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!