Snow Days, Markets, Mountains, and Classes

Friday

Once again, no classes, so I slept in late. Even though the snow was pretty much all melted, our schools were closed and we suspect the professors wanted to faire le pont, or make it into a long weekend. Spent some time at Progamers reading emails and chatted to a few friends online. Explored Aix’s chic-er areas with some of the other students for a bit in the afternoon, and found an underground crêperie. It’s in a little tunnel under a main road that also houses a watch repair shop and a key-cutting place. Our program director got everyone together in the mid-afternoon and bought us hot chocolates at Les Deux Garçons, where (supposedly) Cezanne and Zola used to meet up almost every day.

For dinner Madame made a delicious blend of cheese, potatoes, and ham, with a salad dressed in, like all meals from Provence, olive oil and vinegar. She’s a great cook, and everything we have is delicious. For dessert we had flan, which was also great. Mme scolded Dan and I: apparently we left the hallway light on during the night, and because l’électricité coute beaucoup in France, she warned us that next time she’d charged us a Euro per hour the light was on. After dinner, watched some of a documentary about a French ship going through the Arctic Circle with Madame and her sister, who are very green-thinking. They want to ban the Paris-Dakar rally, foe example, because it wastes too much fuel.

Saturday

This morning, all the markets were open and it was sunny and reasonably warm. We wandered through them, and got samples of calissons and locally-made olive oil. There’s such an incredible array of produce, flowers, vegetables, and meats that I can understand why most French people buy their food at markets. There are even crafts, rugs, old books, even men’s boxers. A friend’s friend, who’s been in Aix since September, showed us the south-west of the city and a really pretty park—although it was muddy and icy.

An odd contradiction: walking normally, I frequently catch up with and pass local pedestrians, who walk with a sedentary, relaxed manner. But when they reach roads, the locals glance left and right and try to jump in between cars to cross the roads as hastily as possible. Often, so many people are jaywalking that cars give in and wait while they cross.

Tried Crêpes-à-Gogo, the underground place; I got a mushroom and cheese one which was delicious and surprisingly filling. It began to get colder in the afternoon, which was unfortunate because we trekked about 20 minutes to a nearby rugby stadium where, one of the students believed, there was a game this afternoon. When we arrived, the pitch was covered in snow and nobody was around save a few bystanders, who said the game had been cancelled due to the snow. Saw an anti-Israel demonstration near the town hall, and wisely sidestepped as the protestors yelled about liberté for Palestine and les flics (cops) looked on.

Through another Michigan student, met Damien and his girlfriend, two French students who live just outside Aix. They told me my spoken French was good—perhaps they were just being polite—and that many words and phrases in American textbooks (boum, chouette, etc) are outdated and not used. They also said the hilarious tektonik dance has gone out of style. Darn.

Sunday

Cassis trip! With most of the Americans, plus a big group of Swedish and Japanese exchange students, we took a daytrip to Cassis. First the bus took us to La Ciotat, a small town where there was a market. We sampled cheeses, breads, olive oil, tapenade, and assorted fruits, then bought sandwiches. The bus took us through some windy roads up into the hills, and we had to take a detour when the bus couldn’t make it round one especially-tight turn. Narrow, twisting Provençal streets were not made for tour busses. We ate overlooking the Mediterranean and I even got to dip my feet in the sea. The view was spectacular and, under the sun, it was even warm enough to take off my sweater and jacket! See below:

From there we went to Cassis via une route spéciale, which took us through mountains. Worryingly, the road was barely wider than the bus, with frequent turns and sharp elevation changes. A Lotus 7 clone flew past us and we saw it slipping around the mountain bends; motorcyclists buzzed around the curves. Our bus pulled over so we could see the most magnificent view – see the panorama below.

You could see for miles and it’s truly hard to describe the sensation. Rolling hills, sprawling rural towns, and the bluest sea and sky were all around. The air was fresh and clean, and it was even warm! The pictures don’t really do it justice. It was a fantastic and breathtaking vantage point. That and the gorgeous beach at La Ciotat made me wonder why I live in the midwestern U.S. and not Provence.

Cassis is a small, touristy beach town. It was too cool for the beach but Cassis is also known for its calanques, fjord-like inlets that are some of the highest cliffs in Europe, apparently. We took a boat trip out into the Mediterranean that took us into the calanques and told us about them.Unfortunately, it was cold and windy, and the boat pilot spoke with such a strong Marseillais accent over a tinny speaker that the trip wasn’t all I’d been expecting. We got ice cream and got back on the bus to head back to Aix. It was a marvelous, if exhausting, trip and I’m glad I went. Took far too many pictures of the gorgeous scenery, and I’ll try to upload them soon.

Our tour guide, Georges, was a peculiar character. He first joked that the typically untimely American students got to the bus before the very-punctual Japanese and Swedish students—which didn’t seem to make anyone laugh. And to make an announcement on the bus, Georges started with, “Allo, allo!? Ecoutez!”

Monday

Today was back to the grindstone: three hours of spoken exercises and grammar in the morning, then two hours of grammar in the afternoon. Now I’m exhausted, especially after having such a busy day on Sunday. My professor for this morning, a Monsieur Tissot, was hilarious. Our classroom was up four flights of stairs and the radiator seemed to be stuck on full heat: Tissot warned we’d either die from the climb or from the heat. He was full of jokes all round, in fact.

I was excited because tonight Mme asked us if we needed to do laundry. Dan and I promptly brought her our big stacks of dirty clothes but she protested, pointing out how tiny her washing machine is—we each put in two pairs of pants and some t-shirts, and absolutely filled the machine. For the rest, Mme told us we should go to a nearby launderette. Ah well. For drying the clothes, she has an ingenious system that her husband (whom I haven’t heard her speak of before) built. In the laundry room is a drying rack that hangs from rope threaded around four pulleys. Normally, it hangs just above my head (about 5’9”) and it’s easy to hang things. But pull a rope and the rack lifts to about a foot from the ceiling. Thus, drying clothes doesn’t take up any space in the incredibly-cramped laundry room! Must take pictures of it sometime. For dinner we had duck, and Mme promised one day she make us lapin—rabbit!