Bonjour!

Today was our first full day in Aix En Provence. Yesterday we took 3 trains to get here. Luckily, we managed to make all of our trains without any problems. Sadly, I got sick from all the travel once we arrived. On another note, our new air bnb is so quaint! We are in the top floor of a home in a small apartment. There is no AC and it's about 92 degrees in here and it's 9:30pm... The walls are made of white stucco cement..... if that's even a thing. To get our keys, we had to search all over the city for a French man in a cafe (which cafe wasn't specified) who had an envelope with my name on it. It was like a bad scavenger hunt that we didn't know we had to play - while being sick in 100 degree weather. That sounds pretty horrible rereading it..... which it was at the time... but now we are both very happy and thrilled to be here!

Today we woke up, found a small street cafe and ate raisin bread. Except for it was the fancy French kind so it didn't come in a plastic bag with other sliced pieces. While eating and drinking our coffee, a girl started waving and calling my name from across the street. I thought she was on crazy pills since there was no way I could possibly know anyone in the South of France. She did look a bit familiar but it made no sense. So I started turning around looking for the person she was calling too. Nope. Just me. Josh was staring me down asking if I knew her. I told him there was no way I could know her. Then she started yelling that she was from SCAD and we met in the ambassador program and I just burst out laughing! She was the girl I thought she was! How strange is that? She was with a group of about 80 other SCAD students who are currently studying in Lacoste, France (one of our abroad locations). They were on a one day field trip to Aix En Provence. What a coincidence is that?! We couldn't get over it. Small world.... Seriously.

After that, we finished our breakfast and headed to the Granet Museum. It is known as one of France's best museums. To see the entire museum, you have to visit two buildings in different parts of the city. The work was great and the museums were substantial in size. The first building had a traveling exhibition of modern art from San Francisco. Lots of Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, Roy Lichtenstien and Richard Diebenkorn, a new favorite painter of mine. Josh and I loved every minute of it. There were lots of paintings, sketches and sculptures to look at. The second museum held more classic artists like Picasso, Monet and Cezanne. Both museums were absolutely fantastic.

We then had lunch in a little cafe. The food was delicious and very filling! At this point, a tiny bit of French was coming back to me and I could get basic thoughts and needs across. I haven't spoken French in 5 years and sadly, I am not one of the blessed folk who pick up languages easily, but I adore French and I remember a bit. Josh and I realized by the end of the day that I was meant to live in France. I love it. Everyone thinks I am a local... until I speak in my broken French hahaa. I can fake the accent very well and it had posed as a problem when I say "Hello. How are you?" to someone and receive an earful of French sentences back that I can not respond to. Hehe oh well. Maybe we will move here one day and speak fluently. Josh is refusing to say much. I love when he tries. :) He usually says thank you instead of hello and hello instead of good bye. Josh and I got through one meal today without speaking any English! We were so proud!

Josh and I visited a cathedral in the middle of downtown. It was lovely. A young man was learning how to play the organ in the middle of the sanctuary. He was pretty good and it was a beautiful sound. We saw a group of people walking outside and decided to follow. What we didn't know was that we were joining a French tour of the cathedral's garden. The speaker was incredibly nervous and only spoke about the columns in the courtyard. One by one. There were SO MANY COLUMNS. In my opinion, they all pretty much looked the same - but he had plenty to say about each individual column. Every word was in French. When the crowd laughed, we awkwardly turned around. Staying focused was harder than normal. The garden was beautiful so it was worth it. The experience was hysterical.

At this moment, Josh is laying on the bed next to me (a bit bored) and stretching his legs as far apart as possible from each other trying to touch them to two different walls. He keeps saying how wonderful of a country this is while this happens.... Hmmm....

The rest of our day, we found galleries all over the city, stores of clothes and kitchen items and went into small shops that sold lavender, soaps, honey, nougat and other French things. We found one store owner's keys on a shelf in his store. I thought he was going to kiss us when we handed them to him. In another gallery, the owner displayed gorgeous handmade artifacts from Papua New Guinea. Everyone was very friendly and tried their best to communicate with us. Most people did not think we were from the States.

Josh successfully touched both walls at the same time by doing the splits. He wants to make sure my probably 8 blog readers know this.

That's all for now,

Lilly

Market 10€

Cafe 10€

Le Terminus Cafe 31€

Aix Presso 36€

Day 8 - I'm From SCAD Too

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Day 8 - I'm From SCAD Too