Valerie

Valerie came to see me!

Yep, she flew all the way over here. Amidst volcanic ash, flight delays, and rescheduling, she managed to arrive only 5 hours late. Not too shabby.

We had a blast. The first day in Marseille we checked out Chateau d'If for my third time, climbed the mountains of Iles de Frioul in the middle of the mistral (exceptionally strong wind), watched an old man get attacked by an angry boyfriend for taking inappropriate pictures of the girlfriend, and got attacked ourselves by a giant seagull.

The next day, we spent an entire day sneezing as we strolled down the shady boulevards of Aix-en-Provence, the pollen floating off the trees around us like a sparkling, golden fairy dust. It felt horrible. But the shopping was great. We checked out American Apparel and had a serious 80s flashback. I don't know how many times we caught ourselves saying, "Hey, my mom had that!" We also found toy stores, gelato shops, cafes for hot chocolate, and of course, crepes. I have discovered that having company is not beneficial to my waistline.

Sunday, we had a nice lunch with Camilla and two of her Polish friends in Cassis. Then we walked to the port and had a lovely time sleeping on the rocky beach, listening to two British brothers singing 60s songs, and eating more gelato. When it was time to go home, we went in search of our friends who were going to drop us at the train station. I don't know what it is about Cassis but I always get lost there. It is one of the smallest towns I have ever been to and all roads lead down to the sea and somehow, I still get lost, every single time. Long story short, we didn't find our ride and we walked an hour to the train station arriving exaclty 10 minutes after our train had left. Oh well.

Monday and Tuesday I had school so Valerie was left to fend for herself in Marseille for the morning. The first day seemed to go just fine. She hung out at Vieux Port and did some shopping and still managed to walk all the way to school to meet me for lunch. The next day she went to the park and had some less than pleasant experiences. But she was fine and after it all, we had a crepe picnik in the grass in the middle of the city beside the carousel and it was fun.

And in between all of that, she got to meet my host family, play with the kids, and get very familiar with Aubagne's two good restaurants. It was a relaxed week and I had a lot of fun getting to show her how I've been living this year.

I am now feeling bittersweet about coming home in a little over a month. I will desperately miss things about my life here and I'm sure I will get homesick for this life, but I can hardly wait to come home to a place where I am surrounded by familiar: the language, the sounds, the smells, the food, the faces. I'm ready to be back somewhere that I feel like I fit in. Haha, this is exactly opposite what I was feeling when I left for this crazy adventure. We'll see how long it lasts once I'm stateside.

Le Grand Theatre de Provence

I drove myself to Aix-en-Provence. Completely alone. I must be a crazy person. I don't even like to drive to Roanoke when I'm at home. And it was dark. And the road signs are in French. And did I mention I'm driving a manual car?

Everything went incredibly smoothly until I reached the second toll booth. I inserted my ticket as instructed and went to plug in my credit card. "Rejected, please try again." I tried again. "Maybe you have your card in the wrong direction, please try again." So again, I tried. "Rejected!" The previously kind woman's voice on the automatic machine is now getting louder and more angry. So I try my credit cards from the US. Of course they don't work. I finally caved and pushed the intercom button. A man climbed out of his booth and made his way over to me. I'm pretty sure he was rolling his eyes. I wonder how many times this happens per day. He explained that the machine doesn't take cards like mine, and pointed at some tiny blip on the sign that shows my card as one that is not accepted. Only, it doesn't look like my card so how would I ever have known? But he took cash so I made it through the barrier.

Once in Aix, it was simple to find the parking garage. It's a beast of a garage. Huge with arrows pointing in all directions. But it wasn't too bad. I parked and went into town.

Then I was really lost. I walked in a circle for a few minutes but saw no signs of the theatre and it was really cold. I resorted to asking a woman about to cross the road if she could point me in the right direction. I now love Aix because, and I'm basing this impression on only one person, its people are so nice. Not only did she tell me how to get there, she went in completely the wrong direction for her in order to walk me to it. She said I'd be lost for hours if she didn't. We had a good conversation in French and I'm getting really excited that I can talk to these people, at least somewhat. She dropped me off and she was right. I never would have found it on my own.

So, despite all the obstacles, I got there in one piece. What would have caused me to attempt this dicey venture? One word: Baroque.

I found out the day before that there would be a Baroque concert by the Orchestre Francais des Jeunes Baroque. Basically, it was a concert by people aged 16 to 30 playing Charpentier, Purcell, Vivaldi, Locatelli, Bach, and Bach's second son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. I must have still been on a high from seeing Avignon that made me decide to go.

I haven't often been on the listening side of a classical concert seeing as I'd much rather be playing (violin if you don't know). But this was awesome. I was pretty far away so I couldn't see everything exactly, but I know that at least some of the musicians were sporting real Baroque instruments. And the Vivaldi was unlike any Vivaldi I'd heard before. I love Vivaldi!

The conductor was really funny. I understood a lot of what he said even though it was in French. That made me happy. When I didn't understand, I followed the crowd's cues and pretended, i.e. laugh when they do, clap when they do, etc... The only time I didn't give in to the mob mentality was when they clapped so long at the end that the conductor had to come back onstage at least six times. I drew the line after I'd been clapping for what seemed like ten minutes straight. It was almost 11:00 and I'd almost fallen asleep at the end.

Then it was time to make my way home. What I love about driving around midnight is that there are hardly any cars on the road. This was fortunate since I found myself dumped onto the wrong highway going a way I didn't want to be going. (Haha, reading through this the 50th time for editing purposes, I just thought of how funny it is that I can get on the wrong road and end up somewhere I "don't want to be" like Nice or Cannes or something equally as awesome. *contented sigh* Europe is great!) I panicked for half a second before I remembered how well marked their roads are here. I just followed the signs back to Aix and somehow made my way back through the center of town and onto the familiar highway that I was supposed to be on. From there I was home free.

I'll admit, I tested the speed limit just a little. The signs said 110 kilometers/hour. I felt comfortable at 90 and even then I felt slightly daredevil-ish. At one point, when the road was clear, I tried 110. Wow, that speed can take your breath away, at least at night when all you can see are the little white dotty lines on the road.

I arrived home at exactly midnight and sat in the car for a minute jamming with a song I liked on the radio. Then I stepped out of the car and suddenly considered the adventures of the night and thought, with amazememt and some pride, "What did I just do?"