Recovering from Break

Last week came and went very quickly. Time is starting to be that way here. Only five weeks until I come back. I remember thinking 3 ½ months was a long time. The first half of the week I spent catching up on all the sleep I missed out on over the break and the rest of the week I spent enjoying Aix. Thursday night I went to a cocktail party with a mix of American students from IAU and French students from some of the universities in Aix. I ended up talking with a student who studied in Austin for a year about local bars and living in west campus. What a small world, huh?

Friday I went wine tasting again with another group of IAU students. We tried some really great Rose, a red that I didn’t care for and a really good dessert wine. This time around our host was not so drunk so it was slightly less entertaining but fun all the same. Later that night, after a nap and dinner Annabelle and went out on the town. We ended up running into some other students from IAU and going to a party for an art exhibit with free drinks and appetizers. It was a lovely free evening.

Saturday I woke up and headed out to La Rotonde to meet Annabelle and Jenna to go olive picking. We took a bus into the country and were dropped off with no clue where we needed to go. We walked around a bit and finally a car drove by and it happened to be the woman whose farm we were looking for. She took us up to her house and gave us our baskets and sent us out into the fields. We picked olives all afternoon, breaking only for lunch, which the woman made us. While some might see this as slave labor we looked at it as a true cultural, provencal experience. We headed back into Aix at 5 and I got ready for our dinner party.

Marie T’s nefew and his fiancee came over for dinner and it was quite an event. They arrived just before 7 pm and I have no idea what time they left. From 7 to 8 we had drinks and appetizers in le salon. I drank pastis, which is a provencal specialty. It’s a liquor that you water down that ends up tasting like black licorice. A little after 8 we headed to the table for wine and our amuse bouche. It was crab and shrimp over some sort of sauce, very refreshing. Second course was roasted chicken and rice with apples and raisins. DELICIOUS! Next Marie T. brought out crème brulee hot from the oven. After that we each had a marangue and finally to top it off we had chocolate covered raisins and peanuts and some other chocolates. It was delicious and we sat eating and talking for hours. At midnight I was completely shattered. I said goodnight, put on my headphones and went to sleep. I have no idea what time their guests ended up leaving but when I woke up at 10:45 Saturday morning neither Maries were up yet and the table looked like it did when I went to sleep. What a great night.

I spent Sunday reading at an outdoor café, walking around Aix with friends and going to a movie that night. We went to see the Assination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. We saw it in a tiny French theater, in English with French subtitles. Their translations were crap but I guess there isn’t really any way to convey “Howdy partner” in french…