Busy, Busy, Busy

So, I’ve officially been in France for over a month now. Which seems impossible. Although I have settled in here, I still feel like I just got here. I wonder when that feeling will wear off. Time just seems to pass so quickly here. The week flies by — maybe because I have no Friday classes — and then the weekend passes just as quickly. Since I haven’t posted in a while, I’ll try to give a quick run down of what I’ve been up to lately. 

The weekend after IAU went to Nice and Marseille, I took a crêpe cooking class in Aix. Yes, it was as delicious as it sounds. We made both savory crêpes made with buckwheat (galette bretonne) and crêpes suzette, which are sweet crêpes with an orange sauce in them (sometimes they’re even set on fire when they’re served. Sadly, we did not learn how to do this.) The cooking class was a lot of fun and was entirely in French and I think I understood essentially all of it, which was a great feeling.

The next day I had a class trip for my Provençal History class and my Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations class and we went to Glanum and Arles. Glanum is an archeological site of a Gallic village that was first built and occupied during the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. It was then conquered by the Romans during the latter half of the first century B.C. It was fascinating to walk around the remains of a village that old. Then we went to Arles, had lunch and saw the cathedral, the remains of the Roman theater and amphitheater and the archeological museum. 

 L'arc de Triomphe de Glanum 

Le Cénotaphe de Glanum

L'oppidum de Glanum

Théâtre de Glanum

Amphithéâtre de Glanum

The following week, on Valentine’s Day I went to a wine tasting class given by the wine studies professor from IAU. I couldn’t really tell how she could taste the different flavors in the wine, but hey, that’s what practice is for, right? 

That Saturday I went to Montpellier with the Aix Science Po, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques and some other IAU students. Montpellier is a little larger than Aix is and it was cool to explore the city. We went to Parc Peyrou, which gave a pretty cool view of the area and we wandered around a lot. There are several trompe l’oeil paintings around the city, so we looked for those and had fun taking pictures with them. 

This past weekend a group of us went to Indian Forest, which is a ropes course/ ziplining park. Those of you who know me (which I assume is all of you, or else why would you be reading this?) know I was in heaven doing this. It was a lot of fun, and it was an absolutely beautiful day. 

The whole group!

I did parcours vert, bleu, rouge and part of noir

The next day some friends and I went to Montagne Sainte Victoire, which is a mountain just outside of Aix. It’s famous for being painted many times by Paul Cezanne. When we set out to climb it, I knew it was a mountain, obviously, but I wasn’t mentally (or physically, let’s be honest) prepared for it. I was expecting a dirt or gravel trail that we just had to follow. Instead, it was an extremely rocky trail that was occasionally marked by a small blue mark. Although we didn’t make it to the top — the bus leaving Aix left later than we initially thought, so we didn’t get to the mountain as early as we would have liked and we were worried about missing the bus back to Aix — I definitely plan on going back to make it to the top. The views were absolutely beautiful and the photos just don’t do it justice (much like most of the things I take pictures of…) Again, we were very lucky with the weather. Every now and then a breeze would pick up and you couldn’t help but spread your arms out and feel the sun beat down on your face (I even got a little sunburned, which is weird in February). Anyway, Mont St. Victoire was so beautiful and the landscape is pretty drastically different from back home, which is cool to see/experience. 

Now, this coming week is my winter break (how lucky am I? I get two winter breaks this year!) and I’m really excited for my travels. It’s weird, because it’s like I’m about to take a vacation from a vacation. I leave tonight for Venice, Italy. It’s Carnival right now – Mardi Gras is Tuesday, so I think it will be a really cool time to see the city. Then on Tuesday I’m flying out to England to visit two camp friends (shoutout Katniss and Keish). Anyway, I can’t wait to see what this week has in store for me…! 

A plus tard, mes amis.