Parks and Markets

Bonjour tout le monde!
I still don’t have internet in my apartment. Now I have to figure out who was the last person who lived here to get internet so the phone company can open the right line. So complicated.
Anyways, what did I do this weekend?

Leeeet’s see. I actually got up to go the big market that is by house on Saturday morning. It was an hour of bliss. I spent almost 20 euros on delicious fruits, vegetables, roast chicken, fresh pasta, jars of olive tapenade, and cookies. It was pretty bad of me to spend that much, but I really didn’t have any food and it was all so fresh and cheap compared to the supermarket which is usually the only place I have time to go to. There is a smaller market everyday in a square near my school, but it is over at one o’clock and that’s when I get out of my class. It is all very sad I know. The markets the markets. Oh man I can’t wait for tomorrow though because a long with the food market on Saturdays there is also a clothes/household/everything else market right next to it on Tuesdays/Thursdays/Saturdays. I’m going to get a leather bag for 20 euros! I am going to miss all of these markets when I go back to the US. We should definitely change our culture to have them.

Speaking of culture, my roommate and I were just talking about a main difference between America and France today. We were sitting at a restaurant/café around 5 pm and we ordered some coffee and although the place serves food it only serves food at the hours for lunch and for dinner, the rest of the day it’s open, but you can only get drinks. This is the same at almost all of the restaurants around Aix and probably true for most of France. I really could not see this flying in America. If you serve food at all you should be able to get it anytime of day. Although I guess America is a country on the go so we don’t have time to either wait around for the dinner or lunch hour or to stick to a routine. We are also a country of convenience and capitalism which is very much not France. If Americans will eat at anytime of the day and a restaurant can make money off of them then it will be done. Also, we want whatever we want when we want it. I’m not bagging on America or anything. I just think the differences are interesting.

Another thing I did this weekend that was pretty exciting is go to this club fair on Sunday. On the big main street in town a bunch of organizations and schools came out and set up booths. It was mostly dance schools, sports schools, political organizations, or music groups. There were a couple of things that were interesting though. There is this one group called “Mind the Cave”, they are a group of foreign students and they invite other foreign students to get together once a week to have dinner and talk and things like that. It’s only 3.50 euro for dinner! They also go on excursions and the like. My roommate and I are thinking about going. Another organization I thought was pretty cool is this organization that matches up foreign students with French families and the families take you out to dinner, teach you stuff, take you on outings and generally be like a host family except you don’t live with them. It’s pretty exciting and I signed up for it because it would be really nice to have a family that would show me aspects of French culture that I would never see living as a student with an American roommate and it’s without the home stay price. So I’m definitely going to do that. Also, there was this relatively cheap group voice class that is 30 euro a month for a once a week class. The teacher seems really nice too. She was telling us about how it’s a group thing to let people get more comfortable with singing first and then if they want to sing out on their own. I’m really excited about this one because even though I switched out of the voice major I really do miss singing all the time and singing with a purpose. It should be fun. Another interesting part of the fair was the Capoiera dancers. Capoiera (which I might be misspelling) is a Brazilian dance that looks like you’re fighting without touching one another. I really want to learn because it looks like fun, but I really don’t want to pay for it. There were also a lot of different schools offering salsa, tango, latin dancing which sounds really fun, but I’m sure I want to pay for it or make that commitment. So I have a lot of different stuff I can do around Aix that isn’t just school. It’s pretty exciting.

After the fair on Sunday my roommate and I decided to explore our neighborhood a little bit more. See Aix is composed of the center, which is the old medieval part, and then a road that circles it and outside that road it’s more like suburbs. My apartment is just on the edge of the center of town about a block away from the main road that goes around the center. We hadn’t really explored anything outside of the center of town yet because most everyone lives in the center and that’s where school is. Well we decided we wanted to find out what else was in Aix and ventured out a little bit. It was really interesting actually and we really liked it because the center of town is really really touristy and outside the center it is pretty chill. We decided that it was such a nice day outside we didn’t want to go back and sit around our apartment and set out to find a park. My roommate molly is pretty magic and she must have been drawn to the park because where I was going to turn down this one street and go back toward the center of town she had us go another way and we found a park! Then we walked down the street right next to it and found it was the street that goes right next to our house! We spent the afternoon there on a blanket watching clouds, listening to music, reading, taking pictures. It was so nice. We were actually so happy at one point we just started spontaneously laughing.

This week I've had the flu and had a fever for about a day, but now I'm all better. Luckily it wasn't the swine flu. The French are freakin out about it. They have signs up everywhere telling you how to deal with a flu, wash your hands, cough into your hand or arm, stay home for a little while. They are also playing it on tv and making it so some public service employees can’t deal with the public anymore so they all don’t get sick. It’s pretty crazy and they are really serious about it. Weird eh? Oh and btw I was just kidding about maybe having the swine flu. I honestly don’t think I have it so no freaking out over there!

Alright I think that is enough for this post.
French word for today: envoyer- to send
Oh this is probably a good thing to add, if anyone wants to send me a letter my address is:
1 bis rue d’Arpille
13100 Aix-en-Provence, France
Please don’t send packages here though because then I will have to go to the post office to get them. If you want to send me a package let me know, I’ll give you an address where you can send them.