AIX

I am in Aix!!! It is a much bigger town/city than I imagined with a very intense intra-city bus system, tons and tons of shops, restaurants, cafés, and bars, and a gazillion beautiful fountains. I have already done grocery shopping in a street market (FABULOUS) and tried and loved the local specialty: les calissons. These range from tiny to large sizes and are basically eye-shaped marzipan (almond paste) with a white glaze on top and a thin layer of wafer on the bottom. Delicious. So basicallyyyyy I'm now a legit Aix inhabitant. But not.

I have quickly found that there is a lot of adjusting I need to do. Paris is not France. France is not Paris. Paris is a vacation with ritzy arrondissements full of food and grocery stores at your disposable and a metro system that will drop you off in your bed, basically, where people expect you to be a tourist and you are surrounded by picturesque postcard images and monuments, and half our meals were paid for by Monsieur Lydgate's program stipend to take us out to over-expensive places where we only drink good wine and RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE food. However, in Aix we are expected to be legitimate self-sufficient students that can take care of ourselves. Shit.
Our little cabanon is lovely and spacious but a good 30-minute walk from free internet access at the Wellesley Center and at least a 15 to 20-minute walk to the apartments of our fellow Wellesley-in-Aixers. Zut, alors! HOWEVER we have some perks: a washing machine ($$$), super safe location (YES), separate rooms unlike the studio apartments (CHA-CHING), a massive kitchen with an endless supply of silverware and 30,000000 plates (YES, SO MANY THAT I CAN'T PUT IN THE APPROPRIATE COMMAS SO THAT THE NUMBER ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE) and a bus pass that is included in our stipend (BOOYAH). However, it does feel relatively isolated. We have so far missed out on 2 friend-group outings because people forget to call us because we apparently have fallen off the face of the Earth.
Also, we saw La Fac yesterday, or the university where we'll be taking our classes. Holy mother of pearl. Ghetto-not-so-fabulous might be the right term to describe it. Walls that are crumbling, graffiti EVERYWHERE, 293850285 outdated political activist posters, a building that was built as if they just stuck together bits of random rooms as they found it necessary, and rooms with old-school wooden benches where if you're one of those people that has to go to the bathroom, you really can't sit in the middle of the class or you'll have to ask like the 30 people sitting to your left or right to "excusez-moi" before you get up to physically announce to the professor that you are the idiot that has to go pee in the middle of his fascinating lecture. I'm still excited to take classes but the building is a mess, the administration is a mess, the cigarette-smoking is a mess, the students are woahhhhhh NOT wellesleyan (haha get it, yeaaah wellesley-an not wesleyan...ok jkjk lol nvm). But I'm actually excited to try university/college a different way. Just not excited about finding my classes and registering for them because that'll be a crazycrazycrazy affair.

Ok. Now you're all wondering: BUT WHERE DOES THIS GIRL LIVE, DAMMIT! Or maybe not. I live in a lovely tiny house in the backyard of a lovely small family of whom the mother is ADORABLE and incredibly sweet. On the first day, she popped her head in our kitchen window like 5 times to keep telling us helpful hints that she thought of. Pictures of the house are on the way, perhaps a video tour of it on YouTube? Perhaps.
Also, we discovered/already knew about but finally went to the open-air farmer's market. Amazing. I'll have to take pictures of it. This is where I plan on buying my groceries because it's cheaper (as I told my mother, 4 avocados for 2 euro, I think YES), and the quality is better and the old people are cute. I miss my old book vendors, okay?!? Cut me some slack. Another thing: the people here are much more patient and nicer. All the vendors are very very sweetIn summary: beautiful beautiful place which I am already falling in love with, just need some time to adjust.
But for now here are some beautiful pictures of the town for you to enjoy: