if you are easily made jealous.. do not read this blog
got back from london and spent wednesday just catching up. I skipped my afternoon class. what a great decision. Instead i studied french on the porch with caitlin while listening to disney music :) SO relaxing! with coffee and our cat :)
thursday had class that i sat on 'stumbleupon' during all of it. after we went and ate at gazelles cafétéria. It was a big group of us and after we went to the park! it was so nice! almost all of my friends were there as this was the first super nice day. we just sat around and talked.. some tried to read and it failed.. including me.. and i got to even meet some new people. After many people left i got to meet a girl from Jordan and we all made plans to meet up later that night. Me and my friend paco went halfsies on real alcohol, whiskey, so that was exciting as wine can really get old when its one euro wine. I then felt like a psycho walking through town as french people act like its not hot in the south of france and as though they had never seen someone where shorts. I was even wearing khaki shorts, nonathletic!
bought a bottle of coca cola on the way home.. I walk in saying 'bonsoir' and the guy immediately asks if im from the US.. in my head im like.. really? from one word? so i actually ask him.. 'how did you know' and he said just a lucky guess and that he hated americans, i say chicago, and he says especially people from chicago, but then laughes and tells me that he actually loves them and hopes i love it here and have a great night. well that i did
went to deirdras apartement that night downtown.. met a bunch of french guys that were.. total french guys.. one guys name 'fabrice' - sounds like febreeze haha - joked with people on chatroulette and stood down in the alley forever waiting for people to be ready to go out, as the host had lost her keys.
ended up being awesome. We were in the streets most of the night as for some reason it was packed, i suppose cus it was sooo beautiful outside! i met many french people randomly in passing, including 2 girls my age who each i met separately and commented on my french level and lack of accent! yes! i was stoked! we kept losing people we were with and finding others we knew.. really cool - plus cant be caught in the streets drinking in the US so just very different! (actually i cant even be caught drinking! haha ) we then went to IPN and ran into the Irish girls who are too much fun! and we just had such a great night dancin together! stayed out til super late into the morning
friday consisted of.. simply sleeping
got a package from chase with a swim suit! just perfect as we were going to the beach the next day!
It was andrea's birthday, a girl from mexico! so we got up early for a bus to Cassis however the bus time didnt exist so instead we went to marseille and had an hour to kill until a train could take us to Cassis. Perfect because we had a nice relaxing coffee! At the gare we ran into everyone else we know! who were going also to Cassis and others to the calanques. Hopped on board and had a nice relaxing ride. I met a french girl from Strasbourg and we had a very nice franglais conversation about what to do with our lives and our love for traveling and languages! talked about the lack of transportation in europe and how we can try to stay young and free forever :)
we stayed on the beach all day having a picnic and a tri-lingual conversation - french, english, spanish. It was interesting because i stopped noticing when things switched.. almost not even bothered by hearing the spanish i didnt understand. It was really neat! We also played the game where you write a name and stick it to your head and have to guess who you are by asking questions.. they were all so diverse it was funny! - E.T. Gaddafi, marilyn monroe, cezanne, etc. We ate strawberries all day and some people got in the water but it was too cold for me. the beach at Cassis is so pretty and small and BLUE. It was also perfect because the temperature and wind were just enough that one could tan in a swimsuit or have normal clothes on and either way by comfy. Heres a picture of our group by the water :)
Sunday slept all day :) it rained and i woke up around 2pm to fresh made crêpes. How awesome! i did all my london bloggin and pics and trip planning. It was my three month mark and i got pretty freaked out.. :(... also spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to download rosetta stone so i can learn some spanish
Monday I met my friend jed at an internet café 'le capitole' to catch up/start homework. Plan failed. It had been too long since we'd seen each other and we ended up chatting the entire time and showing funny stuff online while listening to really upbeat new american music in the background. He came back to eat dinner with caitlin and I.. he was very impressed with my moms cooking.. who wouldnt be! fresh home-made taboulé and crêpes with shrimp n salade :) I then left with jed to go préboire at their place. We went to the usual sunset (sun7) and i basically talked with denise - and irish girl- all of the night! also aurélien and jeds other french guy friends a little.
this is my friend denise and vinny
Tuesday, i had my last france dans le monde class. Afterwards we went to parc Rambot where we ate baguette and some of my friends climbed trees (ben and angela are experts) while listening to weezer. Basically perfect! it was so weird to just have time to do that with no obligations that night, so nice! On the way back we stopped with jed who gets fresh vegetables every week from a local farmer! pretty cool experience to check it out.
Wednesday i had class again in the morning but skipped my one in the afternoon. I did however go to the bibliotheque for the first time! Rented out a book i need for my environnement et santé final. Well funny thing was i tried to rent it and was somehow 'pas inscrire'.. whatever, french paperwork at its best, but got the book anyway! Came home and again sat outside with caitlin, studying french and drinkin coffee. Skyped with Quinn and we got Italy dates set in stone, he gave me life advise as usual too :)
Thursday, i woke up 'early' for class at 10 and during our pause kinda started complaining to my friend saying 'ughh i have sooo much shit to do today'.. she responds, 'oh yeah what?' and i replied.. seriously 'i have to take out money and gotta get a crêpe at that best place in town.. reserve tickets for Italy, go to Dia to buy wine for tonight, and then meet some people at the park'.... we looked at eachother and busted out laughing as clearly this is not anything difficult nor annoying to do! haha i might be getting spoiled huh?
so i did these things, tickets i lucked out on, crêpe was egg, ham, n cheese, AMAZING! and we met a ton of people in the park!
vinny is only so close cus the first attempt of the pic he was awkwardly far away! haha.. but so we stayed at the park until pretty late but now it doesnt get dark until around 8. So my april fools joke started that morning. There was a confusion about my rent with the middle person vivienne, however it was settled. I start getting texts from my host mom véro saying she was mad at me and really upset and na na na. I was pretty surprised and felt bad about it. She was at work so while i was getting ready to go out i got a message of her saying not to talk to her when she got home. I hurried and left early to not deal with it and went to my friends apartments. The whole time im there i continue to text with her and she starts saying how she doesnt trust me to stay there and told vivienne to find me a new family!! i start freaking out.. obviously, not understanding what i did to make her so mad. Caitlin calls reassuring me that everything will be ok but i was on the verge of tears. Luckily my friends were being hilarious. Angela set her skirt on fire from candles by accident, kevin we couldnt understand cus he was using so many irish expressions, and ben distracted me by running to sun7 (all the way through town about 10 min) haha it was fun!
I get to sunset and caitlin is there and hugs me and is like 'lindsey... what is today?' and i said.. idk march 31.. and she says 'that means tomorrow is...' and i usually would never think of april fools but véro had brought it up a few days prior.. so i said 'poisson d'avril' and it clicked.. i realized that the whole thing was fake and i shouldnt worry however it was clearly a prank of really bad taste! im glad caitlin told me cus then i enjoyed the rest of my night.
The next morning I had a fish on my door saying COCHON! which she always calls me as a nickname.. she spent a lot of time apologizing the two days after saying she knows it was bad taste and felt really bad but couldn't pass up such an opportunity! well.. it sure is an april fools i will never forget
Friday we went to parc jourdan again. This time it really was everyone we knew.. even caitlins friends joined! we stayed so late. Listening to music, Johnny hung (a legend.. a vietnamese guy who is beyond vulgar and offensive and impossible to understand) was there, and we shared food like avacado n baguette, crab sticks and cantelope, etc.. very summery! After, i went to caitlins friend Hollys apartment to freshin up before going out to eat in aix! Caitlin bought my dinner and wine for us for my birthday because I will be gone for it :) so sweet of her! It was friday so we all got sea food stuff and it was a restaurant right off the Cours Mirabeau! I got a pizza that was OVERLOADED with shrimp and mussels :) mmmmm and caitlin the same but a salade.. it was so nice to eat out for once! maybe the second time i have since ive been here :) we went home and crashed as we all were getting up early the next day
SATURDAY!! CALANQUES!!!!!!!!!
paradise!
So a huggee group of us decided to go do the calanques! Its by cassis and you have to hike to get down to the water, as you can see there are huge rocks and the water, off to the left, is sooo blue! I got up around 8 and packed my lunch, the huge group made it impossible to be efficient so we didnt get there until around noon. On the way bought strawberries and oreos! the hiking was really easy at times, a simple path like in the picture, and really difficult at other times
but it was so fun and when we got to the bottom the water is just soooo blue and clear and goes on forever and ever it was just too gorgeous. we sat at one spot for a bit but were catching too much wind. We picnic-ed there anyway and then packed back up to find another calanques. We did some legit hiking trying to find a way over to another spot! a lot of it ended up as dead ends so we settled in a more popular area! Here we could jump in the water, swim to the island in front and do high jumps off the island! You could see straight down to the ground the water was so clear! I was really scared as I do not even remember the last time I went off a diving board! But I did it!!! and when I landed not only did i plummet down far, but i also forgot it was salt water!!! (been forever since i was at an actual beach!) AND it was ice ice cold!
thats me haha
it was sooo fun! so much adrenaline ! and after we actually swam for about 5-10min! we got used to the temperature and the waves were really fun :) we finally swam back and climbed back up to our friends. We laid and slept and tried off. Then, jed wanted to go since he hadnt the previous time so i headed back to the island with him. We then climbed to the tip top of it and chilled for maybe an hour! you can see him n I as tiny specks on the upper left side of the island :)
we then decided we would jump of the backside of the island which looked higher than the other.. the water was black it was so deep there. We were debating the jumping spot and tactic.. and if we even thought we had the guts to do it. We then get called by a guy farther around the island asking where were from. he was from New Zealand!! we talked about it for a while him saying wed need at least 2-3 MONTHS to see it all! and saying that he knows they are famous for sheep and lord of the rings so not to mention it haha. Hes teaching english in marseille currently. We then convinced him to jump with us even though he wasnt in swim clothes :).. as us three are deciding how to jump a french guy comes around the corner. I ask 'tu l'ai déjà fait?' and hes like Nooonn non!! so i asked if he wanted to do it with us and he agreed. The three boys tried to push me to show them how it should be done :P I refused so we decided to go together on 3.. So within 5 minutes of meeting these people, a french, an american, a canadian, and a new zealander jump off a terrifying height together when saying TROIS!!! (no photo sadly) but it was SO awesome.. Went soooo far down.. no touching, came up to waves crashing against the rocks and seeing the three guys come up too! we were all in shock from the jump and the cold! We started swimming back and said bye to the two others.. ughh how lives cross for a second.. so cool. my ears were popping for days after that! BEST Thing ever though!
couldnt be happier than I was at the calanques
slept some more and stared at the scenery as long as i could before we packed up to go. The hike back was about an hour straight uphill! TIRING!! we then had to take a bus into marseille. we got off the wrong stop and did an amazing race style back to the gare to get to aix (the big group couldnt decide which way to go so we split up) my group got their first :) and getting back to aix was so relieving. i had dinner with caitlin and véro when i got home.. we spent like an Hour or more clearing up the april fools joke.. which was an annoying conversation but whatever.. and I had no energy to go out but just crashed in bed
Sunday i woke up early again and dragged caitlin out of bed to go to the beach with me :)
We went to the plage à Cassis! On the way to the gare we saw some of the parade stuff coming through town as it was the day of the carnival. Bus straight there and ran into some other friends going. I started some work but mainly slept, ate, and took one dip in the icy water :) We got gelato on the way home and had a super long dinner once home of this petit pois soup my host mom makes!
Getting prepared for italy! Life couldnt really get much better!
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