First week of school done!

I have officially finished my first week of school in France!! I love it. It is very hard but very interesting and I am actually finding that I understand almost everything. I adore the people in my class as well. There is one boy in the whole class from Taiwan and everyone else is a girl, and there is only one other american. We went out for drinks they other day after class and it was 2 korean girls, a spaniard, a swede, a brazilian, a colombian, and a pole.

Laura from Colombia

The only picture I took Thursday night...

from left: nora (swede), laura(colombiana), and Magda(polish)

Everyone is sooo nice and we vary in age from 19 to 31. We speak a combination of poor french and english. I feel so dumb because I only speak English and they all speak at least 3 languages, with english and french being the common one. But it is good because it is great practice and fun.  I went out Thursday night with the American from my class and we went to the underground bar called Sunset. It was €6 to get in but once inside drinks are about €0.50. It was dangerous. I met a ton of foreigners including more Swedes, Brits, Irish, Americans, and more French. I even met a guy from Berkeley who knows the Teece's and has partied at their house before with Teddy. It was super random but so fun to once again be reminded just how small the world is. I also had a conversation completely in French for about 45 mins with a french guy named Nikolas from Aix. I didnt even realize it until we went outside for air and he congratulated me on my good french. Thank you alcohol, you win again....  The music they play at clubs is hilarious as well. It varied from Rihanna and JT to 80s hits to 60 rock jams to middle school love songs. The americans of the group had a good laugh about it. I also met an American guy from Arizona who was soo much fun. He is a ballroom dancer and asked me if I knew how to dance. I said not really but I can get the idea pretty fast. He took that to mean I could swing dance so he then twirled and spun me around the dance floor for 20 minutes. I made my way on the 5 minute walk home around 4 am and the streets were still packed. It was a great night.

On friday, none of us had class so we went out for coffee and shopping together. Then yesterday I went to Cassis with Nora (Swedish), Laura (Colombian) and Kiki (Japanese) as well as Romain (French) who drove us all. It was so beautiful even though we passed Cassis by about 30 minutes before realizing it. But it was great because we got to drive up the beautiful coast. We had lunch in Cassis and icecream after which was delicious. Then we went to another town called Bandol and then home.

La plage Cassis

It was so ridiculously windy!! Aix and the whole of the south of france have le mistral in the winter which blows in from the north fiercly and coldly. By the time we got to the coast it was the strongest wind I have ever felt! We had to hold on to our lunch so it wouldnt blow away. But it was so nice and warm that it didnt really bother us. I dont look forward to winter though when it is freezing cold and blowing like that...

the vieux port de cassis

It is so great that Aix now feels like home. It is so comforting to get back here to the already familiar small streets to my apartment. I have noticed a few funny things though that I want to note. Almost all french people say "en fait" (in fact) all the time. They just insert into sentences kind of like "like" or "um". It was very confusing at first because I thought it was part of the conversation that I was trying to understand. But then I realized that when they speak English, they insert the english words "in fact" into sentences in places they dont make sense. Even the teachers. I counted how many times my phonetics teacher said it in just the last 30 mins of class...16 times. It is very distracting.

Mt. Saint Victoire, the biggest reason Aix is famous

One of the pay stations

Driving, I will never drive in Europe because 1 I think I would crash in about 2 minutes and 2 because everything is sooo expensive!! They use diesel and it is by the litre, in Euros. It equals out to about $7 a gallon... and all the freeways cost money. The same way we pay a toll at certain bridges, they pay a toll on highways, and they are expensive! Some toll stations are less than 5 miles apart too! Which means they sometimes pay €2.10 for 5 miles then have to pay another €1.30 then 20 mins later you take a ticket that charges you by how far you travel. We probably spent over €25 today just on highway tolls...

Television and radio. I usually do not watch cartoons and despise advertisements, but in french, everything is so much funnier. I am watching the Simpsons right now dubbed over and they even attempt to give people redneck accents in french, it is tres comique. Family guy is also a good one and advertisements are hilarious. I would rather watch ads than actual TV. I watched Friends yesterday which just depressed me because it was so poorly done but hey, they try.

So there was a little bit of my week and my reflections on french life. Right now I am drinking a €3 bottle of Rose and eating a baguette that was warm when I bought it with goat cheese. Im going over to some of Romain's friend's houses tonight so if I want to be at all social, I better drink up :) Just kidding parents, my liver is plenty healthy. Je t'aime bien.



It is now the next day and I just quickly wanted to mention something about french house parties. I went with Romain and his little brother to his friend's house close to mine and it was such a fun night. Everyone was so welcoming and tried to speak slowly with me so that I could understand. Most spoke english so that was helpful but I spoke in french most of the night. It was pretty similar to an american house party except for the cigarettes (absolutely everyone smokes, inside and out). So all night they were smoking cigarette after cigarette, every single person, girls and guys, it was basically a smoking party. (Dont worry I still have not smoked, and am not planning on it) but I am getting more used to it. It doesnt really bother me anymore because it is so present everywhere. Another thing, house parties in the states consist primarily of beer, then some sort of hard liquor with a mixer, very rarely is there wine and drinks are always out of red cups. Last night, there was not a beer in sight, there was one bottle of cheap vodka with juice, and at least 20 bottles of wine. All rose and white wine, and all being drunk out of wine glasses. It was so funny to me, everyone brought wine for everyone else and just kept refilling them all night. I loved it. I would have taken a picture but I was trying to fit in and that would have been weird :)