Arles

---

We weren't actually in Avignon, we were in a town 20 minutes south called Arles. My mother's other love interest, Rick Steves (this became a running joke), recommended Arles as a place to visit so that is where we went. She began referring to R.S. as "him" and would put out statements such as "he doesn't recommend going there." Finally I asked her (jokingly) if there was something she needed to tell my dad. So that is why Rick Steves is now my mom's pretend boyfriend.
Arles was actually a really interesting town. I had no idea where I was going, I just got on the train with my mom but she said that there were Roman ruins in the town. We got there and walked around and came across a cafe that looked really familiar....turns out its in one of Van Gogh's paintings, quite a famous one actually. Van Gogh lived in the town before he went insane and moved to an assylum somewhere in Provence. There are many statues of a one-eared man throughout the town so i'm guessing they remember the man. Every once in a while we'd come accross another subject of a Van Gogh's painting. The town of Arles is beautiful; people are very friendly here and they live a much quieter life than those in Paris. The little shops are decorated with much care and everything is just, well, provencial. : ) They sell olive oils, a lot of lavender, beautiful pottery in that dark yellow color and other charming souveniers that are so charactaristic of this area. We ate in a different cafe every day and had salad nioise, quiche, and many other gorgeous foods. They gave us complimentary olives every time (which I really don't like) so my poor mom had to eat them all. Eventually she made me choke them down too- they're very salty!
We saw the Roman theater which is now used for bull fights- it was very beautiful and absolutely falling apart. I thought it was interesting to see how people have built up around the ruins over the years. We saw several other Roman ruins but they were far more deteriorated. I think the theater was in better shape because they still needed it. Many others were used as stone quarries and stripped down to the ground. Even the theater only had two of its three floors and the even second wasn't all there.
One other thing that must be said about Arles is that it is next to a large region of marshlands. In that area there are supposed to be beautiful wild white horses that roam around but you know what else roams (or I think infests would be a better word)? Millions of mosquitos- and thats not an exageration. If ever West Nile were to explode in a region- this would be a likely place. In three days I had 30 bites on my- including three on my forehead (one swelled up to a lump the diameter of a golf ball on my forhead- sexy). Everywhere we went aftre dark we were constantly swatting them out of our faces and ears. We used repellant but it just didnt' work. Tried eating out side one night but the mosquitos were so thick we had to move inside and even then they were all over. We went in another restaurant the next night and received a reproachful look from customers. 20 minutes later we completely understood why. Every time a new customer walked through the door they brought new bugs with them. The bloodsuckers settled on the ceiling after a while, until a new person walked in the door and the wind upset all 200 on the ceiling once again. Waiting in the train station a few days later was agony. The mosquitoes were out in the middle of the day and they were everywhere! The practically chased me onto the train. I was glad I got to see Provence and the area but I was certainly not sad to leave.

---