The French Connection

Je suis arrivé.

The flight from Dulles to Heathrow was pretty awful. The guy sitting directly behind me was a sleep kicker, so I had knees in my back all night, but despite that, I managed to get about 4 hours of sleep. The transfer from Heathrow to Gatwick was really easy, however, and the flight to Marseille was quite nice. The people I was sitting next to were these really sarcastic French people who kept making fun of the flight attendants' disorganization in passing out drinks and collecting trash.

And I don't know if you've ever flown into Marseille but the view is absolutely breathtaking. From my window-seat vantage point, I was able to watch as we flew over the more industrial part of the city. I saw a power plant, a ship yard, some factories, and a big pile of rubble that was on fire. I have to say I was a bit worried that this was an accurate representation of the city, but then the flight path took us out over the Mediterranean and when we turned around I saw the nice part of the city and my mind was blown. It was a huge maze of orange clay rooftops along the coast with a series of bleach-white mountainous cliffs along the coast and western part of the city. It really was amazing to see.

Once I made it through what had to have been the most ineffective customs I've ever seen (I'm pretty sure the customs agent never even looked at the picture page in my passport, and there were about 7 other customs agents just standing around looking bored), I was greeted by Nick, Mme Tissot, and what appeared to be her boyfriend, Paul, who is quite the character. Mme Tissot is about 20 years younger than Mike made her out to be. She's a really nice lady, but very french. Last night she had to go to a wedding, so she couldn't eat with us, but she made a pretty amazing quiche.

Then it was time to explore Aix, which is aptly nicknamed the city of fountains. They're all over the place. Enough so that each map of the town has it's own symbol for the fountains that pepper its intersections. Nick, who has been here a few days already with his mom, took me around a bit, but he didn't really seem to know much more than I did where we were going. The city is divided into two parts: the medieval part and the other part. We live in the other part, which is a large grid of what used to be huge (and I mean HUGE) town-house style mansions, which have since been divided into condos. We live on the top floor of one of these, about 4 short blocks from Le Cours Mirabeau, which is essentially the 5th Ave Aixois. Across the Cours Mirabeau is the medieval part which is a never-ending labyrinth of streets hardly wide enough to ride a bike down. People driving their cars in the medieval part are never more than about 5 inches from both curbs at the same time. It'll be a while before we start painting (they teach us to sketch first) but when I do, I'm going to love painting downtown.

Today is a day off. We'll probably do some more exploring, and there is also le festival des Calissons. If I get fat this semester, i will blame Calissons. They're a candy unique to Aix, although they are probably recreated in other places in france, that are basically lemon flavored marzipan, spread thickly on a wafer, with a sugary glaze/icing on top. Ils sont incroyables. According to Mme Tissot, this festival is a display of all the cultural aspects of Aix and Provence as a whole. the "queen" of a neighboring town will be there with her mounted guards, all in their provencal garb. I'll try to remember my camera.

I think next weekend we're going to take a day trip to Cassis, because apparently this time of year is when the ocean is warmest, around 20 or 21 degrees C, and there's an easy train that will take us there, and a beautiful hike out to some cove where we can jump in.

Life is rough