Mont Sainte-Victoire

My second to last day in Aix, I finally made it to St. Victoire. There were a few "Aix" things I didn't do before leaving, but I'm glad I at least managed to fit in this one. After I had stayed up most of the night writing a final paper, Robert and I went to the marché in the morning to buy apples to bring with our sandwiches, and we took the Victorine, a shuttle with a very angry driver, to the mountain.
Robert had already hiked St. Victoire several times, but he suggested one of the trails he hadn't taken before that turned out to be great for photo opps. I think there are three trails that lead to the top, and then quite a few other smaller ones around the mountain.
About half an hour into the hike, the path forked here, and we took the "easy" route to the left. The "difficult" one really leads straight up the mountain, and we didn't have the gear to faire l'escalade. Also I don't know how. St. Victoire isn't a very imposing-looking mountain, so I was expecting a much lazier hike than this actually was...we managed to do it in slightly under the suggested time even though we stopped a million times to take pictures.
Here's a pic of the rocky terrain. and Robert. I was really regretting wearing jeans and long sleeves for a while, but it was freezing at the top, and then I was glad I had bothered to bring a fleece. and scarf.
Approaching the top. Notice the pretty snow on the peaks in the distance. Robert had climbed a different trail just the day before, and he said it was much clearer that day, but I still ended up with some pretty good pics.
From the top, where we stopped to eat lunch. There's an old monastery (prieuré) very close to the top, and the people eating in the cabin there invited us to join them, but we wanted to keep going for the view.
From the other side. I wiped out just after we started to descend, which was pretty funny except I think Robert was really afraid I was going to fall down the mountain.
Refuge Cézanne. not much to look at, but we missed it on the way up and were pleased to come across it when we came back down
We had some time to kill before the next shuttle back to the center of Aix, so we walked around for a bit and saw a group of adults learning to ride mountain bikes on an obstacle course in a parking lot. That was really funny, but I didn't want to embarrass them by taking a picture. We also found this waterfall and were taking pictures of it when another shuttle came by, so we hopped on that one and made it back in time to meet Maité, Mme Scott, and other students for farewell drinks at Splendid, a bar I had passed a million times on my walk to class but never been to.
My last day in Aix was spent taking my art history exam and writing my internship paper, which I didn't send in until 10 or 11 that night. Then, I literally threw everything in my bags, said bye to Elyse, and made the trek from my auberge to my friend Claire's place since we were sharing a cab to the airport early the next morning. I packed really, really lightly for these three and a half months and still had too much stuff, but I forgot small bags aren't necessarily light, and a thirty-minute walk wheeling my suitcase over the cobblestone was pretty miserable. Regardless, I made it to our au revoir party at Auberge Hugo, and then we all went out one last time and got a picture with one of the waiters at the 24 hour café who has a really ridiculous mustache. Saying goodbye to Renaud was really sad. He said he's gotta come to the US sometime.

Back at Claire and Savannah's I slept for an hour and half before their French roommate, Luana, woke me up because she thought we were supposed to be leaving in 15 minutes. I said all kinds of unintelligible, irrelevant things to her in French before waking up enough to understand that we needed to leave. Thank goodness for Luana because we had all slept through our alarms or they didn't go off or something. The flight home wasn't too bad, especially since there was a group of us going all the way to Philadelphia, so that made it less sad, and one girl came all the way to Nashville with me.

This marks the end of my blog, which I am kind of sad to let go even though I thought at first I'd hate blogging and never keep up with it. au contraire. Thanks to everyone who read. It was nice to know I had people keeping up with what I was doing : ) ciao ciao, as Renaud would say

La dernière classe etc.

So, even though I am home now, I want to blog about few things just so I'll have them recorded...

My last Monday in Aix, I went to the theater for my final course with Pelopidas. I thought this would be really sad, but it was actually great. The class met one more time after I left before breaking for Christmas, but since it was my last session, Pelopidas suggested everyone have a drink early to celebrate. He joked it was a new sort of warm-up we were trying to help with our goal of becoming disponible. Also, everybody kept making jokes during the exercises, like when someone looked sad, they'd ask if it was because I was going away, etc. It was such a good ending to the course. I skedaddled quickly afterward to avoid goodbyes, and because I always arrived to Monday dinners a course or two behind anyway. I often managed to do something embarrassing at those dinners because I hadn't seen everyone else be served, most notably once ending up eating out of the serving bowl with the serving spoon...

Initially, the last time I was going to be seeing Pelopidas was when we met to discuss my internship midterm, but then he wanted to interview me about my experience working on the play to add to all of the interviews he's got already. I answered questions in French and then translated my responses into English. He said he might put some of the footage on the new website he's creating, so I told him I'd watch for it. We said à bientôt ("see you soon") instead of au revoir since he's hoping to bring the play to the US sometime this spring or summer with Robert's help. It was a very happy goodbye.

For our last meals, both families made a bit of a celebration with champagne and such. Eloise made cards with cartoon versions of us in an airplane flying away, and we gave the Daniels flowers and Mme Marchetto a tiny santon--a clay figurine that's used in the crèche, the provençale nativity scene. Both families told us to look them up and come for dinner if we're ever in Aix again, and Mme Marchetto wrote us each little notes and asked for our addresses.

Since I whined about missing out on the 13 desserts, I should add there was so much food leftover that everyone was eating for days afterward, and I did get to sample almost everything.

Cool, cultural things

A few weeks ago, I finally made it over the Atelier Cézanne, where Elyse has been interning this semester. Cézanne's studio is sort of tucked away in the trees, and for the most part, it is as he left it with all of his original things. It would be such a nice place to work, I think, for Cézanne and Elyse. There are gigantic windows on two walls so that he could paint with natural lighting, and a special to carry his paintings outside to paint en plein air. Elyse gave me a free personal tour, which was awesome. You can't take pictures inside or I would have, but there are photos on the website. The studio is upstairs above the tiny gift shop, seen here through the window. Elyse is playing with Paula, the friendly studio cat named after the painter.
After seeing the studio and the garden area where there's a cabin that has small temporary exhibits, I continued up the hill to the terrain des peintres, where Cézanne used to paint St. Victoire. There are copies of his paintings posted for people to see, and there was a tour group visiting while I was there.
Then, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, my friend Dani who has been interning with an orchestra here and taking classes at the conservatory had an organ concert in Saint Sauveur, which is just across the street from the theater, but I lamely haven't been inside until now. The picture didn't too out to well, but there is the impressive organ, and Dani is up there somewhere. It was really funny because at first we were all, including Dani, locked out, but we couldn't figure out how to get inside, and we could hear another student practicing. About 20 of us, including professors, students, and French friends, turned out to see her play, and her dad had just arrived for a visit, so she had a gigantic crowd for what turned out to be a very informal event, even though Dani's teacher kept telling her it was a "concert." We all treated it like a concert too, snapping so many photos, and her dad videotaped it. I can totally relate to thinking I'm going to be doing one thing at my internship and getting there only to find out it's something very different.

No picture for this one, but Friday I met Robert in Marseille after he finished teaching classes for the day, and we saw Les caprices de Marianne, a play by Alfred de Musset at the Gyptis Theatre. I read a summary before going because I wanted to catch more than I was able to at the Comédie Francaise--although I understood much more than expected there--and because I knew nothing about this playwright. It was an interesting production. There were hip-hop dancers who changed the scenery and took on a few small roles, and the play which is very reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet was written in the 1830s, I believe, so that was a cool juxtaposition.

I'm sorry Robert didn't get here sooner because he's been really fun to have around. He jokingly asked the other day how many hits he's got in my blog, and I told him he's actually probably got a ton because I kept writing "Robert still isn't here..." for two months.

We've also had a recent addition to the house--Elisa is going to take the place of one of the French roommates in another auberge, but she's been sleeping in the third bed in Elyse's and my room a few nights a week since Fanny hasn't moved out yet. She's really nice, and her mom is American, so she speaks English really well. We only found that out last night, when she told us it's been killing her to listen to the three of us speak in English and not be able to respond. (She thought Vanderbilt might not let her live with us if she wasn't une vraie francaise, but she actually is, and Maité doesn't care that she speaks English well too)

Renaud is the same as ever, except maybe a little mopier because we are about to leave. He started getting sad about my going home long before I did.

Saw Kevin today only because there was a fire at his university and classes were canceled. Apparently, he's a writer and has a blog. It's all in French, but I'm linking it for my own benefit later on.

Comme on s'approche de la fin...

Beginning to feel like things are coming to an end. Last night we had a Christmas party at the center with all of the roommates, dinner families, professors, and some of their spouses. They served the 13 desserts, a Provencale Christmas tradition, which includes a lot of fruits and nuts as well as cakes. Unfortunately, I was sick all day yesterday and didn't try any of them for fear of getting sick on the sidewalk like I did earlier yesterday afternoon...feeling much better today though!

As is typically the case for me when one thing's ending and another's about to begin, I am feeling pretty torn between the two, which I guess is actually a good thing because it means I'm enjoying what I'm doing but also looking forward to whatever comes next. I'm really excited to see everyone over Christmas and then be back at school with my siblings and friends; I'll be taking some interesting classes next semester; we're going to do a play that I'm really, really excited about; but still, I have been looking forward to this time abroad for so long, and it's been everything I wanted it to be, but now it's over, so that's still kind of sad.

Not to be all doom and gloom though. I have done some cool things lately that I need to post about, and I've got a couple more planned for the next few days. Check back soon. Classes end tomorrow, and I do have several substantial papers to write, but I lucked out with no final exam for two classes, so that's awesome

Paris

Last weekend, the whole program went to Paris with Maité, Mme Scott, Gay, and Destiny, plus a few of the girls' boyfriends who were visiting. We left early Thursday morning and arrived in the afternoon, dropped our bags at the hostel (the same one in the Marais where Elyse, Dani, Lindsay, and I stayed back in October), and grabbed sandwiches before a boat tour along the Seine.
The trip was pretty laid-back. We had several group things to do but with a good amount of free time in between so that we could go off on our own. Everyone had been to Paris before except Matt's friend and Destiny, who kept excitedly saying this was her first time in France...
It was pretty chilly, but we bundled up and sat outside the cabin anyway to get better pictures
Destiny being crazy

After the tour we were left to our devices for a while and went to a café for chocolat chaud. It wasn't quite as terribly cold as I was expecting, but I wore tights and leggings pretty much the entire trip, so maybe that's why. We met back up outside Hotel de Ville a while later to walk to dinner. Mme Scott made a funny toast about how great it was to be in Paris even though we were probably all going to eat something weird like spaghetti. I had salad, pasta, and chocolate mousse, so no, not all Thanksgiving food.
The next morning, we met Mme Gailliegue, my art history professor, at the Louvre for a tour. We first went to the room with all of the Rubens paintings commissioned by Marie de Medici to tell the story of her reign in a positive light, which was really interesting since Mme Gailliegue was there to give us a brief history, and then we saw most of the big Neoclassic and Romantic paintings we've studied in class, and that's always cool.
Victory of Samothrace Landing on the landing where we split off so everyone could see the Mona Lisa (La Jaconde). I was so disappointed the first time I saw it because it was much smaller than I'd expected, so this time it actually seemed a little bigger than I remembered. Funny thing to share is that my friend Claire got physically pushed out of the way by an angry Asian man who really wanted his picture with the Mona Lisa. The crowds there are rough.
Mme in front of Le Radeau de la Méduse. Unlike the Mona Lisa, a lot of these paintings were much more massive than I had realized, so seeing them all together is really cool.
After the Louvre we had lunch and went to la St. Chapelle, which elicited some "Wow!"s from even our most cynical group members.

My friend Andy, who I know from the London Maymester, happened to be in Paris with his parents visiting family friends, so he met us there for the tour. It was really fun to see him. I kept translating things the tour guide said to him without really thinking, and then I finally asked him if he'd ever taken any French, and he told me he'd taken it for 6 or 7 years...
Inside the Palais de Justice. According to our guide, you can wander around throughout the whole thing. We only saw the Grande Salle

After the Palais de Justice, a few of us tried to go to the Hotel des Invalides to see Napoleon's tomb, but we missed the last entrance, and most other things were closing about that time, so we headed back in the direction of our hostel. Andy and I ate pastries and caught up until he had to meet his parents for dinner, and then I joined back up with my friends for dinner and drinks, although it was a pretty early night since we had to get up the next morning for a tour of the Musée d'Orsay.
Model of the Opera Garnier. so cool!
Inside the Musée d'Orsay, which is only about 20 years old. I had no idea it was so new. It used to be a train station, as you can tell from this pic
Degas
Monet, Les Coquelicots. We got to see the second half of the works we've studied at d'Orsay, since we finished the class with Impressionism. I have sooo many photos of paintings, but I just stuck a few in here.
After Musée d'Orsay, Elyse, Lindsay, and I went to Musée de l'Orangerie, which houses Monet's Nymphéas. It's really cool because the giant canvases wrap all the way around the two oval rooms.

Giverny is one the things I remember best about my first trip to France, so I really enjoyed seeing these.

Model of the apartment of Paul Guillaume, founder of the museum

More Impressionism downstairs Renoir, Femme nue dans un paysage, and then the temporary exhibit was called Les enfants modeles, and it was all about artist's children with portraits painted by their parents, etc.
L'Orangerie is in the Jardin de Tuileries, so after the museum, we walked along the Champs-Elysées through the Christmas market. Then, we went to Café de Flore, which is famous for being frequented by intellectuals Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Lindsay had to do a powerpoint presentation about the café for one of her classes, and apparently she included pictures of Elyse and me drinking cafés as examples of contemporary intellectuals you might find there

The Hotel de Ville all lit up. It'd be better if I'd crossed a little further to snap a picture without the streetlight, but it was raining, and I was in a hurry to get to the Comédie Francaise to get a last minute ticket. We had wanted to see an opera but couldn't get tickets, so I was pretty determined to see something while in Paris
View from my seat, which I got for 5 euros. I was hoping to see Moliere, but it ended up being Figaro Divorce that night. I went toute seule, and I think that's the first time I've seen a play by myself. The Comédie Francaise is the oldest theatre company in France, and it was nice to see the space, and the production did some really cool things.

Afterward, I met up with friends who were out, and Dani, Elyse, and I went to the Bastille area for a while. The next morning most people went to mass at Notre Dame, but I slept a little later and went to Pere-Lachaise. For those who have seen Paris, Je t'aime, this is the cemetery in the scene with Emily Mortimer.
A couple of my friends who had been the day before when it was raining warned me it wasn't worth it in bad weather, and it was supposed to rain on Sunday, but I chanced it anyway, and the weather was great the whole time. I definitely recommend spending the 2 euros for a map when going because it's gigantic.
Géricault with a replica of Le Radeau de la Méduse on his tomb
It wasn't like any cemetery I've ever been to before because all of the graves have these massive monuments that are clustered together and nearly on top of each other, but it's not at all irreverent, just really pretty and peaceful
Moliere, next to La Fontaine in a gated plot
Oscar Wilde, covered in lipstick kisses and quotes like "Oscar is the greatest man who ever lived!" There's a sign in French and English telling people not to deface the tomb that clearly no one obeys
Edith Piaf
Jim Morrison. I ran into friends Katherine and Lindsay here randomly and accidentally scared them
I had planned to try to do a bit of the Museum of Modern Art that morning too, but I ended up spending the entire morning here, and I still didn't see quite all of the tombs I would have liked to because I spent too much time just wandering the paths, and there are so many artists/musicians/writers, etc. I'd definitely go back when in Paris again

Brussels

Friday the 13th (apparently that day isn't bad luck in France, but having 13 people at a dinner table is, so much so that some superstitious people leave dinner parties to even out the number of guests), Elyse and I took an afternoon flight to Brussels after class. We landed in an airport nearly an hour outside the city, so getting to the city and then finding a hostel took some time. The first one we went to was booked, but we got a map there that we used for the rest of weekend --it was a sort of mini guide book for adolescents too and random, funny Brussels things to do--and the clerk called ahead to find space for us at another hostel. We had a dinner at a place on the map and then went to Mort Subite ("sudden death") where there is a special blanche beer made just for that bar.

Naturally, we had one of those, and then Elyse also ordered a waffle. When the waiter brought our drinks, he tossed a cold packaged waffle on the table too. Pretty disappointing since we were in Belgium and all, but we had a good laugh about it.
The next morning after breakfast at the hostel, we headed out to a Flea Market at the Place Jeu de Balle. It was raining and while trying to open my umbrella, I walked right into one of the short posts lining the streets to keep cars off the sidewalks. I flipped over it and completely wiped out. This was a few days after I took quite a tumble down the spiral staircase that leads up to Robert's room, so I was rocking some pretty impressive bruises for a while. The Flea Market was sort of sad since it was raining and a lot of people were closing up their tables, so we moved onto indoor activities.
Cantillon Brewery and Gueuse Museum. One of the only breweries in Belgium (and the only in Brussels, I think) that still uses turn-of-the-century machinery and spontaneous fermentation to brew their beers. We got a brief explanation from a tour guide and then she gave us pamphlets explaining the rooms and left us to our own devices. It was interesting since I know pretty much nothing about brewing. I guess I could explain it on here except most people reading probably either know or don't care, I'm guessing? Also, we got two beers included in the admission price (a mere 5 euros)! a gueuse and cherry kriek

Elyse with the wheat
This room smelled so yeasty and delicious
Yum
Art exhibit on our way back from the brewery. I just really liked these
St. Michael's Cathedral...I guess maybe we couldn't take pictures inside because I don't have any, but I do remember there being some very cool stained glass. also remember eating a waffle outside before going in
Next stop after lunch was Chocopolis because our maps had coupons for 15% off or something like that, and they promised a free tasting. I bought a few chocolates and some bars to take home too.
Hotel de Ville, I think
The Belgians are almost as proud of their fries as they are of Mannekin Pis (fountain pictured below)
Organizations can dress Mannekin to raise awareness for their causes. This fountain was so much smaller than I expected it to be. There's also a statue of a peeing dog in the city, which we saw, and Mannekin used to have a sister somewhere, although I don't think the fountain runs anymore
St. Catherine's. The interesting(?) thing about this church is that there's a public urinal on the side...that people were using...I'd say at least 10 or a dozen men went into the stalls during the 10 minutes we were standing there. I can't believe it was okay to attach a urinal to the church, but apparently it was and nobody has any qualms about using it. Everything we read about Brussels talked about how the Belgians build really ugly buildings right next to works of art and they like it that way, so I guess maybe this is a prime example.
Parc near the Place Royal. We walked by the Palace, but it's weirdly only open for tours during the summer. also checked out a sculpture garden nearby, and we passed Cinematek, which has one of the largest film collections in the world. According to the map, Martin Scorsese is quite a fan. We walked through the park and ate chocolates and then went shopping for a bit although we didn't buy anything. There's a musical instrument museum, but supposedly the best thing about it is the view of the city from the top floor, so we took pictures outside the museum and skipped it.

Our map recommended a bar where we could meet "Therese," so we killed a few hours there playing backgammon and drinking framboise. When Elyse ordered, Therese asked if she was sure that's what she wanted because the raspberry beer wasn't very alcoholic. I guess it probably was 5 o'clock by then, but it was still funny Therese thought we were just there to get smashed.

Around dinnertime, we walked down what our map called "eating street" where there were actually very few restaurants, and then it started raining, and we were cold, so we were really excited to happen upon a cozy-looking restaurant where the walls were lined with books...it turned out to be an all-you-can-eat rib place. Even the five-year-old girl at the table next to us was eating ribs. We weren't hungry enough to eat 20 dollars worth of ribs, so after about half an hour of scrutinizing everyone's plates around us and trying to get our waiter's attention for a menu, we were very American and left after drinking a few glasses of water, which was I believe the only tap water we got in Belgium. That's probably the one thing I really miss about the US--tap water being free at restaurants. It was unheard of in the cities I visited over break, and there are even some places in France where you have to order a bottle.

After going to a restaurant where we didn't eat ribs, we went to a bar from the map where I had a beer called the Pink Killer. I didn't anticipate so much fruity, brightly-colored beer in Belgium.
The next morning we went to see the Atomium, which was built for the 1958 World Expo. pretty cool. By Sunday afternoon, we had done pretty much everything there was to do in Brussels itself. We went to a bookstore for a few hours to do some art history reading (L'Oeuvre) before catching our flight back to Marseille. It was nice to have such a laid-back visit after the sightseeing marathon of vacances, and I had wanted to go to another French-speaking country besides France, so Brussels definitely accomplished that.