Life in the South of France

This week in Aix, I have...

Tried 5 classes, chose 4 out of the 5. Signed up to do Bikram Yoga for a week. Went to the marché, comme toujours. Navigated the insanity that is French websites. Battled the SNCF, but came out successful with my train tickets to Paris. Walked more miles than I can count. Entered a papeterie, and failed to come out sans achat. (I have a problem when it comes to buying stationary). Bought a uni-langue French dictionary. Color-coded my French notebooks with the appropriate colored folder. Fallen up the stairs in the house. Ate ice-cream at Giovanni Glacerie. Signed up to try a contemporary and jazz dance class next week. Signed up on the waiting list of a cooking class. Celebrated the birthday of a friend with music, singing, guitars, peach champagne, and dancing. Saw a French doctor to get a certificate of health to do sports at the fac. Swam in the Mediterranean. Went to Cassis and saw des calanques. Sent postcards to the US. Bought more postcards. Eaten delicious French pastries. Began thinking in French.

Cassis, France

La vie en Rose :)

Bonne nuit, tout le monde! Bisous. xoxo

Aix-cellent Start to an Aixoise Life

What a week! It has been a week filled with logistical meetings, activities, soirées, and funtimes. Aix is beautiful! And I have developed a new love....le marché! The open-air market is just such a wonderful place to be! The vendors are super nice, and you can find almost anything there - from gorgeous sunflowers, to brightly colored peppers, to loafs of bread and mounds of fruit. Even though I don't even really need to go to the marché to buy groceries, I go almost everyday just to walk around and experience the aixoise life.

Le Marché à Place Richelme 

Rainbow peppers :) 

This week, we also went to a soirée chez Madame Masson. 21 students, plus their host families, plus some more, all piled into Madame Masson's beautiful apartment. The food was provençale, of course, with l'entrée, le plat principal, fromage, and dessert. We all had such a wonderful time, and the terrace offered a beautiful view of Mt. St. Victoire, off in the distance.

JUST the appetizers....

Toujours du vin chez Madame Masson

Famille! :) :) 

Today is the first time it's rained in Aix since we've been here! So it will be a nice lazy rainy Sunday. :) Next week, we will continue the hunt for classes à la fac, and our translation class will begin on Thursday/Friday.

À bientôt, et bisous!

We are not in Paris anymore!

AIX AIX AIX AIX AIX! We made it to Aix-en-Provence! What a drastic change in scenery, people, and vibe. We are definitely not in Paris anymore! The train ride down to Aix was beautiful - full of little identical cottages, endless shades of green, and majestic mountains in the distance. 

We arrived on Monday, and saw the Wellesley Center on rue Emile Tavan, and after some logistical meetings, we headed off to our respective apartments and families. Kirstin and I are living with a host family here in Aix for the next four months, and they are very lovely and kind people. There's Marie, Christophe, and Nathan. The house is not too big, but it is beautifully decorated and neatly arranged. The colors in the house are beautiful! 

For the rest of the evening, we had a delicious dinner, followed by a night out dancing at a nearby dance studio! Marie and Christophe love to dance, so we accompanied them, and Christophe even danced some swing and salsa with us! 

Tuesday we had a meeting with the bank to finalize our bank papers, followed by a tour of La Fac. My goodness, the fac is scary!! (Sidenote: La Fac = University of Provence). Its main building is this large, kind of ugly, kind of falling apart building, half of which is under construction. Also btw - classes started. On Monday. We're just going to miss a good week-2 weeks of classes because Masson thinks they're unnecessary....But anyway, the tour took a good 2.5 hours, and we were all pretty exhausted by the end, especially with the heat (high 80s in Aix this whole week!). We are all a little intimidated at the moment, because we're unsure what classes to take, we're unsure where the classes are, and we're unsure why we're missing 2 weeks of classes. So it is all a little overwhelming à ce moment-là, but I'm sure everything will get better! Tout va bien! 

Today - I also had the horrific, but worthwhile experience of sitting in on a French class! 5 of us decided to go to "Questions Sociales", located in the amphitheater in Sciences-Po. We were lost within the first 5 minutes of the lecture. The professor's voice, amidst the frantic typing of the French students on their computers, was just inaudible. We gave up after 5 minutes, and just sat in amusement for the next 55 minutes, before leaving at break-time. Dreadful - but amusing indeed. 

But have no fear! I was able to go to the Wellesley Center today and read some of the old evaluations from previous students in Aix, and their recommendations for courses. So that was super helpful (thank you, les étudiants anciens!), and I feel more comfortable choosing classes, now that I can base my decision not on how cool the titles sound, but on real evaluations by real students. Yay!  

And just some pictures of beautiful Aix. :) 

Cours Mirabeua - le Champs-Elysées of Aix

Marché!

Just a pretty street with pretty Aixoise trees!

Also - mail makes me happy!! We even get little mailboxes at the Wellesley Center with our names on it :)

Amy Wang

c/o Centre Wellesley College

16, rue Émile Tavan

13100 Aix-en-Provence

France

bisous! 

Mama Wang Comes to Paris!

What a whirlwind of a week to finish our Parisienne adventures! We had classes up until Wednesday, and then we prepared for our exam on Friday: Literature, where we memorized 800 years of French authors and works, and stylistique, where we wrote the intro and conclusion of a French dissertation. Overall, ça va. Should be okay.

But yes - my mom and Auntie Alice are here! They arrived on Thursday, and it has been so nice getting to spend time with them, and showing them around Paris. We were quite ambitious though - trying to fit in all of Paris in under 4 days. But we did pretty well! We managed to go to Champs-Élysées, Arc de Triomphe, La Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame, Pont d'Archevêché, Shakespeare and Company, L'Opéra, Le Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Versailles....
My mom even brought with her a pack of photos of me when I was in Paris at 7 years old. I have no recollection whatsoever, so she brought me proof. It was indeed fun to see myself standing at the same places that I have just been to these past three weeks! Photos to be posted soon.

Pont d'Archevêché with Mom and Auntie Alice

View from the top of Notre Dame!

Saturday night we also attended the cocktail reception with Wellesley Club of France. What a lovely celebration! We were able to mingle and chat with other Wellesley Alums, and it was just such a wonderful event. Some Wellesley women even sang for us! We all dressed up, and had free champagne, hors d'oeuvres, and delicious dessert. It felt so surreal to be at such a majestic venue, overlooking the Eiffel Tower. We even stayed late enough to see the tower sparkle!

Ma chérie - Becky et moi! 

Today was our last day in Paris because tomorrow we will be headed down to Aix! I'm excited, but also nervous. Nervous for real school to start, and to be living with a host family, and to be really settled down in France! As much fun as these past three weeks have been, it has almost felt like vacation, especially with all the sightseeing we did. But I'm sure things will change as we settle down in Aix for the next five months.

So for now, au revoir Paris! À bientôt! Next post will be coming from Aix-en-Provence!

Becky and Amy go to Sacre-Coeur!

Today was a beautiful day! We had the day off because we had been away the whole weekend. Hooray for no classes! Becky and I head out on a date filled with happiness and fun times. We woke up at a somewhat reasonable hour, and after doing some homework, I met up with Becky, and we began our date. We took the metro to Lamarck-Concourt, and from there walked over to Sacre Coeur. This beautiful church up on a hill is one of the places I have always wanted to go to since I studied it in French class back in 8th grade. It was indeed breath-taking, and we got a beautiful view of Paris. The weather was also gorgeous, so we got some really great photos.

Sacre-Coeur, Montmartre

Then we headed back down to the metro stop Palais Royal - Musée du Louvre, and we began our shopping adventure down Rue de Rivoli. Successful purchases were made! Hooray. 

Then we began our laundry experience. Doing laundry here is a bit of a pain. Even though I can speak and understand French fine, I don't know why I have so much trouble when it comes to reading French directions (and navigating French websites). We hauled our giant trash bags of laundry to the laundromat, and we spent minutes just staring at the machines and the instructions board. Nothing made sense!! 

There was something about buying soap. But then we didn't know which slot the soap went in…and there was something else about pressing the central pay machine to get the machine started. It was a confusing time in my life. But this kind man who spoke English finally helped us out, and we were able to get our clothes washed. 

While laundry-ing, Becky and I took turns going to run errands - Carrefour, baguettes, etc. 

After laundry, we returned to the Citadines, and spent the evening doing homework and cooking dinner.

Tomorrow will be a visit to the Musée d'Orsay, and class in the afternoon!  

Bonne nuit mes amis!

Weekend in Normandy, Mont St. Michel, and St. Malo

We have now been in Paris for two weeks! Only one more week in Paris before we head down to Aix on September 12th. I do think Aix will be very different, since we will be more settled and taking classes regularly. I have loved Paris, but it will be nice to settle down to a more regular routine in Aix and enjoy being out of the big city!

This past weekend, we all went to Normandy, Mont St. Michel, and St. Malo! What diverse, interesting, and fascinating places. Our bus was scheduled to leave at 8am on Friday morning, but having been well-trained by Masson, the whole group was on the bus and ready to go by 7:45am. The drive wasn't too bad, and by noontime we had arrived at the Arromanche Bay. This quaint little town is known for the D-Day invasion at the end of World War II and Operation Overlord. We spent some time by the beach and walking around before going on our museum visit.

Arromanche Bay

After our afternoon in Normandy, we head over to Pontorson - a small village near Mont St. Michel - where we spent the night. Dinner was at the hotel, and of course it was spectacular because Masson ordered it. We had a 4-course meal, along with bread, white wine, and red wine. It was delicious!

Saturday morning, we were up and about by 8am, and we made it to Mont St. Michel before most other tourists. This community village was truly a fascinating place to visit! It looked just like the castle in Disney, and walking in the village itself was like jumping back in time. At the top of the isle is the abbey. When there is high tide, the water floods over the land, and Mont St. Michel becomes an island. But during low tide, there is a single road that leads to Mont St. Michel. What is very interesting is that there are only 26 inhabitants in the entire place! Everybody must know each other.
Also - Masson had warned us ahead of time that we would be very very cold at Mont St. Michel, so we all packed like we were heading to Antartica. (Sidenote: Almost un-vacuumed packed my big red winter jacket, but later decided against that, for fear of being unable to vacuum pack it back in. Correct choice). Upon arrival, we realize it was simply a nice, breezy, foggy day, and our winter jackets, hats, and cashmere scarfs were all too much. As the lovely Kirstin said, she was "sweating through [her] head."  :)

Mont St. Michel

Inside the abbey, there were models of how Mont St. Michel developed over the years. This model shows Mont St. Michel in its present state

Here is Mont St. Michel when it was first discovered in the 8th century!

After our visit to Mont St. Michel, Madame took us to get delicious crepes in Pontorson. For my main course, I had une galette super complète, with egg, ham, bacon, mushrooms, cheese, and onions. For dessert, I had Amantine, with almonds, crêpe au chocolat, vanilla ice cream, and whipped cream! Yummy.

Amantine

After lunchtime, we drove another hour-ish to St. Malo, a quaint little town on the coast of Bretagne. We had lots of free time for the rest of the evening, so we mostly just walked around in the old city. And today, we got to sleep in, and finally left to return to Paris at 11am. Because of the rain and bad traffic, we didn't make it back home until 6pm-ish! But all in all, a very nice weekend.

Tomorrow: Sacre-Coeur, shopping, and laundry!

And I will end with this beautiful picture that has nothing to do with Normandy or Bretange....but it just makes me smile!