Let the Sun Shine

It's been absolutely beautiful in Aix here this week and it makes it even harder to do my homework. (And by this week I actually mean the week of March 26.)

Sunday
I decided it was really quite necessary to leave my house since I spent Saturday doing my homework. So I went to the park with my friend and we had a lovely time reading and accidentally napping in the sunshine. I sure will miss this sunshine when I go home. And the lack of humidity here bumps Aix up quite a few points in my book.

Monday
I got another midterm grade back, woo hoo for As! At my internship I watched the older kids do french improv which was hilarious. And pretty much the same as American improv. 

Tuesday
Got that final A, I'm four for four, woop. Did some classes, some internships, some museums, the usual.

Thursday
I sat in TWO parks on Thursday. One I sat in for a few hours during lunch time with my friends and then one after class with another friend because it was too early and too sunny to go home. More parks than class on Thursday, that's how we do study abroad.

Friday
Today was day one of three days of excursions. I'm going to be exhausted...
Rendez-vous at 8h15 (ugh, so early) to board a bus to go on our way to a little vineyard near a town called Brignole, about 40 minutes away from Aix. We got a tour from two people who worked there who told us about the crops, the reaping, the pressing, the fermenting, all those fun things. When I first walked in the cave, the first thing that I noticed was that cave smelled like my childhood.

Barrels and barrels of aging wine.

"Wait," you might be saying to yourself, "Catharine, why does your childhood smell like a wine cave?"
Well dear reader, it's because my parents have towed me along to many wine tastings throughout my childhood. I didn't taste the wine of course, but the smell is so familiar.
Anyways. In the surrounding grounds there were some bunnies, flowers, gardens, trees, and of course the vineyard bit itself. And the little girl of the vineyard owners was there just hanging out. Um, how cool to grow up in a vineyard! We had a charming wine tasting and I spent a chunk of time playing peek a boo with the little girl from behind a door. I'm always mature, especially at wine tastings. (The wine cave will actually smell like her childhood.)

Pretty view of the vineyard

The actual grape bush/trees, but they're not quite blooming yet.

Then we went to an old Gregorian monastery which was also pretty darn cool. It's not so interesting to look at, but the acoustics in there are incredible. We had a man who is a professional singer and who restores Gregorian chants come sing to us in the church. It was an amazing experience. The way the cathedral was built makes it sound like a whole chorus is singing in perfect harmony when only one person is singing because of the way the echos work. Then we all got to sing with him which was also super cool. Then finally went home and slept.

Saturday
Spent the day in Avignon with my history class. First we saw the Palais des Papes and walked around learning about architecture and stuff. It's pretty empty inside the actual building, but it's still cool.

Inside the big cathedral

 Next we went to the Musée du Petit Palais, which had a bunch of pictures we had to study for our test, I shan't bore you with that. Finally we got to go to the Pont d'Avignon, or the bridge of Avignon.

Le Pont d'Avignon

 And I'm not sure if you know, but there's a song about this bridge that says people dance on it.
 Here's a creepy children's song version to show you: Le Pont d'Avignon

Thus, naturally, we danced on it.

View from the bridge

And here's a carousel of my childhood, or so I'm told.

Sunday
Final day of excursions. This days was with IAU and so all the students went. We loaded up on a bus at 9AM and drove our way to the Luberon! The Luberon is a fancy and rich area about an hour and a half away from Aix. Our first stop was the city of Lourmarin. There was a little chateau there we stopped to see and run around in. Then we saw Albert Camus' grave. With a lizard running on it. That's the important thing to take away from this.

Pretty view in Lourmarin

The cutest dog decided to pose for me

It's just too pretty. I may buy a summer chateau out here at some point.

Next up, we drove to Lacoste. Lacoste is a perched city, so we had to climb an incredible number of stairs to get up to the top to look out over the city below us. We also had one of Marquis de Sade's ruined castles right next to us. Our guide from IAU told us we could go soak in the atmosphere of Sade, err... thanks but no thanks.
We had a nice picnic and then wandered around some foresty area before heading back to down to hop on the bus again.

Just over looking the land. No big deal, right?

Our last stop was the magical land of Roussillon. It used to be a quarry to mine ocher (I think?) so it's bright and brilliant orangey red. We got to hike through there and see the beautiful green trees contrasted against the orange/red ground. Some of the tree trunks are even colored orange from being in that area. So cool.

Looking out over the land

Unreal. Orange everywhere.

After we finished hiking through we got some ice cream, of course. I had some delicious peanut, chocolate, caramel, vanilla, who knows what. It was magical. Happily we all loaded back up on the bus to go back to Aix. And then that night I got to study for my history test on Monday. :(

And that is all for last week! This week will come in a smaller installment. Sorry if I switch tenses all around on you, I started this entry last week and am just finishing it now... Whoops!