I went to classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at the university (or the fac, short for faculté), and everything went pretty normally. On Wednesday morning, I went to hang out with my French friend at her apartment. I got there and was a little lost because there were four different apartments that were marked with the exact same number as hers. So I called her to find out which one was the right one, and it turned out that none of them were hers. Plus, she'd forgotten that we'd made plans for Wednesday instead of Thursday. We got it all sorted out, and she ended up driving us to McDonald's because we were running out of time to eat before our classes started that day. I know--shame! I don't even like McDonald's in the US!
Thursday was a little bit more interesting. One of my American friends here just got coffee sent to her from the US. We have all been missing our usual non-espresso cups of coffee, so we decided to get up and make ourselves a real American-style breakfast: scrambled eggs with peppers, potatoes, and zucchini, with Old Crown coffee. It was amazing--and probably the best breakfast I've had since I've been in France. After we ate, we spent most of our morning just exploring Aix. I thought I'd pretty much gotten to know the city by now, but it turns out it's a lot bigger than I thought it was. So it was fun visiting places I'd never been before!
Thursday night we went to our theatre class, and a bunch of us went out to eat together to celebrate the birthday of one of the American girls here. We ended up going back to her apartment for chocolate cake with sprinkles! It was delicious.
Friday was a little slower, which was really nice. I had dinner with my French family again, and that was really fun! It was only me, the mom, and the two boys, but the three of them ended up spending a long time trying to say the word "rollerblading", which is really hard for the French, apparently. The family gave me two French DVDs for me to watch this week. I'm really comfortable being around them because their family dynamic is really similar to what I'm used to. It makes it really easy to get along with them. I came back to the apartment and ended up spending the night alone in my apartment--and it was wonderful.Saturday, I went with a few of the girls from our program to climb what is known as Cezanne's mountain: Sainte-Victoire. I have wanted to climb it since I first saw it a month ago, and I finally got the opportunity, so I didn't want to miss it. We left from downtown Aix at about 11:15 and actually started climbing just after noon. We reached the summit at about 4:00 after we stopped and ate lunch. It was absolutely amazing. I've climbed mountains before with my high school youth group in West Virginia, but that was nothing compared to this. We were so high yesterday. It was absolutely incredible.
When we were at the top, the wind was whipping around us. I wasn't sure if it was because we were so high up or because of the Mistral, but there wasn't any wind in Aix, so I'm assuming it was because of our altitude. Awesome! (Actually, it was a little scary because we kept seeing people's hats getting ripped off their heads, so we knew the wind was pretty strong, and there wasn't really that much room to stand at the very top.)
We made it back to Aix at about 6:30 after waiting for the bus to pick us up for about 45 minutes. While we waited, we made friends with a French family that had just climbed the mountain too. Saturday night I was exhausted and a little sunburned, so I went to bed semi-early before our big day today.
Today we went to Monaco and Nice! We met at the bus at about 8:30 and finally got on the road at about 9. The group was actually so big that we took two buses, but I wasn't aware of that fact until we were nearly back tonight. We got to Monaco at about 11, unloaded, and got to the Palace just in time to see the changing of the guard! It was actually pretty anticlimactic, especially because it was hard to see, but it's also not very exciting. Oh, well. At least now I can say that I've seen it! After that, I went with one of my friends to find the casino because I'd been practicing how to play craps online just so that I could play it once in Monte Carlo. It was really disappointing to find out that there is a 10€ cover charge to get in to the table room. So instead Bri and I played the slot machines--which are incredibly difficult to understand for how popular they are. Basically, our gambling was more like us putting our money in the machine and slapping random buttons until we ran out of money. And apparently this was a common experience among the Americans.
One thing that stood out while we were in Monaco was how clean everything was. It was really funny because my friend and I agreed that if it wasn't an independent state from France, it would be the stereotypical French city. And then we realized that it really is the stereotypical French city anyway because it claims to be independent but it relies on others to protect it. Funny, huh?
Another thing that really affected our day was the wind. Oh my goodness! The wind was insane! At one point, we ended up making a video about the near-hurricane conditions. Fortunately for us, the rain didn't actually start until we were on the bus on our way home.
On the way back, we ended up making an hour-long pit stop in Nice at a parfumerie, or in English, a perfume factory called Fragonard. It smelled really, really good! We got a tour of the factory, and then we got to sample their best-selling scents. Their candles smelled soooo good, and I'm a sucker for candles. I didn't have enough cash on me at the time to buy anything, though. Which was probably a good thing.
Wednesday, we have to go to Marseille to get a medical examination for our carte de séjour, and I'm very excited because there is a Starbucks in Marseille, which (hopefully) means that I'll be able to have my Pumpkin Spice Latte soon!!! You really have no idea what that would mean to me. It's bad enough that there aren't any pumpkins here for decorations and pies, but no Pumpkin Spice Lattes would be absolutely unbearable.
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