how life is in the big city! After hearing about their lives, I am incredibly glad I chose to study here instead. Even though there’s a TON of study abroad kids here, it’s so nice to be able to walk down the street and generally see a few people you know. A few nights ago, my roommate and I walked into town to get sandwiches from our favorite place, and we ran into three different groups of people we knew! It was just a great feeling to know that there are people around who kind of know you, even though you’re in this crazy foreign country. The Paris kids seem to be enjoying Paris, and there’s definitely pros and cons to both locations, but they seem to be having difficulty connecting with people outside of their American friends. And Paris is just so huge that it seems like they don’t ever see anyone outside of class. That’s why I like Aix!

Anyhow, this weekend, my roommate and I went to Marseilles again! Yesterday morning, we took the 20 minute bus to Marseilles, and had the best day ever! The first thing on our list of things to do was hike up to Notre Dame de la Garde, the huge cathedral that looks out over the whole city. Most people take a little bus because it’s a pretty long hike to the top, but we decided to just do it ourselves. So we climbed up, and it was really more enjoyable that way, I thought. The church was beautiful, and the view of the city and ocean was even better. There’s not anything that you can’t see from the balcony of that cathedral. Apparently the cool thing about Notre Dame de la Garde is that when Marseilles got bombed during WWII, Notre Dame de la Garde got bombed too, but not enough to really hurt it very badly. Some parts were refurbished, but for the most part, it’s pretty much in good shape still. Even though Notre Dame de la Garde was beautiful and fun, the next part of the day was my favorite part!

My roommate had seen a sign earlier for a science fair taking place this weekend, so we thought we’d check it out. We were both pretty excited, a science fair, IN FRANCE!!! So we got there, and not only was it a huge science convention, it was all about global warming, alternative energy sources, and recycling! We walked in and immediately were escorted into this big theater, so we figured there would be maybe a 30 minute film about the environment, or something like that. Then this guy walked out on the stage and told us that we were going to be watching, “An Inconvenient Truth” and that we could stay and discuss it afterwards with all the professionals in the field at the convention! So we watched “An Inconvenient Truth” in French, and stayed to discuss and ask questions. Of course we were too scared to ask questions, but it was SO interesting to listen to other people’s comments. Most people decided that the best way to tackle the problem was to educate the younger population, and get the subjects more taught in schools. Other people thought that there needs to be television programs that gets messages out about environmental awareness. It was so interesting because no one really brought up any ideas about legislation, or government action to promote good environmental action, but I think that’s definitely a French thing because they’re already driving small cars, and keeping their lights on timers, and limiting their water supply. Man, there’s definitely no time in my life when I’ve been more ashamed of the US than when I was sitting in that room though. Al Gore just shows those numbers and it makes me want to vomit. To think that we’re producing 35% of the world’s CO2 emissions, and only support about 8% of the world’s population, it’s pretty disgusting. And we don’t even have the decency to ratify the Kyoto accords! That was about the point where I was like, “I can’t believe I’m watching this in France, I was embarrassed enough when I watched it in my own country!” But it was really fun to be in a place where all the people around were all as outraged and fired up about the environment as I am. After the movie, we walked around to all these cool booths and talked to some guys about their machine that made paper. It was pretty cool, you can put in every sort of paper, plus a bunch of water, and the machine blends it all up and makes it into paper! So that was really cool, but the funny part was that after they had explained the paper machine to us, we just stood talking to them about random stuff for a half hour or maybe 40 minutes! We were talking about environmental issues and stuff, but then they started talking about Americans and stuff, and we were trying to convince them that, “No, we don’t eat hamburgers and beer for every meal in America! I promise!” They gave us a list of French movies that apparently we HAVE to watch because they’re classics (complete with the guys’ phone numbers, which we didn’t even want!). Only in France do people exchange phone numbers at a science convention. All in all, it was a great day in Marseilles. We still have a lot of things to do from our list of Marseilles attractions, but it was worth all the time we used up to go to that cool science convention!

New Photos

I put up a new web album of pictures from my trip last weekend to Les Baux de Provence. It was absolutely beautiful and I would write more to tell more about our adventures, but I'm not really feeling well, and will probably write more later when I'm not sick! So, to see the pictures, click this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/Desygirl21/LesBauxDeProvenceAndStRemy. Bye!

Feb. 9th

So I’d say it’s been about a week or so since I last wrote anything, and not too much has changed. I still absolutely LOVE it here in Aix, and right now, we’re having absolutely perfect weather. Yesterday, it rained, and the whole town was freaking out about it. But now, it’s really nice and sunny. Tonight, we’re having crepes for dinner because Mme. is inviting over two more American students that stay in her apartment in the center of town (apparently she has another apartment that she just rents out). So that should be a great dinner!

Today, my roommate and I had an unlikely but thoroughly enjoyable adventure. We went to Centre Commercial of Aix, which is kind of out of town, but has a large mall-ish place. The mall-ish place is really a huge store called Carrefour, which is basically a glorified Wal-Mart. If it’s possible to imagine, Carrefour is bigger than Wal-Mart, basically a Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Target all rolled together. It’s bizarre to me that they have a place like this in France, because the French are so into buying everything all fresh and from markets and stuff. Avery and I went there because I wanted to find a sleeping bag or a blanket or something, in case we needed to sleep on our friend’s floors when we travel around. Anyhow, we found some great polar fleece blankets for 5 euro! I also bought some more toothpaste, and some granola (I had run out). Anyways, the best part about Carrefour was what happened to us when we were checking out. We were talking to our cashier who was super sweet, and this lady that was at the checkstand across from us was smiling at us. Then she asked us if we were studying in Aix-en Provence, and we told her we were. She offered to give us a ride home so that we didn’t have to ride the bus home. Of course at first we told her that we were fine taking the bus, because we were totally sketched out. But then, we kept on talking to her, and since she was just an old lady, and there were 2 of us, and we had our cell phones, we went with her. And she was super nice! She drove us right back to Aix, and walked us into town because she had some shopping to do there. It was totally great though because we just had this great conversation all the way home about how everything in France is costing more, and now the poor can’t be cultured because they don’t have enough money to go to movies, or school. And we told her about how it’s the same in the US and it just sucks. Anyhow, I just thought it was really cool that we met this nice French lady!

I feel as though I might be overdosing on Nutella. I’m hoping that pretty soon I’m going to get completely sick of it, and never eat it again, but right now, I just can’t stop. I’ve been putting it on EVERYTHING, including oranges, pears, croissants (how much more decadent can I get?), and just by itself. It’s ridiculous.

Last night, my friends Lindsay, Avery, and I went to go see a movie, and it was great! It was all in French, and very cute. It was called Odette Toulemonde, and it was sort of a romantic comedy. We decided to go see it because we had seen the lead actress in a different movie that we had watched on TV. So we knew she was really good, and our homestay mom had suggested it. We went, and we were a little worried that we wouldn’t be able to understand it, but we totally could! It was about a woman named Odette Toulemonde, who had a daughter and son, and her husband had died. She totally adored this author who wrote a ton of books, and the beginning of the movie was her going to his book signing. Anyhow, the author gets a bad review, and tries to kill himself because his wife’s cheating on him (I know, it doesn’t sound like a romantic comedy), but he doesn’t succeed. He receives this letter from Odette Toulemonde that says how his books changed her life, so he finds her house, and crashes in with her and her psychotic family for a few weeks to get away from his crazy life. Then they fall in love, but she doesn’t want to be in love with him, because she knows he’ll leave. Anyhow, it was very cute, and ABSOLUTELY French!

Feelings about France

I’ve really began to feel at home here in Aix. It was difficult at first to get used to the French way of life, but now I’m really getting the hang of it. My day usually begins with a little bowl of yogurt and some granola, along with a nice cup of tea. I don’t have class until 10 or 11 every day except Tuesday (8 AM), so my roommate and I just hang out at home and then head into town together. It’s about a 15 minute walk to school from home, but we usually leave the house at the time our classes are scheduled to start because all of the classes start at least 15 minutes late. It’s so different and more laid back here, at least in school. Class usually doesn’t start until at least 15 or 20 minutes after the scheduled start time. Kids eat breakfast or whatever they want during class, and student’s cell phones go off all the time. There’s one girl in my language classes who’s cell phone probably rings every single class and she always runs out of class to answer it. In the US, that’s totally not ok!
Another thing that I think is just absolutely hilarious is how everyone in the US talks about how in France and Europe they’re all about eating slowly and having portion control, and that’s how they stay so thin. LIES! It’s all lies. Here, I don’t even eat lunch ever because if I do, I don’t have room for the dinner that our French mom makes. Breakfast is more laid back, I just eat yogurt and granola and some tea. Then usually I eat a piece of fruit or a croissant during the day, but for dinner, I’m usually stuffed to the brim. First of all, the French do not eat slower than us. I eat at the same pace as my French mom, but my roommate is the slowest eater ever! We always laugh about it at dinner because Mme. and I will be finished and Avery will be, maybe halfway through her plate. And there is definitely not much portion control here either. Last night, we first ate some vegetable soup, then pasta with beef and seasoning, then cheese (Cougar gold!) and salad, then yogurt, then coffee or tea. I almost couldn’t move I was so full. Of course all through the meal we eat bread also, and drink wine, so that doesn’t really help the situation much. So I definitely don’t believe anyone who says the French aren’t fat like the Americans because they eat less. I think the French are just genetically superior in that respect.
However, the Americans definitely got some things right. I get super frustrated trying to find anything around here because the streets are not organized into any sort of grid at all. The only way to not end up totally lost is to completely memorize the streets and just try and remember landmarks because there’s absolutely no rhyme or reason to it. Our first day of class was interesting at the institute last week because the rooms are all named after famous French people, but there’s absolutely no way to tell where the room is. Our schedules said stuff like, “Victor Hugo room,” and there was no map or anything. The institute’s not very big at all, but there are 3 stories, so when there aren’t any numbers to indicate anything about the location of the rooms, it was very difficult to find the rooms. What most kids ended up doing was wandering aimlessly and looking at every room they could find to just hope that one of the rooms would be the one they needed. It ended up working out fine for me!
I’ve finished my 2nd week in school here, and so far I haven’t found it to be too difficult or time consuming. My roommate and I usually spend 2 hours eating with our French mom each night, and sometimes go walking around Aix after dinner to walk off the food we just ate. The only thing that slightly freaks me out is that my English has definitely gotten much worse since being here. I speak in French most of the time, so when I do speak in English, it’s become exceedingly difficult to speak eloquently or even with good grammar. So I hope you’re not judging my writing abilities by this blog, because it’s definitely not very great.
Another thing that frustrates me is constantly sounding foreign. When I compare my French to the French people’s French, I can just tell that mine is foreign sounding. And it’s not necessarily my accent that does it, it’s more just the things that I way that I phrase my sentences. I can’t be as casual or as formal as I would like, and it’s really difficult to change the way I speak to correspond to the people I’m speaking with. For example, in English, I wouldn’t talk to my best friend in the same way that I would speak to a teacher. But in French, I feel as though I can always make my point understood, but I don’t really have any finesse or style of speaking. Though I suppose that will come with using the language more. And I also get annoyed with my lack of good idiomatic phrases that I use so often in English. But I am picking up some good slang! I should probably go more, but I will post more later!