Welcome to Aix!! My Home for the next 4 Months!

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Bonjour!!!

To everyone who received an email about my first travel blog I apologize, there were some technical difficulties with it but I think I am good to go now! You just get to read a novel to catch up on everything :-) So, thanks to the precent set by my wonderful sister Amanda, here is my blog! For those of you who don't know, I'm studying abroad right now, which means Davidson College is allowing me to go to school in a foreign country for the semester. I chose to go to Aix-en-Provence, a medium sized city in Southern France, where I attend the Institute for American Universities at Le Centre d'Aix (The Aix Center), and stay with a local French host in their home. And for those of you wondering how I got out of Spring practice for Football, my coaches do encourage studying abroad as long as we are committed to staying in Davidson for the Summer to work out. So you know where to find me this summer! This blog entry will cover everything from my trip here to today. No unfair comparisons are to be made to my journalist sister's blog that was kept while she traveled last fall. Thank you and enjoy :-)

It all started on January 23rd, 2009. The morning of my flight there was plenty of excitement. Apparently, one of our cows (Green Tag, aka Dinner) wanted to keep the number of residents at the Sarver Farm the same and decided to have her baby to make up for me leaving. In honor of my trip to France we named it Filet Mignon, which in French means a cute piece of steak! Then Mom, Dad, my girlfriend Libby, and I left to meet Aunt Leslie at Dulles (Libby is also studying abroad!). Despite the stress of making sure we were on time we made it to Dulles, met Aunt Leslie, and made it through to our gate without a hitch. Mom, Dad, and Aunt Leslie waited with us until it was time to go. Mom only cried a little and I made sure to give the one last look back before I went out of sight :-). After that tender moment (yeah I teared up some too) I boarded the United Airlines flight, and since I've never flown on an international flight before it was a very exciting experience! I had a window seat and I was enthralled by the size of the plane and the little TV thing on the back of the seat in front of me where I could follow on a map exactly where our plane was. After a movie (Eagle Eye. It's great, go see it!), some attempted and pretty much failed sleep, and a couple surprisingly delicious meals, we touched down in Munich, Germany at 7AM. I was very intimidated by the huge lines at immigration and the stern looking guards but apparently I do have a real passport because they let me through.

Walking to my connecting flight I was like a kid in a candy store and VERY touristy as I took pictures of random funny German advertisements, etc. I'm still working on how to get pictures up because I forgot my camera's hook up to my computer (the ones I've uploaded are stolen from friend's facebooks). We had over a 3 hours lay over so we kicked back at our gate. Another American girl showed up and started a conversation with Libby and I. Her name is Rachel and as fate would have it she was also heading to Aix to study at IAU! I got the down-low on everything from her because she is a full year student and this is her second semester in Aix. Soon we were joined by about 10 other IAU students all waiting for the same flight. Many of them I am good friends with now in Aix. After a while I got thirsty and decided, where better to buy my first beer than in Germany? I bought a glass of Paulaner München and it was by far one of the smoothest beers I've ever tasted! Soon after we boarded our flight, a tiny little Lufthansa jet, and took off for Marseilles. The flight was incredible! From Dulles to Munich wasn't that pretty because it was dark out (although flying over the English Channel and making out some boats on it was cool), but now it was light and I could see German country side, cities, and best of all, the Alps! They were covered in snow and AMAZING! I took pictures but again that will have to wait until I get a camera hook up for my computer.

We crossed into France and after about an hour and a half arrived in Marseilles, France, a port city on the Mediterranean that is the second largest city in France and located 20 miles south of Aix. The Mediterranean was nearly as gorgeous as the Alps even though it was rainy and cloudy. There the director of IAU, Leigh Smith, was waiting to greet us. After a few tense minutes of praying my luggage would arrive, which it did, we all loaded onto a bus. The drive was gorgeous, I can hardly describe how amazingly beautiful this area is. Soon we pulled into a parking lot in Aix with the gorgeous mountain, St. Victoire, looming over (think Massanutten mountain times 2.5. More to come on this). They then called us off the bus one by one to meet our waiting hosts. I met up with my WONDERFUL host Camille (Thats pronounced Cuh-ME-uh) Jore! She is a French widow and she speaks only a few words of English but she has been hosting students for over 10 years and is as sweet as they come. We met with the traditional kiss on each cheek greeting and piled luggage into her TINY car. She was quick to say that her name is Camille, NOT Madame Jore, and to use the informal "tu" when speaking with her not the formal "vous" that young people normally use with adults. My French is pretty shaky but Camille is incredibly patient and skilled at communicating. With her help I will be fluent in no time! I would say her only drawback is she smokes... but so does everyone else in France so I'll put up with it for a few months (She smokes less than a lot of people and she is good about keeping it away from me!). We got to the apartment which is pretty tiny but I have everything I need since she has internet! I know quite a few students here who do not! After unpacking and settling in a bit, along with a phone call home to say I had arrived safely, I wanted to go to bed SO bad. I did not think I was going to be so tired but it hit me like a ton of bricks, but Camille refused to let me go to bed (this is around 5 PM). She knows what she's doing when it comes to jet lag I suppose. Camille soon served up dinner around 7 (which she does EVERY night at nearly 7 on the dot every time!). It was AMAZING! She is an incredible cook as I have discovered at just about every meal (I mean her spaghetti has nothing on my Mom's/Gramma's but she's still a darn good cook!). We had wonderfully tender grilled chicken covered with a creamy sauce with mushrooms in it and of course a baguette and some sort of garlic cheese spread. Oh, and some delicious French wine as well! After that I couldn't stand it anymore and Camille let me go to bed. I was out as soon as I hit the pillow and aside from waking up and checking email, etc around 5AM, I slept for around 15 hours.

The First Week
My first week in Aix was soooo much fun!!! I've met a ton of awesome people here and the city is just gorgeous and so much fun! It may be a medium sized city but there are still a ton of people here and there is always stuff going on all around you! It is comprised of an inner circle which is called "old Aix" or the original city. This is by far the best part (and where my school is located and where I spend most of my time despite living about a 40 minute walk outside of it, and don't worry I have a bus pass). Its based around a huge amazing central fountain and round-a-bout called "La Rotonde." There are a few main roads, such as the Cours Mirabeau which the Aixois (the locals) call Le Petite Champs Élysées (the little version of the famous Champs Élysées of Paris), but mostly it is all back alleys, since all the buildings in this part of town are at least 5 stories high and everything is very close together. There are an endless amount of winding back alleys which open up into random squares and markets. It is FULL of amazing fountains (which Aix is famous for) and old buildings! There are shops EVERYWHERE! Sometimes its hard to find your way around because all of these back alleys are random in the directions they go, the town is not on a grid at all. That can work out in your favor though when you want to get lost and see the sites. You randomly happen upon gorgeous old cathedrals or neat little shops. My school is right next to the beautiful cathedral St. Sauver (and I even have a couple classes in a room in this cathedral that IAU rents). It is also next to a square that I've learned is named for the French Resistence of WWII because hundreds of Resistence members were executed in this square. History like that gives me chills! I LOVE IT!!!! I've seen so much and there is still so much about Aix to discover.

Anyway, about 7 or 8 of us decided at our open house on Sunday that we wanted to go out that night and introduce ourselves to Aix, a city that is known to be a college town and a college student friendly environment. I started my night with some B52 shots in a hole in the wall place that was really neat. The first flaming shot I've ever had and it was delicious! We bar hopped to lots of different Irish Pubs and random bars. Everyone's favorite was O'Shannon's which we were told was the normal hang out for IAU students. It was so much fun, but I think our large group of Americans (which grew to probably over 15) might have strengthened the "loud, obnoxious Americans" stereotype for some French people that night. But nonetheless, a great welcome to the Aix nightlife! The next two days were orientation days at IAU. We toured the city, had little seminars about culture shock and the best places and worst places to go for everything we need, and got books and stuff for our class. Tuesday afternoon I started class. I have 5 classes while I'm here. French 214, which is perfect for me because its all about conversation and culture (I want to be able to speak French, I don't care about writing essays in it!) and the teacher is the BEST teacher at the institute! Our first lesson included learning "c'est nul" which means "it sucks." I have Archaeology 310 which is amazing as well!!! The teacher is a hilarious Frenchman with a THICK accent and is so stereotypical that he takes a smoke break halfway through class! I think it will be easy and FUN because I am surrounded by the history I am learning about. Same goes for my History 314 class which is the history of the French Occupation during WWII. The teacher is great and its a VERY interesting topic to learn from a French perspective! In fact the professors wife helps with the class and is a Frenchwoman who grew up during this time! I also have a Communications class with the same professor that is all about Provence (The region of Southern France where Aix is located. A very famous and distinct region!). It's all about media throughout the history of Provence and I learn so much about where I'm living in that class! We even get to go on a trip to see the skull of Mary Magdelene which is located not far from here! Finally I have an Art History class that I was a little hesitent about at first but is growing on me, especially since we are going to take an overnight field trip to Paris and see the Louvre and other famous Parisian museums! I am so happy with all of my classes and although they are by no means a vacation they are quite a bit easier than most Davidson classes which I'm grateful for! Anyway, we went out quite a bit throughout the week but everyone here has discovered that nights in the bars and many dance clubs get expensive so after the excitement of the first week it has slowed down to just going out 2 or 3 times a week. We did discover, however, that you can buy bottles of wine here for as cheap as 1€50 (thats right around $2)! And its even relatively good wine!

My first week here culminated with an awesome weekend! 7 of my friends and myself decided to climb Mt. St. Victoire! We took a tiny little bus around 11:00 on Saturday moning to the base of the mountain. It was a pretty ride but the combination of the bus smelling terrible, shaking all over the place, and windey mountain roads made me feel pretty sick. The fresh mountain air perked me right up, however, as I stood at the base of one of the most beautiful mountains I've ever seen. If you've ever seen a Paul Cezanne painting (he was an Aixois and they worship him like a god here along with filmmaker Marcel Pagnol to a lesser extent), he painted St. Victoire over 80 times in his paintings so chances are you've seen it. The hike was incredible. It wasn't too difficult, at first, and we soon reached a picnic spot next to an OLD church tucked away in the mountain. There was an old bell you could ring, which we did, and we all sat down to enjoy some bread a cheese for lunch. We even had some champagne to celebrate reaching what we thought was the end of the path. My friends Sebastian and Kevin and I explored and did some semi-legitimate rock climbing, because we were still FAR from the summit. We soon realized there was more path to go. Us, along with Libby and my friend Michelle, decided to keep going while the other 3 girls we were with went back. This section was far more challenging but worth it when we reached the end of the path. We were disappointed because the path we had chosen doesn't go to the summit. We accidentally went to the south side of the mountain and the path we needed was on the north side. But it was hard to be to disappointed because it was still a breathtaking view. We all took some amazing pictures and enjoyed the view of some beautiful French countryside. We all signed an american dollar bill and left it in the middle of a pile of rocks and then headed down the mountain just ahead of a rain storm coming from the other side of the mountain. We all vowed we are going back to the north side to conquer this mountain soon because going up about just half of it was a beautiful experience in itself!!!

My week ended with trying to figure out a way to watch the Super Bowl that Sunday. As you can imagine not a lot of French people follow American football so we were scrambling to find a place to watch it. Finally we found out that O'Shannons would be playing the Super Bowl on a big screen so about 50 American's crowed into the place at around Midnight and watched. We were very American as we chanted "U! S! A!, U! S! A!" and cheered for our teams (I wanted the Cardinals), but were dismayed to find out at 2AM during the half time show that the bar was closing! We expressed our displeasure by singing the national anthem :-D Luckily, a British guy named James invited about 10 or 12 of us back to his apartment to finish watch the game. We discovered soon that his apartment was more like a dorm room smaller than mine at school and his TV was a tiny little thing with rabbit ears on it but we crowded in, passed around wine and Sangrea from a box, ate cheese and crackers and chicken sandwhiches that James cooked up on his George Foreman grill, and had an amazing time. It was a CRAZY experience but so much fun! And very much worth getting home around 5AM and getting almost no sleep. Although, my body disagreed as I was sick with a fever and sore throat Monday and Tuesday after. Anyway I will leave you there, soon to come: my trip to Nice, Cannes, and Monaco last weekend! Hope everyone is well! I miss all of you!!!

Love, Ben

PS - I found out that there is a local semi-professional football team here (American football, not european futbol) called The Argonauts. A kid from IAU who was here last semester plays with them and is going to get me set up with them as well! I won't be able to play in games because that would make me lose eligibility at Davidson but I can practice with them and work out!!!! yay!! I'll let you know how that goes once I start.

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