A pool, some wine, and sunshine

One of the many downsides to the strike was that I didn't take classes with French students, and so don't know a huge number of young French people. Among the people I do know is Damien, a French student who lives the nearby village of Meyreuil. This weekend, he was having a barbecue and he'd invited me and some of the other American students.

We took a bus to Meyreuil, which is about half an hour from Aix. Meyreuil itself is a very small but pretty village that resembles suburban America: big houses with lush gardens. (Guess who forgot his camera?) Damien lives with his family, which means he lives in a large house with a big patio and, yes, a swimming pool. He asked that we took wine or pastis, and he'd cook.

There were about six French people, a German and a Hungarian (who were, improbably, a couple), and four Americans. The French kids all knew some English, but the German and Hungarian kids didn't know much French, so we kind of switched between French and English.

For lunch we had tabouleh and pasta salad, then the merguez sausages that are oh-so-popular in Marseille. Oh, and rosé wine and pastis. It was all really delicious and I met some really interesting new people there.

But here's the best part: the sun was shining, we had clear blue skies, and I got to go in the pool. And when I got home last night I saw I'd tanned... quite a lot. If this is la vie française, sign me up right away.

Today is the back-to-reality day: I did homework. It's been tough to focus, though, as it's swelteringly hot in the apartment and all around Aix. I'm writing at 7 p.m. and the outside temperature is 31ºC—which is almost 88ºF. Apparently, it's the beginnings of the cagnard—"a suffocating heat"—that pervades Provence from June to August. If only the Provençaux had air conditioning...