I am here! This town is beautiful and it’s really solidified my love of classic architecture. The center of town is the mid-evil part. Little winding streets that twist and turn and then all of the sudden open up into a courtyard of a grand old house with a fountain or a big square with arches and a marketplace. There are so many hidden little things that I don’t ever think I will see it all in a year. You know it’s so amazing I don’t know if I can describe it in words. I think we will have to wait until I take some pictures.
I also went to Marseille on Sunday with a bunch of people and went to the beach. I feel like the architecture in Marseille is really at odds with itself. You have big project-like apartment buildings mixed in with centuries old buildings and multi-million dollar high rises. It’s like Marseille can’t decide what to be, but it likes being in the middle. It’s a lot more urban than I imagined it would be and I would not like to be walking around there at night. No sirree bob that is one place you leave before sunset. During the day though you can go to little beaches and swim in the Mediterranean sea. The sea is so salty you can just bob around getting away with barely treading water. Compared to the pacific ocean it is about 10 times warmer. So gorgeous. It’s weird being in France because the beach was actually pretty small and really crowded, but it didn’t really bother. I guess because most people were sunbathing to maintain their so tan they look like they’re black complexions. Let me tell you that was not an attractive look for some people.
So the dealio is when we get here we basically have two weeks to find a place to live for the year while living in an apartment hotel with all of the other people in the program. You have a couple different options for this. You could live in a home stay with another family and live by their rules and pay their price, you could find a French person in Aix looking for an American roommate, or you can get an apartment with either people from your program or by yourself. I decided that home stay wasn’t for me for a couple of reasons: I didn’t like the restrictions the host family would put on me, the houses are usually out of the center of town (which means I would have to take a bus or bike into town to get to school… do not envy those people in the dead of winter when the mistral is blowing brrrrr), and it is much much more expensive then the apartments. I also decided that trying to get a French roommate wasn’t for me because they are few and far between; I got to Aix late so almost all of them were already gone, and I had already promised a peer that I would get an apartment with her.
So that brings me to living with Megan. We haven’t found a place yet, but we are on the trail. It is a little more difficult because she is on kind of a tight budget. Whereas most two bedroom apartments in Aix go for 500 Euros a month plus utilities, that is really stretching her budget to the limit. (The exchange rate on a Euro is currently around $1.50, you do the math). So we have looked at a couple places not with very much success. Tomorrow though I think we are going to see a place that if it is nice we will take. It’s getting down to the wire and we really would like this stress over with so we can focus on other things, like school. The place we are seeing tomorrow is supposed to be a big two bedroom with actual bedroom doors, on the first floor that is close to school and a laundry mat. Hopefully it’s adorably cute with a normal sized kitchen. The place we saw today had a micro kitchen that I swear if I was about two sizes bigger I would not be able to fit into. Plus it was up about 5 flights of stairs. Do not envy the person who has to drag their suitcases up their stairs.
Alright I think I will end this post with two clarifications:
#1 I know you probably noticed I mentioned getting here late and you wonder how that happened. Welllllll, I really don’t feel like telling that story so you are just going to have to wonder at the mystery.
#2 You may be wondering what the minstrel is that I don’t envy people walking in. The mistral is a wind that comes down the river valley from the Alps every winter. It can get up to 90 mph blowing down from the snow topped mountains of the alps you can just imagine how cold that gets.
Au Revoir
A Lundi!
