Quatrieme Jour

 Today I woke up and took a shower, had breakfast as usual, and Facebooked a little. This is the first night I haven’t woken up around the three thirty mark. And I was very grateful for that! But I did get up at six. Then went back to sleep for two hours. It is very difficult to get a full night’s sleep so far. Also I end up having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night because I am drinking SO much water but feel like I am still dehydrated. I went to class as always and it was relatively boring. I don’t feel like I am really LEARNING very much but what we are doing is good but not really anything new. We looked at the map of Aix and I learned that I have been going home a long way from some of the main streets, oops.  

After that we were set free to visit the markets. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday there are more markets than usual, they add the flower market and the clothing market, and the stuff market. It is pretty cool to walk around in. We walked around and I bought a peach, sandwich, and strawberries for lunch. It was probably the best peach I have ever eaten. I have also heard it said that farmers here make more than doctors though whether that is true? I don’t know. My friends and I walked around a bit and then decided to go back to the Institute to chill out before the supposed picnic with other students from other colleges.

But when we got to the (gorgeous) park we learned that it was just us. And that it was not allowed to sit on the grass so we sat around on the gravel for a while before deciding to leave. We then had to wait a few hours to go to our cooking class at five. Luckily, we all were in the same group so that was cool. So we wasted time by walking around which seems to be the fall back activity, but it is nice because then we get more familiar with the city. After a while it was time to head back so we could make it to our class on time.

The place we went was called  “Dolls in the Kitchen” and it was pretty small but quaint. Two younger women had us make “caviar au aubergine” which doesn’t actually use fish eggs like suggested but was kind of an eggplant paste that you could put on bread and tapenade noir et le tapenade vert which is like an olive paste with either green or black olives and part of a sardine. It was surprisingly not bad. We also got to try pastis. All of these things are traditional Provencal foods but pastis is like THE drink of Provence.  It is an alcoholic licorice drink. It was way less strong than I anticipated but I don’t really like licorice at all so it wasn’t my favorite. But it was something on the list of things to do. After the cooking class we decided to all split up to meet back up for dinner in a few hours. We had all pretty much hit the wall on tiredness so it was good to have some down time. The Institute was hosting a bowling night but for 13 Euros which we kind of all decided we’d rather spend that on going to dinner because we all could go bowling cheaper in the U.S. and we’d rather do something less American.
 

When I came home Paul was getting back from his first day of school. I decided to put some more of my pictures on Facebook and Paul decided to tell me what everything was. It was pretty amazing actually because a lot of the places look very similar here so it was kind of amazing to me that he knew where things were but I guess it would be the same if he had pictures of St. Helens. Then all too quickly it was time to go back to meet my friends. We met in front of the big fountain here (which is also 5 minutes away for me) and then walked around until we found a place. We sat down and ordered and I had pizza and our group decided to have wine as well. I have heard a lot of people say that French Pizza sucks but that was not the case for me! It was a lot like Pizza  Schmitza. Very delicious and then we went and walked around until we found a gelato shop. I have never had Gelato so I was excited to try it even though it was a bit spendy at 3.50 Euros for a tiny cup. But it was really delicious!!!

We also walked by a catholic church and it was so gorgeous on the inside! I didn’t want to take pictures because I figure it is frowned upon? But it was really gorgeous! We then walked back towards the college so one of the girls could meet up with another group and then we went our respective ways together so as to be safe. Then I came home and wrote a little paper about the markets for my class and Madame offered to proof read it for me which I gladly accepted. Then I sat down to write this and now I am exhausted! Tomorrow we are going to a wine chateau to do a tasting and I have heard that it is really pretty there.

We are all excited and tomorrow instead of class we are watching a movie which is awesome! A lot of people went out tonight because Tuesday nights girls get a lot of free drinks because it is ladies night so I think that might have something to do with the movie. My group didn’t go out and I don’t think that I would really want to at all… Not really my scene but it was nice to go out ourselves instead of with the program doing stuff. I am excited for tomorrow though!