Musee Garnet

Today I had class as usual. It was kind of boring but only because we have no real structure to class and the professor spends most of the time talking and rambling. Some of the things that she says are important or are good information but she likes to elaborate a lot or repeat the same things over and over. It gets a little dry after 2 hours. Today we also learned some practical info about our visas. About one out of 10 people who get their student visa are randomly selected to do a “carte de sejour” process. This pretty much is just really annoying… But you have to pay 58 Euros to go to a doctor visit here and fill out a bunch more forms in order to be legally able to stay here. I was lucky to not have to do that!!! From what it sounded like it was a lot of work and filling out forms and paying money and having to take more passport photos and blah blah blah. But basically a lot of work. I got the address for the school that you should use to mail me anything:

Kacy Helwig

IAU College

27, place de l’Université, BP30970

13604 Aix-en-Provence CEDEX 1

FRANCE

IMPORTANT !!!! If you are mailing me a package and don’t do this I will get charged a boat load of money. If you are mailing me a package you need to write “Articles usages pour étudiants” on the package or forms or both. And then you need to declare it as a gift on the package or form or whatever. And then value the package at $25 dollars or less. If you don’t do these then I get charged Duty Charges which are lots of money, more than 30% of the package cost. OUCH!

After that she took our passports which it seems unsafe to not have but I have a laminated copy if I run into trouble and it is only for a day or so. After that we went to the market to get lunch. I bought two peaches and a sandwich though once school starts I should probably start bringing lunch because it gets very expensive. I got permission to keep things in the fridge so that is a step in the right direction. Also we stopped in at a patisserie and I bought a little strawberry tarte. It was very delicious and I am going to try and not buy them in bulk because they are so pretty and incredibly good. Then we went to the Musee de Garnet which was full of pieces by Cezanne and Matisse and other cool painters. One was a Monet WHAT! Famous people! And they were the actual paintings! I wish they had allowed cameras because there were a lot of really beautiful pieces that I wish I knew the name of now. Perhaps I can find a site for the museum online and I can find them. Mostly it was Julia, Kelan, and I that were together for that (some pretty cool people I’ve met). We stayed there for about 2 ½ hours looking at the pieces and I could have definitely spent more time there, easily. After that we went to the park to sit down and debrief our day and our hosts and our experience so far.  A few of our other friends were passing through the park on their way home and sat with us for a while. After that we went back to IAU to use the computers but they were locked.

After sitting around for a while Julia and Kelan left and I went with a bunch of other people to Happy Hour at the bar down the street which was one of our activities. They had a buy one get one free deal for Happy Hour which was pretty cool. I ordered the frilliest drink on the menu which was 7 euros but to get 2 was not that bad I thought. Granted I picked one of the ones with the least alcohol J But a glass of wine was 3 for two glasses. It was a pretty good deal. I also tried a beer with grenadine that someone had. It wasn’t bad as well as an Orangina which is like orange soda but different. More fruit flavored than artificial and apparently they have them at some stores in the states? I dunno! It was nice to hang out with a different crowd and everyone here is so nice that it is easy to jump between groups without much trouble. It was getting towards 7:30 and we usually eat dinner between then and 8 so I went home (4min.). A bunch of them were going out after dinner but I don’t know how because I am so exhausted each night! Maybe once I am more adjusted to time here and it isn’t so hectic I will try to go out. But it is interesting because it is such a popular thing to do here. Whenever anyone talks about the students here I guess it is about how they go out and the teachers are all like yeah go try it have a good time, which I find a little weird. But I will try it at least once and then when I hate it I will stop.

I got home and found a letter from Ms. Cassidy on my bed. It was fun to read J I guess now I have to send her one back! Oh darn…  J My host seemed upset or something so I tried to stay in the living room as much as possible in case I had been rude by not being home earlier. But then she started dinner. We had les croques monsieurs, which in laymans terms is grilled cheese with ham. It was good but they eat it with a fork and knife here which is a bit difficult, but I managed. Then we watched tv and talked and I think that she was in a better mood by the end of the night. She worked today so maybe it was that? I dunno. But we also had ice cream before bed which I am really fine with the dessert thing but I am worried that it is going to be too much! So I try and eat fruit for dessert when I can. So today was cool.

Tomorrow we are climbing up Mont Saint Victoire which is the super famous mountain here that Cezanne painted at least 88 times. I am excited, but also a bit nervous for my vocal cords so I hope they don’t act up too much!