Escape to the Sun!

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Aix-en-provence is a lovely little town in the South of France, warm and sunny and a wonderful place to get a reprieve from the grey and cold of Paris. It reminded me of a French Chico, smiling people, freinds running into each other on the street, small enough to walk around and see pretty much all Aix has to offer in a day or two. A weekend there was wonderful, and I am very grateful for Laura for putting me up (or up with me?) for the 3 days.
I hopped on a TGV (Train de Grande Vitesse, or Very Fast Train in English) and was whisked through the French countryside, arriving in sunny Aix only 3 hours later. It would have been a 6-8 hour car trip I believe, but the train was fast, and just so nice! I really love trains, you get to leave a city center and arrive in a city center, no finding a bus in from an airport in the suburbs, and the TGV is practically silent, with enough space to stretch your legs. Quite agreeable. I tuned into my ipod and watched the countryside whisk by, the early morning mist rising from the fields, little towns and ancient churches occasionally dotting the landscape. Lovely.
I arrived in Aix around noon, where Laura found me near the Rotond and proceeded to show me around this charming town that she is calling home for the year. Laura and I had our French class together last semester and helped each other go through the sometimes tedious process of applying for the IP program. Needless to say, we made it, and now we each have a friend in another town we can visit when we need to get away.
We walked around, and she told me that every fountain in Aix is fueled by spring water that flows in from an ancient system of pipes and aqueducts and that you can drink from most all of them. Which we did, and it was delicious. We also went to the house of Paul Cezanne, located just a bit outside the city center, and it was quite lovely. You can see the pictures, the grounds around the house are beautiful, though unfortunately the house itself is in disrepair. We paid the 2 Euros for the tour, which was rather nifty, they sit you down in the main salon where there are these projectors that show different Cezanne paintings on the walls around you, sometimes as the original size, other times blown up so it feels like you are in the woods and mountains that he painted, the colors swirling all around you. It was actually quite cool. I met some of the other CSU IP students who are studying in Aix and we had a lovely Mexican style dinner together before turning in for an early night, as I had been up since 5:30 to catch my early train.
The next day Laura and I headed into Marseilles, the 2rd largest city in France, after Paris, and the 3rd largest metropolitan area, after Paris and Lyon. That's right, Paris is number 1! Only the best and biggest for Sara! But Marseilles was cool too. As it is a mediterranean city, it feels very mediterranean (who'da thunk?) with small sunny streets, laundry flapping in the sea breeze, houses painted in bright, happy colors, everything glowing in the sun. Laura had heard of a Van Gogh exhibit that was being hosted in the Vieille Charité, so that was what we set out to find. We got lost, stumbled across a magnificent old striped cathedral (the striped one in the pictures), met a very friendly old man with an amazing mustache who pointed us in the right direction, and eventually ended up at the Vieille Charité where we saw a few pieces by Van Gogh and a lot of pieces by Monticelli, but nothing especially famous. A lot of flowers, a lot of country sides, a lot of still-life's of fish. From there we went in search of couscous, as Marseilles is primarily Arab, we did not think this should be too difficult to find. Unfortunately it was Ramadan, and every restaurant owned by Arabs was closed during the day. That means almost every restaurant in Marseilles was closed that day. We wandered up and down the tiny streets, longing for couscous, seeing restaurant after restaurant shuttered and closed that Wednesday afternoon. It must have been Ramadan, there is no other explanation I can think of as to why every restaurant in the heart of the city (and by extension, the tourist district) would be closed. We eventually found a hole-in-the wall place that microwaved up some veggies and sauce and put it over couscous for us, not that amazing, but it was filling and warm and cheap. We spent the rest of the afternoon just wandering, ate some ice cream by the marina, and headed back to Aix.
We made it home in time for dinner, and let me say, Laura has quite the cozy set up for herself. She lives with an old French couple who rents their 3 extra rooms out to foreign students. She pays rent, which includes water, electricity and 2 meals a day. Dinner is a family affair, with the "mom" cooking dinner for everyone, and they all eat together, speaking only in French, no English allowed at the dinner table, despite the fact that the girls (Laura and the 2 other exchange students) all come from English speaking countries (America and Canada). It was delicious and homey feeling, a luxury that no on in the Paris program gets to enjoy on a daily basis. It was really quite wonderful, sitting in the kitchen with everyone, talking about our days, drinking wine and passing around the home-cooked food.
After dinner we went out, to explore the night-life of this little town, and really, it's quite like Chico, minus all the frat boys and sorority girls. Each bar has it's crowd, but the town is small enough that you could visit most all of them in a night. Laura and Daniel showed me the "Scat club", an underground club with live music in the main room, and then another cavern for dancing. We stayed mainly in the dance cavern, Daniel showing us his tecktonic moves he's been working on (a new form of dance, all the cool kids are doing it, look it up on youtube) just dancing and laughing the night away.

With only one morning left in Aix, Laura and I decided to spend the beautiful day just walking around, seeing what was left to see of the small town. She took me to "the best crepes in Aix", found at crepes a gogo, located underground near the Rotonde, and later, the best pizza in Aix at a little walk-up window who's name I have forgotten. That was actually the first pizza I have had since coming to France, and it was delicious! I forget that I can eat food like I'd find in America here, and it was nice to have a small taste of home while walking around the town. We went to a chocolate shop, Puyricard, which is apparently one of the best chocolatiers in all of France. They have another shop located in Paris, and Laura told me that every year at the Chocolate festival they take home the top prize. And so of course I had to buy some! 100 grams (about 10 pieces) cost 8 euros, but it was 8 euros well spent. Each piece, words cannot describe. The texture, the flavor, everything coming together in perfect harmony, melting in your mouth like little bits of heaven. And because they were rather costly chocolates, I was not tempted to eat them all at once, as I do with cheap cookies or candy, but those ten pieces lasted me quite a while, each piece meriting it's own little ceremony with the opening of the package, smelling it and nibbling it in little tastes. Marvelous, really. I have friends here who say they would want to get proposed to on/under the Eiffel Tower, but I think I would prefer to be proposed to in this chocolate shop. For one thing, far fewer tourists, and then the smell of chocolate would always remind you of that happy day, and it would also set your fiancee up with the perfect romantic gift, chocolates from the store where he proposed. Really, wouldn't that be better than on a tower with hundreds of other tourists? But perhaps I'm just saying this because really I'm in love with the chocolates...

And so my wonderful little sejour in Aix came to a close, and at 6pm I headed back to the TGV station to return to Paris. Whizzing through the country side, I tried not to think too much about the little bag from Puyricard tucked away in my backpack.

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Photos

Paul Cezanne, an artist, a legend
Aix-en-provence was home to this "father of Impressionism" and is quite proud of it!

La Rotond
The largest of Aix's many fountains, to mark the beginning of the school year students will take a dip in it's fresh (and potable!) waters.

Like a kid...
One can't help but get excited when there's a candy shop with a spread like this!

OMG! He totally LIVED here!
This is the house where it all began.. How could you not paint the world in a more romantic light if this was the path you walked home on everyday?

Grrraurd
What would a painters house be if it weren't guarded by statues of Lions? A lame painters house, that's what.

Because I know you miss me...
The requisite "Pose like a statue" shot.

I dunno, but it looked cool.
This is inside the church in Aix. Not exactly sure what it's all about, but there you are.

A church in Marseilles
We were looking for the Picasso exhibit, and found this. Thought it looked cool, so here's some pictures.

The main drag
This is the main street in Aix, I don't know what else to say about that.

Tiny streets
Whenever you see an alcove built into a building for Mary, you know that the building has been there since the Plague, as people didn't want to leave their houses to pray. Now you know.