First Days in Aix!

So, I had italics and tabs and bold and stuff but it didn`t copy over... sorry in advance... click the pictures to zoom in.

Saturday
After spending something like seven hours sitting around in Frankfurt, I flew to Marseille, took a bus to Aix, then a taxi to my new apartment. Met Madame T, her sister who’s visiting from Nice, Dora the cat, and Dan, who’s from Wisconsin and also on the program. It was late so I talked to them briefly, unpacked a little, then went to sleep. Also gave her the cherry jam and chocolate-covered cherries I’d brought, which Madame said she loved.

Sunday
Woke up to beautiful blue skies and had coffee, cereal, and apple juice out on the balcony looking over Aix. It was a gorgeous view and a fantastic way to start my stay here. Went into town and had a guided tour of the city with the other American students. The tour was interesting and I now know plenty of Aix trivia. The town is gorgeous. Everything I saw looked so picturesque, pretty, unique. After the two-hour tour, we students squeezed into Café d’Horloge, and had croques messieurs. A TV was showing the MTV show “The Hills” dubbed into French.
Our group went to the once-monthly book market, where they have all sorts of rare and antique books, as well as comics and modern novels. We went to see if a grocery store and cellphone place were open, but it was Sunday so they were closed. Instead we meandered around the trendy, newly-built area near la Rotunde. Many places were shut, but there were still a surprising number of cars and people about.
Dan and I found Madame and her sister watching the news. Dan and I were getting hungry, and Madame didn’t seem to be cooking anything. By 8:30 she asked where we were going for dinner that night. We’re supposed to get six dinners with her per week, though, including Sundays. Not wanting to cause a ruckus, we left and found a tiny place called L’Eclipse where we got steak frites. We sat by la Rotunde and ate. Everything is lit up and night and it looks really cool, especially with the remnants of Christmas decorations. It reminded my of the night scenes in In Bruges.

La Rotunde

The apartment where I live

Monday
Today I had to set my alarm for 7 and the sun was barely up when I left. The weather forecast was for -1º! As we walked into the town centre, there were lots of people heading to work, and more stores and restaurants were open than yesterday. First stop today was the Institut d’Etudes Françaises pour Etudiants Etrangers, where we had a test to place us into our cours intensif.
Next we had an info session, which warned girls to never look at, smile at, or even walk too close to French men. It also told us that crime in Aix is rare, but to watch out for gypsy/Romany people and a litany of street crimes. They also noted that every single year, there is an American who gets engaged to a French person while here. The cours intensif started in the afternoon, with 13 people in my group, and met in a tiny classroom.
A big group of us from the class then went to get French cellphones from Bouygues, the company recommended by the program. We all ended up with the same service and €15 phones. Went to ProGamers next, a cyber café we can use for free through the program (my host family doesn’t have any internet and there isn’t any free wifi nearby). It’s mostly pre-teens playing Counterstrike yelling, but it lets us check email/etc. Typing is tough because French keyboards are different than American ones. You hit 6 for hyphens, left-shift and 9 for the “@” symbol, some letters are transposed, etc.
Madame had made us a meal of Provencal fare. We started with lettuce leaves dipped in an olive oil/ vinegar sauce, tomatoes with puréed olives (tapenade) and avocadoes brushed with the sauce. Next came daube, beef in a thick sauce atop pasta. It was all very good and we had loooong conversations with Madame and her sister.

My phone

Tuesday
More classes today, covering adjectives, present participles, and other exciting elements of French grammar. Our professor’s really nice. Briefly saw the markets before they closed up at 1. Bought sandwiches for lunch again—this time for €3.80 with cheese, ham, and a bunch of other stuff.
After lunch we had a program meeting to learn about paying for homestay rent and la sécurité sociale, which pays for hospitals/doctors. We also opened bank accounts, and I’ll soon get my French debit card. Changed my travelers’ checks, paid January’s rent to Madame, and had dinner. She told us she had gone to a port in Marseille and when the fishermen returned with fish still flopping, she bought one. So we had a big bass-like fish sitting on a plate in the middle of the table, as well as potatoes and some odd vegetable mix.
I finally took my camera out with me and took pictures of the town, but it was overcast (as you can see) so I’ll try to get more when it’s sunnier. Looked at the schedule for the school I’ll be attending—classes start on Jan 26—and we have looong breaks: A week between Feb 21 and March 2, and two weeks between April 18 and May 4!

Today
Today I woke up to snow. Yes, snow. It snowed in Paris yesterday, which is normal, but snow like this in Aix is rare—every 20 to 30 years, Madame told me. And I’m disappointed because I thought coming to the south of France would let me escape cold and snow! It’s now 11:30 am and still snowing pretty hard. I need to do some homework then go to classes, which today run for three hours straight without a break.

On my way into town, everything had gone crazy. I helped push a few cars because the locals seem to think they can drive in snow with low-profile tires, and their strategy for when it's slippery is to engage first gear and accelerate as hard as possible. The town looks beautiful zith the snow but my camera battery just died :( More updates soon, I hope!