lots happening

Well, it has been a pretty packed last few days, and since the Vanderbilt center closes for the weekend at 4:30 on Fridays, I didn’t have a chance to do an update until now. The easiest way to say what happened is simply to go day by day.

On Thursday evening, we were shown a presentation by this guy who is part of the Students in Aix program. Their building is a lot like our Vandy center (has computers, meeting rooms, etc), and is open for all foreign students in Aix. The guy was nice, and he had a huge southern French accent, and it was quite humorous when he pronounced certain words. Anyway, he organizes these weekend excursions to a lot of place and wanted us to see some pictures/slides of where they go to see if anyone would be interested. The price for these trips is only like 25 euros, which isn’t bad at all. However, most of the places I would really like to go we are already doing through Vandy (like Avingnon). Afterwards, he invited us to the Students in Aix center for some cheese and wine (it was like 10:00pm). The wine was boxed, and since we had already eaten dinner, I wasn’t too hungry. However, we did get to meet some other students who were here in Aix, although some of them turned out to be less than nice. The other students we met where Swedes, who apparently are known as the jerks of Europe. This was told to a friend of mine by some Europeans on different occasions, so I don’t think this is an uncommon belief. Regardless, some of them were really nice, but a few were extremely rude. From mocking Vandy students’ French accents, to condescendingly explaining that in Sweden, everyone speaks English and our pathetic attempts at French were unnecessary. Well, needless to say, we didn’t stick around for too long, and headed out for a bit, but I was feeling tired and didn’t stay out for long.

I was looking forward to Friday because I do not have any classes on that day, and Shannon (the girl who lives in the same building but one floor up – oh yeah, apparently the “chic” quartier [kind of like neighborhood] of Aix is right where we live, haha) and I were going to go explore for a bit to see what we could find in the city. Well, as we were leaving, she asked whether we should bring our umbrellas since, as she put it, the weather here is “bipolar” (probably the best description I have heard of the weather here so far). Me, in my infinite wisdom, said “No, it is really sunny right now and if it gets cloudy we will have ample warning.” So we depart sans umbrellas and have a good walk and get to the western edge of the main part of the city when we notice that the sky has become very, very dark. We duck into this sports equipment store (since we were looking for backpacks anyway) in order to wait and see what happens. All of a sudden, it starts pouring. I don’t mean raining, but I am talking about tropical-storm amounts of water. Oh, I forgot to mention that we had to be at the Vanderbilt center in 30 minutes because there was a presentation we had to see, so we couldn’t just sit in a doorway for an hour.

Well, after waiting in the doorway to an apartment (in which some nice French guy offered to let us wait out the storm, but since we didn’t have the time, we had to pass on his offer), we decided to make a run for it since this is France, and there has to be a café just around the corner where we can take shelter for a bit and then run off to the next one. Wrong idea. This street is so bare, and has nothing except apartments and there are no roof overhangs whatsoever. Needless to say, when we got back home some 10 minutes later, we looked like we had jumped in a swimming pool. Now I am going to carry my umbrella wherever I go, sans exception.

Friday night was fun, and we met up with most of the Vandy group about 11:00 or so and went out to this bar. It was a student one, so there were no older sketchy people there which is always good. We hung out there with Bavo (one of the French tutors and one of the coolest people to hang out with) and some of his friends for a while before deciding to call it a night.

We had to meet at 8:30AM to get on the bus for Nice, so while that wasn’t the best way to start a Saturday, we were all excited to go to Antibbes and Nice (unfortunately Monaco got cut off the itinerary since we were doing this all in one day). All three of these places are fairly close to each other, and are about 2+ hours away from Aix. Needless to say a lot of people slept on the way up, and the ride was pretty uneventful (although they have so many tolls on French highways/autoroutes that it is insane….they are like 3-5 euros for each one too). Anyway, we got to Antibbes and headed straight for the Picasso museum, which is shown below:

While I am not a huge art conniseur (I know, I know, uncultured and all that), the museum itself was absolutely amazing. Not so much the architecture or building (which used to be an old fort I think…right on the water), but the view was awesome. You could see all the way up the coast to just about Nice, and the weather was beautiful.

We then grabbed a quick sandwich on the way back to the bus and were soon on our way to Nice. Unfortunately, it started getting a little overcast, and our bus driver could not find the art museum we were supposed to visit, so we spent a good 45 minutes driving around Nice, which was packed and had a lot of traffic. Finally we found it, and it was a lot better than the Picasso museum in my opinion. It had works by Marc Chagall, a painter from the early 20^th century who, while not classified as a religious painter (since he has a lot of secular/normal paintings), painted a series of quasi-Biblical paintings. They were really very neat, and the layout of the museum was very nice. After that, we were set loose in Nice, albeit for only like an hour and 45 minutes (argh, stupid bus driver). A group of 5 or 6 wanted to climb these stairs (shown in picture I think) to the top of this huge hill overlooking Nice, and then stop on the beach for like 20 minutes or so. The climb up took under a half hour, and it was well worth it. I have some pictures of the view, and it was absolutely stunning. You could see the rolling hills upon which the city was built (actually kind of like San Francisco), and the entire length of the beach.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have too much time to stay on the beach after that, so I didn’t bother changing into my swimsuit and going into the water. Which was too bad since the water felt quite warm, and was ridiculously blue and clear. One interesting thing was the beach, which was not sandy, but pebbly. It is not comfortable to walk one, but once you site down, it is surprisingly nice. Some of our friends decided to play this game where you stay in your clothes, and slowly move out into the ocean to see who can withstand the waves the longest. Needless to say, with their loud screaming and laughing, just about everyone on the beach was watching and probably muttering not-nice things about Americans. We only had like 25 minutes on the beach, and so we soon headed back to the bus, but it wasn’t too bad since we got to walk through a really enjoyable part of Nice.

After getting back, we went back to our rooms and changed/showered/napped before meeting for dinner. I met up with Chris, Amy, Michelle, Eric, and Audrey for a quick bite of pizza (only like 2 euros for a slice for dinner, mmm, cheap dinner) since no one was really hungry. We then proceeded to the apartment of four Vandy students (Amanda, Sara, Jenn, and Michelle). Soon, some other vandy people showed up and we had a pretty good size pre-party going on. After hanging out for a bit, we headed out just before midnight. The first place we went was a favorite bar of some of people (it is pretty cool, it has a drawbridge type door and everything), but it was so packed that it took like 10 minutes to get to the back of the place to find a place to stand. (Mayfield people think of the huge party we had last year, except more crowded, lol). Matt and I decided to leave the girls there since they wanted to dance for a bit and we didn’t even have room to turn around. We headed down the street to a pub called O’Shannons, and were hanging out there over a beer when two of the girls decided they wanted a breather. So there were four of us chilling there when we here this really loud chant going, “Tennessee, Tennessee, Jack Daniels, Jack Daniels!” We look around the corner, and there is the rest of our party surrounded by an entire Italian rugby team. Apparently, after they went outside, some of the Vanderbilt girls ran smack into the middle of the group and the conversation apprently went something like this (remember to use an Italian accent):

“Where you from?”

“American, americaine.”

“No no, but where in America?”

“Tennessee.”

“We know Tennessee! Tennessee is Jack Daniels!”

Soon a spontaneous cheer was going up, and we headed over there to see what was up. The guys on the team were really nice, and we had a great time standing in the street yelling and making noise. There were 2 that spoke good English, and a few more spoke French, so we conversed with them in a Franglitalian. Apparently, this was their last night in Aix after playing some rugby games (they went 1-1), and were going back to Italy the next day. They were from the central part of Italy, and were a club team. We had a blast, but the bouncers from this one discotheque wanted us to move down the street, so we moved about 20 feet down the street, all the while trying to talk to one another, which was hard since at this point there were four of us Americans (2 girls, 2 guys) and like 15+ of them, and we all had to huddle around to hear one another. Within five minutes, one of the Italian guys asked if Matt and I were “hunting, fisherman” for the girls, complete with hilarious hand gestures. We had a blast, but then their coach came out of the original bar they were in to see where his players were, and he then began to talk to us in French, since his English, as he put it, “was finished.” Anyway, we talked for some more before wishing them good luck, exchanging American/Italian handshakes, proclaiming how good American-Italian relations were, and then going home, but it was definitely one of the funniest things we have done here.

Well, that is a pretty huge update, and I am sitting here typing it Sunday morning in order to post it on Monday morning before classes start. Hope everyone is doing fine at Vandy or wherever you may be!