Foresight

Hmmm. I don't know that two blog posts in such close proximity is permissible. I mean, a few hours later...

But, I don't foresee having much time for blogging in the upcoming two weeks (two weeks of Easter Break), so here goes.

My mom will be arriving in France Thursday!

Anyway, briefly, we will be traveling to Bordeaux and Carcassonne before returning to Aix for a few days.

Then next Thursday I leave for Italy, where I will be making my rounds through Venice, Florence; Pisa for an hour or two, and Rome.

I'm hoping my allergies aren't too bad any of these places. I've moved up to full dosage just in case.

Passover starts Monday night, as I will be in Carcassonne then. Probably going to be one of my less observed Passovers...

I hardly use my phone here in France. So little, that the amount it costs to keep it up and running may cover me sending some texts to the USA at the end. Or possibly just saving it and hoping it still works if I come back to France.

No pictures of the future yet. Though if you search Carcassonne or any of the Italian cities, you'll assuredly find something.

One Way

Abbaye St. Victor, not Morocco

Ticket, yeah. I didn't need one. I had originally wanted to go to Morocco this past weekend, but African unrest prevented that. So I decided to go to Geneva instead. A beautiful lake, a tour of CERN, what could be better?

Well, I couldn't find any housing in Geneva. At least nothing that would cost less than 50 euros a night. So I thought to myself "Hey, I have a Eurail Pass, I can take a day trip to Lyon, food capital of France, instead!"

Monument aux morts de l'Armée de l'Oriente et des terres lontaines, not Geneva

Chateau d'If, made famous by The Count of Monte Carlo, not Lyon

But I had to turn in papers Friday morning to validate my visa here (if I hadn't, I would never be able to come back to France), and then I misread the train schedule. It took me so long to find out what I was going to do. But I found out: I city-hopped between Aix and Marseille. And there was a lot of walking involved. I walked about 13 miles in Marseille alone, at least by my Google Map calculations. About halfway through, I realized there'd be no easy way out, that I'd have to walk back. So I walked back along the shore, back through the deserted streets and the crowded ones, back to the train station, where I got on a train heading to Aix.

Something in Septèmes

But it only took me half the way there. I got off by whim in Septèmes. I promenaded through this very non-touristy French town, walking about two-and-a-half more miles before getting on another train. Which I took to Gardanne; another random city on the Aix-Marseille SNCF (national French train) line. It's basically on the other side of the local mountain, Mount Saint-Victoire, except from this side Mr. Mountain's size is fairly evident, and looks more like a small range. There was a large aluminum factory there (in Gardanne), and everything was red. The dirt was red. There were red monuments marking the roads. That was about everything that was red. It also had a pretty pretty (as in fairly nice) main street, and centre ville was uncorrupted by autoroutes. And devoid of cars. And shops. And people. It was very relaxing. Then I went back to the train station...and went home. All this netted another three miles or so at least. I'd estimate a total of 20 miles walking. It was over 27 degrees (80 °F). That's 1600 degree-miles.

Aluminum Factory in Gardanne

French Fields

Saturday, I attended a pique nique (I refuse to translate that to English). It involved buying some bread and apples, taking a bus half an hour south to Les Milles, meeting my friends there, and walking half-an-hour uphill to his house. That walk bothered me more than the previous days (I blame the extra 5 degrees Farenheit), despite the marvelous countryside scenery. My friend Louis has a lot of foreign friends, and lots were present at the picnic. But it was a big teaser, as they're essentially all Spanish speakers (he studied abroad in Spain last year and is truly fluent in Spanish), and some of them don't even speak a word of French. There was a bit of a language barrier, at least for me.

As for my Sunday driver, I used my Eurail Pass once more and headed to Avignon, which roughly translates as "We have lots of flowers to be allergic to". My eyes were so bleary that I walked around blindly the whole day, snapping pictures on my camera to look at later. Alright, maybe my nose ran a little; I'd had the sense to start my allergy medicine regimen in full force the day before.
After writing this, I went to insert pictures into my blog and realized that I may not have been exaggerating. I failed to notice that my pictures were black, white, and green. Ah well.

See Below

So Avignon is famous for its Pont d'Avignon (Bridge of Avignon) and its Palais des Papes (Papal Palace), pictured above. But, as you can see, the Pont does not extend all the way across the Rhône. There is a very good reason for this:

The builders of the city of Avignon were mortal ennemies with their neighbors across the river.

Things used to get violent between the Avignonians and the inhabitants of this city, the Novaginians.

One day, sometime shortly after the year 1000 (if I remember the date correctly), the inhabitants of the two cities decided to reconcile their differences. As a gesture of goodwill, they agreed to build a bridge. However, upon finishing their half, the Avignoners noticed that their newfound "friends" had exhausted their funds partying on the other side of the river. When one Avignoni asked politely that the Novaginish complete their side, he was met with a drunken gurgle. Being understandably upset, the residents of Avignon dedicated their bridge to tourism and tried to shroud the back story in myth.

Palais des Papes

They would have you believe that the two cities never, in all of their history, considered any type of friendship, nor even armistice or truth. The ancient Avignonianiers, being the athletes that they were, could jump large distances. Much further than the wimpy Novaginarians could. So, in order to gain the tactical upper hand, the Avignonois constructed a bridge halfway across the water to a point where they could easily jump from the bridge to the far bank and invade enemy land.

Now, one would think that such an advantage would be insurmountable, but the Avignonesque made one fatal error in their calculations: they did not build the bridge far enough out to return to on a windy day. So when they foolishly glided onto the enemy shore one afternoon, and were whipped soundly in battle, they attempted a hasty retreat. Their efforts were foiled by a strong gust of wind (one has to be fairly light to jump that far), and they were massacred.

Football Players

As time passed, technology advanced, and eventually a modern bridge was indeed built between the two cities. And, I am glad to say, whatever the original cause of enmity between the two cities was, they now take it out on each other in a semiannual soccer game (or football, but I don't think I've picked up any non American readers yet).

That's not to say that no hate remains...I believe the match is high stakes.

Extra Ball, Bonus Blog

The last few weeks, I've constantly been looking under my shoulder. I've been checking under the bed, in my closet. Tasting my food for poison, peering around corners, tiptoeing past closed doors, speaking in hushed tones. It is spring after all, and Allergies could be anywhere.

Allergies!!!!

My homestay's backyard

Well, now Allergies are here. So now I'm using invulnerability pills; we'll see how that keeps Them away.

I think I win some kind of reward for most improved in my classes; my professor complimented my grand strides out of the blue today (I decided to worry about intonation instead of grammar for a few sentences...multitasking is too hard).


Speaking of the color blue, I learned a cool French phrase using blue, other than "Sacré Bleu!" (which is not cool). It is : "J'ai une peur bleue que..." It literally translates as "I have a blue fear that..." and indicates that one's fear is stronger than just any ordinary, non-blue fear.

Finally, on the color blue: the sky is blue. And it's going to be 26°C Thursday. That's 78.8°F. Hot damn.

Reflections

And well, some other stuff first.

This weekend, I did not go on any grand majestic trips, though I did take a cooking class Friday. More importantly, I ate the food afterwards.

And Saturday, we took a program-sponsored trip to the Camargue and Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, one of the few places in Europe wherein dwell the greater flamingo. The aptly named Camargue horse and Camargue bull also happen to live here, and apparently, as summer progresses, one finds famous mosquitoes as well.

While there, we discovered the Camargue is a marsh, and much colder than Aix. As in the high in Aix was 22 that day (above 70) , but with the clouds and wind kept me shivering in my sweater.

Beautiful Day

Camargue Horses are Always White

We went horseback riding. My steed was named Oclan (probably spelled wrong). He responded to the gentlest touch. However, he also liked to trot, not necessarily in the right direction, and especially when wading through mud. But only after walking really slowly and falling behind. Speaking of which, he was very concerned about the horse behind him, and kept turning to look, I assume to make sure that the other horse was still following him. If the other horse was taking a different path, he would try to turn and look more frequently. Somebody needs blinders. Despite all this, it was all very fun.

It's hard to shoot pictures from horseback

Pawing (Hoofing?) the ground

Then we went to a bullfight. Not a Spanish bullfight, mind you. I'm not up for that severe animal cruelty. Even this was a bit much, although our program director claimed that the bull was unhurt. Yeah right, even unharmed would be stretching it a little. Admittedly the bull is not killed, nor blatantly stabbed (although I strongly suspect that the ribbon on his back was a pin in his spine, poor guy). What a mean sport.

See how they run

There were six bulls in total. The rasateurs (not quite a toreador, since this isn't quite the same sport) would try to grab ribbons from the bulls' horns (there was only one bull at a time). Since they were wearing mini wolverine claws for this purpose, misses no doubt further injured the bull. After attempting to grab the ribbons, they would flee the arena by jumping over a barrier to escape the bull. Well, one rasateur was too slow, and a bull managed to maul him. I guess training kicked in, because the rasateur managed to remain in between the bull horns for about 5 seconds, but in disengaging, the bull level him and proceeded to run directly over him. That's a stomp carrying about a ton of weight. He played out the round though, despite this and a scratch from the horn that was no more than a few centimeters from his eye.

I have mixed feelings on the whole mauling affair, and bullfighting in general. (Basically I don't like it, but it's not my place to judge)

Sunday, I wandered about for free museum day in Aix, then went to "l'etrange Carnaval". I guess its Aix's version of Carnaval, but like Nice, it was very child-oriented. But no mean old ladies today. A few bands marched down Cours Mirabeau, then the children frolicked. They silly stringed (fil serpentin) each other, and threw confetti everywhere (I'm still finding confetti in my pockets). Then there was a grand parade, where the people marching down the Cours...threw more confetti at us.

Fil Serpentin

Queen of Hearts

Bizarrely, the whole thing was Tim Burton themed for some reason. Floats from Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, Batman, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland, Edward Scissorhands (Hmmm, almost Johnny Depp themed). No idea why. But I did learn that the French call Edward Scissorhands "Edward aux mains d'argent", or "Edward with silver hands". That's bizarre, like "The Fighter" coming out here on March 9th or some such date three months after its USA release.

On to a few notes, seeing as I have but a month and a half remaining in Europe, here's a few thoughts.

My love affair with bread is weakening. I love bread here, and will miss it when I go home. But I no longer imagine myself being content eating a baguette everyday. That said, I essentially do eat some of a baguette every day, with the occasional exception due to traveling.

Streamers and Confetti (and buds on the trees!)

I can't spell traveling anymore. French would have me double the l. I use that word a lot; the misspelling is quite inconvenient. And speaking of linguistic idiosyncrasies, I find myself using "talk" instead of "speak", and "rest" instead of "stay", as well awkward English wordings, all because of my usage of French. I had a moment a few weeks ago where I was searching for a word to describe Black Swan, and had to stop and rethink my previous sentence over in English to arrive at "nerve-wracking". Which still isn't quite the sense I was going for, but my synapses aren't quite hooked up for perfect English at the moment.

The French have an awful sense of luck. It's fairly common knowledge that there's dog crap all over the streets of France. What isn't as frequently realized is that it's good luck to step in it with your left foot. Whoa, glad I found that out; that changes everything.

I had other thoughts, but no longer recall what they were. I may create more and more ethereal posts as my time here concludes and I have thoughts I want to record.

Ciao