Friday

Got up around 9 and had a breakfast of fromage frais and a banana-chocolate granola bar. There wasn't much else left... Watched tv and flipped through travel guides that I had checked out from the library while Erin got ready for class. Eventually got dressed myself and walked to school around 12:30. Stopped along the way to get lunch from a pasta place called Francesca's. They always have four different types of pasta to choose from and then you choose your sauce and parmesan - it's all take-away in Chinese take-out shaped containers... good stuff. Ate lunch in the cave while reading e-mail. Blake came down around 2:30 and we ran over to the travel agency to get our money back - fortunately they were able to pay us in cash which I wasn't expecting since I had just heard the accountant tell another American student earlier in the week that it was illegal for them as a business to give a customer cash. Stopped by another travel agency on my way back to school to check on transportation options for some of my traveling in May. Eventually made it back to the cave where I had planned to get all sorts of things accomplished online, but ending up reading and responding to e-mails for the rest of the afternoon.

Decided to go pick up some things I needed from the grocery store and ended up taking a detour to get a snack with Regina. As we were walking by the Hotel de Ville, three oddly-dressed guys walked by us wheeling something blaring music, instruments and various other items as they announced dramatically that "it" would start in 30 seconds. Of course, we had to see what "it" was all about. We ended up spending the next 10 minutes or so watching the three guys juggle in various forms, play accordion, do handstands and just generally act like clowns. A highly amusing performance. :o ) We eventually ended up at Ben & Jerry's cafe where we both got hot chocolate and discussed various movies that are out here, some of which Regina had seen or heard about. I finally made it to Monoprix after that and arrived home around 8:15.

We usually eat around 8 so I was surprised to find Joelle, with her new haircut, hadn't even started cooking. She was cleaning her room and since I didn't have anywhere to be, decided to finish before starting dinner. (Erin left to go to Brussels for the weekend so it was just the two of us.) Since she started cooking so late, she decided to make pasta. We started with lettuce and a green soup that I thought was pea soup with the peas leftover from last night, but then those made an appearance later so I don't know what the soup was. Naturally the whole thing was finished off with cheese and bread. And I don't think I ever explained, the bread we have at dinner every night is baguette that Joelle buys on her way home from work each day - that's how we can run out of bread at breakfast and still have it for dinner.

Anyway... as we were finishing dinner a movie called Stupeur et Tremblements came on and I knew the lead actress had won a Cesar (the French equivalent of an Oscar) for it so I sat and watched it with her. It was about a Belgian woman born in Japan who is hired by a Japanese company to be an interpreter. However, she hardly does any interpreting in her job as she's given tasks to keep her busy (they even admit as much) while she learns about the hierarchy and cultural differences she was previously unaware of in the Japanese workplace. I didn't catch everything, but got enough - it's a movie I'd like to see in English since I think I'd get more out of it that way but I thought it was well-done even so. Went to bed shortly thereafter...and that concludes the daily "what I did today" portion of the journal. :o )

ahhh!!!

I had all these things I was going to do online this afternoon.... buy my eurail pass, upload photos, book hostel stuff.... and I ended up spending the entire time on e-mail. Oh well... I did get my money back from the travel agency which is good. :o )

anyway, we have monday off so I won't be back online until Tuesday - have a great weekend!

Thursday

Got up just after 8 and had the same breakfast as yesterday - minus the madeleine since those are gone now. Got dressed, folded Sunday's now dry laundry and walked to school around 9 taking pictures most of the way. Searched online for hostels in Barcelona this weekend, but there was literally only one bed left and no hotels under 100 euro a night. How ironic that our trip was canceled because not enough people signed up and now we can't find anywhere to stay because everyone apparently goes to Spain for Easter.

History of Provence was slightly more interesting today - slightly. We heard presentations on the herbs of Provence and how olives are grown and processed, but one of the presenters was really hard to understand. I find it really sad that someone can get through at least two years of college French and not be taught how to pronounce things like 'aussi' (meaning also and pronounced "oh-sea") properly. (She kept'aussie' - like someone from Australia.)

Searched for last-minute travel deals to anywhere and ate my Balance bar, apple and hot chocolate from the vending machine in the cave before meeting Blake at 1:30. We finally admitted defeat on Barcelona and while trying to think of other things to do he suggested Corsica. Upon realizing that it could mean the possibility of doing water sports this weekend, I was all for it. We went to the travel agency to get our money back, but the accountant wasn't there and the person who was there could only refund us by check - a French check. Neither of us has a French bank account so that does us no good and we have to go back tomorrow to see if they can refund the credit cards.

I walked out to art - the teachers left with the full-time students for Venice this afternoon so most people came and left or didn't show up at all. I, being lazy, decided to work on my current project, but didn't feel like setting up my easel. Instead I put my palette on another stool and sat down holding my painting to work on it. Well, just for that, I got white paint all over my arm and sweater - that's why I wear older clothes to art - but I really thought I was going to get through the whole semester without that happening. oh well.

Left early and stopped by the art store on my way to Phonetics where I found out I have 32 euro left in my account... which will probably translate to a lot of really nice postcards to decorate my walls or the fridge (something I've seen a lot here...). Walked to the French University for Phonetics lab, but arrived early so I went to the bridge above the train tracks where I knew a few of my classmates would be drinking beer before class. I hung out with them for the few minutes until it was time to go to class where we repeated the lyrics to some song and lots of rolled R's and liaisons. After class, Blake and I finally ditched the Corsica idea, realizing we could get to the beach cheaper by going to Cassis (no water sports, though). It'll be good to have another weekend here without the stress of last-minute travel and it turns out there's a huge artisan festival all weekend which I'll go to. Plus I can use the money I saved to go out to dinner or a movie or something and the extra time to start organizing to come home!

Walked back up through town to my usual bus stop. The bus driver was going super fast tonight - don't know where he had to be, but I had to hold on with both hands. Dinner was beets with olive oil, lettuce, bread, goat cheese pizza, peas and cheese. Joelle said her brother, his wife and daughter might be coming to visit this weekend - don't know what'll happen with that. After dinner, I read some articles from Scientific American. You know, the ads in the back are so clearly targeted it's sad... bookshelves that hold an encyclopedia set perfectly, dating services that only accept people from the Ivies, MIT, Stanford and other similar schools, bow-tie catalogs, book-a-month clubs, etc. hahaha! Good articles though. Mom called and we chatted for a bit. Then I decided it would do me good to hear French - even in the background - and took my computer into the living room to work on pictures while Joelle watched tv. Went back to my room after she went to bed and read some Popular Science articles before going to bed just after 11:30.

Wednesday

I woke up from an odd dream at 3:30am thinking it was nearly time to get out of bed. Went back to sleep to another strange dream and woke up feeling quite out of it around 8:45. Things continued to seem surreal for awhile as Erin was telling me about the Saudi Arabians who were talking to her and Kelly Rae last night at Ben & Jerry's and then followed them halfway around town...

We ran out of both kinds of cereal and most of the remaining fruit had gone bad, so breakfast was cherry yogurt, a slice of bread with nutella, a madeleine and a cup of coffee. I unloaded the dishwasher and watched TV while Erin got ready for class... sadly, the only non-cartoon show I could find was Lizzie McGuire and then a British show called Girls' Secrets - both dubbed, but I understood them fairly well. After Erin left, I got ready and then ended up eating an early lunch (peanut butter and honey sandwich, small apple, Prince cookies and tea) while watching a game show called the Two Loves - sort of like the Newlyweds, but some of them aren't so newly wed.

Walked to school to find the cave completely full so I couldn't plug my computer in. I sat there until the battery was low and then went to find a plug in the library. Around 3:30, I finally ventured to the post office to mail my apartment application, an activity which had been delayed many times by failing printers, classes getting out late and confusing forms.

Going to the post office is a nightmare. You can never tell where the lines are - they constantly switch which windows are open and they always take a long time for each customer. The workers are constantly having to leave the window to go get something or call someone to find the answer to a question. They're horribly understaffed and, it appears, poorly trained. There were only three people ahead of me in my line and it still took 20 minutes (which is miraculously fast for them) but all is well - my application will be there in 8-10 days which is the French version of Express for those who don't want to pay 45 euro to get it there in two.

In French History (4-5:30), we discussed Iraq, Bush, Chirac's decision to keep the current prime minister, and WWII. (We always start with the news before moving to the actual topic of the day.) Someone else decided to do Rwanda for their presentation so now I'll either be researching Chechnya or Yugoslavia depending on what my partner wants to do. No, those aren't very French subjects, but we will be covering what role France did or didn't play in both of those regions as part of the presentation. Phonetics was (surprisingly) not stimulating tonight - we talked about French cinema which is a difficult discussion to have when most of us have only seen 5-10 French films.

After class, Blake and I tried calling all the hostels and hotels in Barcelona that were listed in two guidebooks for under 100 euro - nothing. We decided that tomorrow we'll look into staying in different hostels each night since the problem yesterday was that most weren't available for both nights - just one or the other... hopefully they're still available for one. Earlier today I had been feeling so frustrated that I was considering not going, but now we're determined... We finally had to give up for tonight though so we could each get home to dinner.

Joelle didn't seem to be in the best mood - apparently her new job is still presenting difficulties all the time since they don't use computers (?!) and people don't always know what all the paperwork is. Dinner was bread, tomato-basil salad, lettuce, more of yesterday's rice and onions and a plain omelet. She made the omelet with 7 eggs and, as usual, hardly took any for herself so Erin and I probably each had 3 - oh lala... my poor arteries. I think I'll be done with eggs for awhile after this trip since that's what Joelle fixes once or twice a week when she feels like we're not getting enough protein. Have I mentioned that she thought tofu was made of fish? So she doesn't cook with any soy. As we were clearing dinner, she thanked us for clearing the dishwasher this morning. The way she said it made me wonder if she thought we were trying to tell her she should've done it sooner instead of trying to be helpful. hmm...

Spent the rest of the evening working on pictures and listening to music. I've been listening to the same playlist for awhile now (John Mayer, Sheryl Crow, Matchbox 20, Jewel, Mraz, Maroon 5, Patty Griffin and Gavin DeGraw) so I decided to let the computer do the choosing... really random mix. Listened to a couple songs I'm trying to learn on guitar and remembered that I'll be without it for 7 weeks after break... such a sad thought. Oh well... time for bed at 11:15.

Site Update

In honor of yesterday being 'art' day, I added all the photos going to/from and around the studio to the School page.

Tuesday...

Woke up at 8:15 and two hours ended up passing before I left since I needed to shower and didn't want to take up the bathroom while Erin was getting ready for an earlier class than mine. Bowl of Special Form for breakfast again... Tuesdays are art days so I try to wear clothes I wouldn't care about getting paint on just in case - ended up taking the blow dryer to the jeans I washed on Sunday since they still weren't dry. Walked to school at 10 and had time to check e-mail quickly before class.

Went to History of Provence from 10:30-12 - really the most boring class I can recall. We had presentations by three students today on some type of traditional Provence architecture for 18th century houses, Petanque and traditional Provencal gardens. Everyone has varying levels of French speaking ability which makes it difficult to understand - and we're going to be quizzed on it. Fortunately, the professor fills in some of the blanks, but he's so monotonous....

Ate my usual lunch in the Cave while trying to catch up on e-mail. Blake showed up around 1 and we started looking for a place to stay in Barcelona - we could only find two sketchy hostels that were available both nights... still looking. Walked to art at 1:30 - mp3 player froze on the way...not good. That's how I avoid people trying to sell me stuff on the street - fortunately, I was in the country by the time it died.

Got my backpack from the studio and we took a private, mini-bus out to "the field" where we worked on landscapes. Still not happy with my technique... much better at copies than working from 3D. oh well. Heard jets fly over for the second time since I've been here and made a couple quick saves as the wind tried to knock over my easel and make art of its own. At 5:45, we got back to the studio, dropped off our stuff and the driver took us back to the edge of town.

Walked back to school and met Blake in the cave to search, in vain, for more hostels. Decided to keep looking and check travel guides for places that may not be listed online. Took the bus home and ran into Regina - we chatted for awhile about an American diner in Paris, the Aix nightlife and weekend plans. Went inside to find Jean-Michel over with his sons. They had already eaten and left soon after. Fixed my mp3 player (thank goodness for that little reset button)!

Erin and I ate dinner with Joelle: bread, salade with vinaigrette dressing, radishes, half an avocado (blegh!), a small piece of tarte leftover from yesterday and fried rice with onions (as in only rice and onions). Another very Joelle meal... spent a little over an hour working on pictures and reading articles about Rwanda that I had downloaded earlier. (Considering it for the topic of my French History presentation.) Finally got bored and decided to go to bed around 10:45.

Site Update

Added photos of road signs to the Around Aix page.

Atypical Monday

Woke up at 8 and spent the next hour getting ready in my usual, slow morning fashion. Same breakfast as yesterday plus a cup of coffee (with milk and sugar - Joelle's coffee is SO bitter!) Left just after 9 and walked to school to drop off my computer before walking to the studio to do a make-up art class. (The teachers are going to Venice next week with the full-time art students and we have to make up the hours that we'll miss while they aren't here...) Noticed an adorable little girl in red, skipping down the street holding her dad's hand...

Arrived at the studio at 10:20 to find it locked... the morning class must have gone out to do landscapes. Spent the next hour taking pictures there, enjoying the sunshine and tormenting the cat with my camera. No one showed up so I went back to school, taking pictures the whole way. Got a call from Blake saying the travel agency canceled our trip to Barcelona this weekend. (Oh la la - that sucks.)

Got back to school around noon, ate my Balance bar and a small apple for lunch while checking e-mail and updating my journal online. Went to French History at 2 - discussed what happened in Rwanda and then covered Post-WWI France and how dictators rise to power. Went with Blake to the travel agency after class to check out our options. Offered discounted trip to Venice, but we still really want to go to Spain so we decided to look into options online. Found out that there was Phonetics homework I didn't know about, borrowed the text from Blake and went to the Cave (student lounge) to transcribe it into the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Went to Phonetics from 5:30 to 7:00 - spent the entire time discussing when liaisons between words must be pronounced and when they're optional. Came up that the President is considered a representative speaker of the French language as far as linguistics/pronunciation goes - thank God it's not the same in the States!

Left school and decided to take the bus since my shins were still tight. Saw the little girl from this morning, still with her dad, still skipping in the other direction. Got a call at the bus stop - "Hello?" "Bon soir, Ashley." It's a guy - what French guy has my phone number... maybe it's Jean-Michel calling from Joelle's phone. "C'est Benjamin." "C'est qui?" "Benjamin." Oh yeah... he's not even in Aix anymore, why is he calling me? We talked for five minutes - he said the same things he told me in his e-mail last week and asked how I'm doing. As I got on the bus, he ended the call with "Ok, well I guess we can keep corresponding over e-mail." ok - weird. Got home around 7:20 and found Joelle on her way out. Aurore's dad is in town from Toulouse and even though she didn't want to, Aurore wanted her to come over for dinner. She didn't go the last time he was in town so she felt like she had to go tonight, but she had already made dinner for us...

Erin and I had our dinner of salade (lettuce) with balsamic, radishes, tomato/zucchini tarte (which had the strong taste of the vinaigrette salad dressing - ick!) and, of course, cheese and bread. Tonight's pain (bread) was one of the best baguettes we've had yet... it's ok if I'm not a wine connoisseur - I know my baguettes. ;) Somehow we got on the topic of junior high and spent the next half hour reminiscing about dancing to Boys 2 Men, watching cheesy TV shows and weird halloween costumes. I had a viennois for dessert (essentially a chocolate pudding cup with whipped cream-like stuff on top).

Spent the rest of the evening catching up on e-mail and working on pictures from yesterday and today. (Perhaps the only typical Monday thing to happen today besides afternoon classes - most of my friends seem to catch up on e-mail on the weekends so I get a ton on Mondays!) Finally went to bed around midnight.

Where are the French students?

I know I've written many times about how hard it has been to meet French students, but let's revisit this once more. Just so you know, I have tried... I've been to the bars (once) like people suggested, I asked the academic director, the dean of students, the librarian, two of my professors and none knew of any way besides signing up for the language partner program or going to the bars. I signed up for the language partner program and left my partner a message - she never called back. I got the name of another one while the French universities were on vacation.

The week after winter break there was a social hour at school for students and their language partners. Having just gotten back, I hadn't gotten a hold of my new one yet, but decided to stop by. I ended up spending the hour talking with a French guy, Benjamin, whose language partner hadn't shown up. He was a student at the Institute des Etudes Politiques next door, studying law and had spent a year studying in England so his English seemed very good, though we mostly spoke French. At the end of the hour, we exchanged e-mails and phone numbers and he said he'd call in the next week. Well, three weeks went by - he never called and I had gotten caught up in midterms. In the mean time, I spent 20 minutes looking over the bulletin boards at the French university after Phonetics lab - nothing... they're all ads for english or spanish lessons, motorbikes being sold, events long past and things I have no interest in. I finally e-mailed Benjamin last week and it turns out he quit school, unhappy with his program, and went home to northern France to start applying elsewhere. Back to zero... *sigh* and still trying...

Site Update...

Added photos from Mont Sainte Victoire to the Around Aix page and three more photos to the Apartment album.

Typical Weekend Day...

8:15am: It's no fun getting up this early so I went back to sleep until 9:45 despite waking up on my own.

Breakfast: Special Form (like Special K, which they also have) with a banana and milk

Morning: Sat at living room table working on pictures from yesterday with headphones on since Erin was still sleeping. (Joelle spent the night in Antibes after visiting friends.)

Lunch: small apple with peanut butter, madeleine (kind of like a plain muffin, but small and rectangular), serving of fromage frais (literally 'fresh cheese' but with a flavor a little like cream-cheese frosting, the consistency of whipped yogurt and a ton of protein) and a cup of tea

Afternoon: finished working on pictures, read articles and journals I had downloaded on Friday, hung yesterday's herbs to dry, started load of laundry, unloaded dishwasher (noting, as usual, overabundance of spoons), played guitar for awhile

Evening: declined an invitation from Blake to come play guitar because 6-mile walk to/from his house would be too much for my legs after yesterday, walked slowly around town taking pictures, ran into Erin and got ice cream to celebrate the arrival of Birkenstock weather (!!), got call from Joelle saying she wouldn't be home in time for dinner

Dinner: half a piece of pizza (leftover), salad (zuchhini, carrots and tomato with balsamic), and egg whites with emmenthal cheese on a slice of wheat sandwich bread - a very "Joelle" meal (our term for anything randomly pieced together or somewhat scatter-brained)

Post-Dinner: Joelle and Jean Michel came home, made small talk. Joelle asked if we ate dinner and I said yes. Five minutes later she was back from the kitchen wanting to make sure we really did eat since she couldn't spot what was gone. Spent the rest of the evening in my room folding laundry from last week, organizing today's pictures and working on web stuff... went to bed around 11.

We interrupt this program...

"You need to update the Around Aix page - don't forget the little things." Michelle and I were talking yesterday and she pointed out that I haven't been writing much about the little things lately. Nor have I taken pictures of Aix... I didn't want this journal to be a minute-by-minute account of the things I do because that gets old, but I do want to let everyone know what my life is like. So... for this week, I'll try to focus more on the little things (including food since that's one of the biggest differences here). We will return to your regularly scheduled program after Friday...

Mont Sainte Victoire

Yesterday, 20 of us took a bus about 5 miles outside of Aix to Mont Sainte Victoire - the mountain Cezanne painted over 50 times. Though it's not visible everywhere in Aix because of the hills and buildings, it has caught me by surprise many times as I was walking along and it suddenly appeared around a corner.

Now, I love to be outside, but I learned a few years ago that I am not a mountain climber. I like hikes that follow nice, fairly level terrain through forests and around streams. If I'm going to climb, I want to be in a harness climbing up - not over. I went anyway - I haven't done any touristy stuff yet here and this is a popular activity in Aix. Plus it offered a day outside and some great views for an hour and a half climb each way which couldn't be so bad.

Truthfully, it wasn't that bad - I'm just not a huge fan of aerobic activities which this definitely was. The bus dropped us off not at the base of the mountain, as we were expecting, but at the base of another peak which was connected to Mont Sainte Victoire by a narrow ridge. We mounted that peak easily enough in about 45 minutes. The weather was beautiful - warm enough not to be cold, but with a cool wind that kept us from getting too hot.

Once we got across the ridge, things got steeper and slower and it took another hour and a half to get to the top (1011 m high). The whole time I knew I had to go all the way but I kept thinking, "Why do I feel the need to get to the top of this?" I already had a good view - I could have stayed where I was and have spent a great day outside. But then there's that competitive streak still in me that wanted to say I had done it - that I hadn't given up or made it easy on myself by taking four hours to do it. And it was good exercise, though I really do need to get in shape.

Erin's friend in the States who used to be a professional chef had given her a recipe for a tomato mozzarella salad using herbs that could be picked on the mountain. There's rosemary, thyme and another unidentified spice that we think is marjoram growing all along the trails. Erin and Kelly Rae picked herbs all the way up and made their salad on the top with oil and balsamic in tiny bottles, a miniature pepper mill, and tomatoes and mozzarella bought just before leaving Aix. Mix in a plastic bag, let sit for 15 minutes and enjoy. I had a taste and it was fabulous!

We spent nearly two hours at the top before a much faster hike down, picking herbs along the way, and walked out to a town 20 minutes away to catch the bus back to Aix. Though I have occasionally had those idealistic thoughts of things like, "Wouldn't it be great to climb Mt. Everest?" or "Maybe I'll try and climb in Alaska this summer" those thoughts have left me now. Yeah, the mountains are there and they would offer all the same benefits of vistas and exercise and lessons learned - but any climb like that just wouldn't be worth it to me. I'd rather go rafting... I should look into that here.