Le week-end

We had hoped to visit either Nîmes or Arles this weekend, since both are pretty easy day trips, but we ended up staying here, which was not a disappointment at all. Friday evening I explored for a few hours by myself in the rain, and later on we went to IPN, which is a club where foreign students can get in free because they are so desperate for people. It was pretty empty at that point, but I did see Pélopidas' former student from the Office of Tourism there. Aix is a nice balance between city and town, I think. It's funny how often we run into people--I think I've seen Kevin just as many times out and about as I have in our house.

Saturday we threw a surprise party for one of our friends, which was a grand succès. He had absolutely no idea and was so excited. It was sad though because his roommate and another friend were taking him to dinner to get him out of the apartment while we set up, and they happened to walk by while we were at dinner beforehand, so he thought everyone had gone out without him on his birthday. Of course, he figured out an hour later that was not the case at all, but we felt bad about it while he didn't know. A few of the girls made a giant checklist of 21 things he had to do, like do a 21-second handstand, send his girlfriend texts from 21 French phones, get pictures with 21 natives, and there were a few Aixthemed things like jumping in a fountain and eating a spoonful of nutella (I suggested a jarful, but they only wrote spoonful on the final copy). He nearly accomplished the whole list. It was pretty awesome.

Sunday was spent doing homework and then the boys hosted our soirée (they made tacos, ha). Two of my classes are going to be very easy and two will be pretty difficult, I think. In Contemporary France and Conversation, we spend the whole time talking, and there's really no lecture at all, whereas in Art History and Maghreb Film/Lit, we are taking notes the entire class, plus those courses just have a lot more reading. I am enjoying them regardless, and I am trying to buckle down and get a bit more motivated because I have so much free time to do schoolwork this semester that it would be ridiculous for me not to take advantage of it.

Other big news from this weekend--there's this bakery I've liked from the very beginning because you can smell the pastries all the way down the street, and the women who work there are really nice, and it's actually pretty cheap. Elyse and I went there one evening (they open up a window to keep serving people from the street even though the shop's closed so they can make things for the next day), and I didn't want to break a 20, so I used the few coins I had to get a petit pain au chocolat, and the woman insisted that wasn't enough and gave me three for the price of one (about 45 cents). But anyway, this weekend we discovered it's open 24 hours!!

Also, since she volunteered to be the comic relief in my blog, I should update that the birds here really have it in for Elyse. One targeted her foot the other day while she was babysitting. She's babysitting again right now, but hopefully having better luck...