Bear with me for what will probably be an absurdly long post, but so much has happened since I last wrote!
Last Thursday morning, our group left Dijon and headed to Provence, a region in the South of France, for some touring. We were on a bus for about six hours, but it wasn't bad since we had an opportunity to nap and to observe the French countryside, which is so beautiful. Along the way, we could see rolling, green mountains, vineyards, cornfields, and fields of sunflowers (the last two reminded me of home!). We stopped for lunch during the drive, too. I was expecting to grab a sandwich and hop back on the bus, but seeing as this is France, we took an hour lunch at this insanely nice rest stop (for a rest stop, that is). It had a cafeteria where you could choose from all sorts of foods and have a full sit down meal, kind of a nice change of pace from the usual grab and go eat in the car.
We finally arrived in Orange late afternoon and took a guided tour of le théâtre antique d’Orange, a monument left by the Romans that has the best preserved scène (or stage). The théatre is still used for operas and concerts, which makes for a cool juxtaposition of past and present. From there we continued on to Arles, driving through Les Alpilles (little Alps) to check into our hotel and chill out for a bit before heading to dinner.
The next day (Friday), we started out with a tour of the Musée Departementale d’Arles Antique in Arles. It had several scale models of typical Roman monuments that we had seen, like the théâtre, and ones we would be seeing later on. They also had mosaics, sarcophaguses, and other artifacts that had been recovered from Roman times. The museum also had a room full of artifacts that were recently found in the Rhône River that runs through Arles, including the head from a statue of Julius Caesar.
After the museum in Arles, the group got back on the bus for the short drive to the charming city of Nîmes. Once there, we had a guided tour of l’arène or l’amphithéâtre, where gladiators used to fight and where they still hold bullfights and concerts today. After that we walked to the city’s center to see the Maison Carrée, which was also in the center of the Roman city and served as a temple. We then had some time to walk around a little before heading back to Arles for dinner. Friday’s dinner was at a very typical Provencal restaurant where they had regional specialties like ratatouille. Some of the kids in the group ordered fish and were surprised to find the head was still attached when it was brought out. Luckily, I played it safe with lamb cooked in Provencal spices.
Saturday was by far my favorite day. We got to sleep in a little bit and then had time to go the marché on the main street in Arles. It was like a farmer’s market on drugs. There were vendors selling clothes, shoes, spices, fabrics, olives, bags, bread, cheese, fruits, and vegetables. I probably could’ve spent hours milling around, but we had to get back to the bus to go to Saintes Maries-de-la-Mer. The Mediterranean coast was about an hour away, so we spent the entire afternoon on the beach. It was so relaxing and so gorgeous. Later on the wind picked up and we were getting face-fulls of sand, so we moved up onto a jetty (I don’t know if this is the right word) or basically a group of rocks that was sticking out into the sea. From there we had a great view of the beach and marina and the town behind us. There were only six of us that stayed on the beach all afternoon, but we all agreed it was the BEST day. We topped it off with ice cream cones before getting on the bus back to Arles for our last dinner there.
Sunday morning we left Arles to go back to Dijon. We made a pit stop at the Pont du Gard, an awesome Roman aqueduct. We walked around and took pictures for about an hour, and then made our way back to Dijon to meet up with our host families.
As soon as we pulled into Dijon, I was sooo nervous about meeting my family since I hadn’t been able to make contact with them and knew absolutely nothing about them. It might’ve been for the best that I had no expectations because I am more appreciative of how lucky I got. It’s a family that lives in the suburbs of Dijon, and they have four kids and a huge Saint Bernard named Maya. Two of the kids live at home (Étienne and Alice who are 20 and 19) and the other two (Marine and Mathieu) are older and are either looking for a job or in med school. Last night the whole family was home for dinner, so I was kind of overwhelmed, but even though I’m sure I come up with totally incoherent sentences, they couldn’t be nicer. I’ve woken up the past two mornings to a huge spread for breakfast laid out on the table for me with several types of cereal, milk, juice, fruit, bread, jams, Nutella, and coffee. French breakfast is the best. Where else is it acceptable to have Nutella in the morning? Family dinners have been great, too. They serve it in courses with a salad-type thing (not lettuce) or soup first, then the main dish, then lettuce with oil and vinegar, then cheese, then dessert. It’s hard to keep up with conversation when everyone is talking a mile a minute, but I can understand when they direct the conversation toward me or ask me a direct question. I know it will get better as time passes, and hopefully by the end I’ll be able to jump into conversation.
This blog post is already out of control, so I’ll stop for now. I also have some reading to do for class tomorrow and some preparation for a little group presentation I have to do for our trip to Bourgogne this weekend.
À bientôt!
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