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Published: March 4th 2009
The train ride from Paris to Aix-en-Provence on the TGV (fast train) only took 3 hours! My friend Kari is studying for the semester in Aix and so we were finally able to line up our weeks to see each other for vacation! I arrived to beautiful blue sky in Aix and only needed one layer under my peacoat while I waited for Kari at a café, it was glorious! A beautiful French-looking blonde suddenly tackled me and there was Kari’s smiling face!
We spent the day walking around the cute little streets of Aix and then Kari and I went over to her host-mom’s house for an aperatif. Her host Mom is a cute little French woman named Ginou. She warmed up some little puff pastries for us and we drank some cassis, lemon cello, and orange wine, the last two which Ginou makes herself. We all sat in her living room and conversed in French. This was a moment when I sat back and realized that Kari and I were here together in southern France, drinking homemade orange wine, and conversing in French, it was incredible! We went out for a tasty pizza dinner later that night and woke
up early to catch a train to cute little beach town called Cassis.
Kari and her friend Julie planned this day trip to Cassis, and the train tickets only cost 5 euro. After a 45 minute train ride, the train pulled up on the top of a hill and the Mediterranean was spread out below us. The town of Cassis is a little port town with café’s right in the harbor, colorful wooden boats, and the bluest water I had ever seen.
I’m going to include an entry from my journal that I wrote up on these rocks, watching fisherman and letting our tasty picnic and wine warm my tummy.
“Yesterday and today have been exactly what I wanted to feel out of my experience here. Seeing Kari yesterday was like a breath of fresh air. Kari and I have had so much to catch up on and laugh about, we laughed so hard last night in my hotel that we had someone knock on our door to quiet us. Right now I’m looking out onto what looks like a fake backdrop of hilltops descending into the water. The next land south of here is Africa. We are two bottles
of wine down, bought bread for 1 euro, avocados, tomatoes, and apples and sat on a little cliff in the inlet. It feels so strange to be sitting here with Kari, it’s what we’ve dreamed and talked about forever. We ate our picnic with our feet hanging over the edge and laughing. It’s so peaceful here and being by water again made my heart feel at home. I definitely appreciate the Mediterranean style of life. The restaurant owners are so open and friendly and life seems so fresh, simple and homey all the time. The land is so important to the people of the Provence region. Between the lavender, honey, wine, and spices, the market atmosphere is local and tasty. These are the environments I love and it is a refreshing break from Paris.” (2/19/2009)
We stayed to watch the sunset and as we were heading out of town we passed a sign that summed up our perfect day, it read, “Cassis: la mer, la Pierre, le vin” (Cassis: ocean, stone, wine)
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Lena
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Happy reBirthday!
You and Kari look beautiful.