Aix

*You take a left out of the apartment to walk to the university. Walk past the La Fournaise bakery and smell the bread, say hi to the bums outside the newstand, and cross the street by the Bar Sextius where the old men drink half pints of beer in the morning. One more block and you reach the Rotonde Fountain where the newspaper employees bombard you with copies of the Marseillaise, the free local newspaper worth hardly the paper its printed on as far as journalism is concerned but its something to flip through until you get to where you're going. Take a right on Robert Schuman avenue and join the steady stream of students walking towards the university: school of law on the left, humanities on the right.

*There are 3 outdoor markets in Aix: a flower market, an herb market, and a produce market.

*Brigitte drove us out to her family's summer home on the coast yesterday. The year-round population of Mejean is 5. Swam, hiked the coves and drove back to Aix the same day. http://diwww.epfl.ch/~wuillem/voyages/france/cassis1999/05_calanq2.jpg

*My new discovery is the fig. Fig trees are everywhere and its the most popular fruit in Provence. So delicious!

*Spent Saturday in Marseille with a couple other foreign students. 2 germans, one brit, and a quad-lingual spaniard. People say that it takes a while to get use to Marseille, but I still think its pretty ugly.

*The "all french people walk around with baguettes under their arm" stereotype is true.

*The old men play boule in the Parc Jourdan on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

*Brigitte's friend Ani has a summer home in La Ciotat, another amazing coastal town. We spent the weekend before last eating figs from her fig tree, grapes from her vineyard (which were amazing), and her husband's homemade pizza baked in their 100 year old wood-burning oven. Walked to the harbor for fireworks that night. (Fireworks must be a new thing in France because they go nuts over them.)

*Pizza Capri is a small pizza stand on the rue d'italia. Its always crowded and the only way to get your pizza is to yell like everyone else. Its a bit chaotic but the price is right at 6 euro 80 for an entire pizza.

*There's a bakery/pastry shop directly across the street from the apartment. The husband bakes, the son's the pastry chef, and the mother works the counter. They sell a pastry called a tropezienne: I easily averaged one a day for the first week and a half.

*I named the old lady that lives above the bakery Bethany. Her balcony lines up directly with mine and 2-3 times a day she comes out to people watch and pull the dead leaves off her hanging baskets. She's worn the same moo-moo for the last 4 days and everytime she changes, its the same moo-moo just a differnt color. My new goal is to take a picture of every color moo-moo she owns. Call me a voyeurist but its intriguing.