Good old times

Hi friends,
I realize I have not written in a while and the blog I had started to write got deleted. This entry my in turn be rather long. I have done so much in the last two weeks. It is hard to believe I have been here for a month now...crazy. It has gone by really fast. On the 3rd of October I left Aix and went to visit an old friend Tyas. Some of you may remember him from freshman year. To be honest I was expecting our first encounter to be awkward because of not seeing each other for three years and because of the last time I had seen him was a couple of days after I broke up with him. In fact there was nothing awkward about it at all. It was very much like old friends who picked up the friendship as if no time had passed (execpt of course neither of us now has feelings for each other).

The first day I was their we went to Maaschrict (I belive that is how you spell it). We had a blast with that because we were able to take a tour of the town in a more historical sense. We went around the city wall and learned about some of the history behind the city and what protected it. In general I love doing that kind of thing so I definately enjoyed that time. At one point we also got caught up with looking and playing with these huge spiders. If you saw my pictures on facebook you would see a picture of one of them. Other than that we walked around the park. It was soo pretty there because of all the trees and the leaves changing colors. I love the fall! That night his mom cooked a traditional dutch dinner, which was very good but I can not remember the name of it. I was also able to meet his gilfriend, his brother, and his brother's girlfriend. All of them were very nice and fun to hang out with. Milou (tyas' girlfriend) and I got along really well. There was a joke by the end that I was the "latino who claimed to be from the United states and is from the bronx." Needless to say we had fun messing around and more so teasing each other. Thankfully they all knew english because French does not help me speak dutch.

The next day Tyas showed me around his town and then we went to a field and played nothing other than...frisbee. Yeah for bringing Whitworth to Europe. : ) That day we ended up walking for about 4 or 5 hours. I was rather tired. We went back and watched Blood Diamond which I had never seen before. It was a good movie. Definately one that make me ask a lot of questions and think. One interesting thing about watching the movie with Tyas is that his father and step mom live in South Africa with his two little brothers. At the end of the movie we were able to have a good conversation about Africa. Really interesting. Through out that day a few days before I had had a little cold and was very tired by the end of the evening. I also had been going to bed around 3 every night. Not good for getting a cold. Finally I learned to get some sleep.

The following day was fun but rather interesting. Tyas was having his going away party because he is leaving for Chicago to work for about a year. He is doing some sort of student research in regards to the human side of economics. I do not remember exactly what he is doing. Anyway his family and friends came over and most of them could not speak english. In turn I had a lot of fun watching the way people talk. Most people who were there spoke a lot with their hands and gestures. Finally on sunday I returned back to Aix. It was a fun trip.

The next day was monday and also the first day of classes. I have three classes through out the week that are three hours long, and I have several classes which are only an hour long. In all I am taking about 12 credits. Nine hours of work is grammar and language and then I have a role playing class, creative writing, Provence culture (the region I am currently living in) and Phonics. My professor is fun, she makes the class laugh a lot. She also does a good job of explaining things. All of my classes are completely in french-we are not allowed to speak in english or use a dictionary in class. We must explain using other words and then ask what the actual word we were looking for. I am working with a girl on my hall who is helping me with me french. I am also using the weekend time to work in almost a lab environment where I force myself to speak as much in french as I possibly can.

This last weekend was a great example of that. My dad came to visit this last weekend. I had soo much fun going everywhere with him and just exploring. I became his personal translator. He would want to know something or would try to buy anything and would need me to translate. It was really hard at times because I had to use words I did not know but in the end I learned a lot. In learning a lot you also generally make a lot of mistakes. I misread the ticket to Vernon and thus missed my first train. In turn I got into the town I was meeting my dad three hours late. By the time I got there there was no buses, no taxis-nothing. I got the directions and walked to the hotel in the dark. I know not safe but neither is staying at a train station that was closing. Obviously because I am writing this now I got there saftely. The next day was one of my favorite. We went to Claude Monet's Garden in Giverny. I have liked his work since I was in third grade. Getting to see his house and what inspired him was such a neat experience. It is rather hard to describ. I will try to put pictures up soon so you can see what I am talking about. The colors were amazing. You had the leaves changing colors, flowers of every color you can think of and the beautiful blue sky behind as a backdrop. Then we had lunch at this cute this resturant near his house. I loved that day and I loved being able to spend it with my dad.

That night we took the train back to Aix and dropped my dad's stuff off at my room. The next morning I took him around and showed him where I live and where I go to school. After that we randomly decided to go to Marseille. When we arrived we decided to go to the beach. It was fun to walk around and enjoy the sun. There were tons of sailboats out that day (I think there was some kind of race going on). Then we found our way around this place that was obviously a private club to a entry way which allowed us to watch a race of small remote control sail boats. It was rather fun. From there we took a bus that was far too full for its own good back to the train station. While on the bus I came across this women who decided to give me a brief history of Marseille and some of its old buildings. That was really random but interesting to listen to. When we arrived at the train station we decided instead of going back we would head to Avignon.

We got to Avignon in the middle of the ruby game against England. It was definately a party. That night we stayed at a little hotel in the middle of the city. The next morning we got up and went to the Pope's Palais. We spent a lot of time walking around there and learning about the history. Mine was rather hard to hear because I got one of the phones in French (again working on my french) so I had to ask my dad several times what they actually said. From there went to Pont d'Avignon. This is a bridge that is rather famous in Avignon. It is famous for reasons which are normal to a bridge but also for the song that orginates from it. I learned this song while at whitworth this last jan term. It was fun to see where it actually came from. From there my dad and I went to a mideaval fair type thing. That was rather interesting and fun to watch. Although I do not know where you would put all of that stuff when you were not working at a fair.

Eventually we returned back to Aix. I had class the next morning and my dad had tons of homework to do. That evening I sent him off on his way. He was going to visit Evan before going to business meetings. This week has just been a lot of me catching up and working on improving my french. Thankfully it is improving daily. I am making more friend and have become a little more confident in my abilities. That is where things are now. Hope all is well with you guys.