Saturday, September 6, 2008

Marseille

Today my program organized a trip to Marseille, which is apparently second only to Paris when it comes to France's biggest cities. It's on the Mediterranean, and I got a bunch of amazing pictures of the ocean! The sun was shining the whole day and I got quite sunburned! To the right is the view from our bus. It only took about 25 minutes to get to Marseille from Aix.


The picture on the left (2nd row of pictures) is of the little islands just off the coast. You can take a special boat just for tourists to go there and spend there. You can barely see it, but the little island that is just in front of the bigger island- to the far left- is where the Chateau D'IF is. This is the castle in which the movie/book The Count of Monte Cristo takes place- the one Edmond Dantes escapes from in the beginning.
Ok, I only added this because my mom wanted a picture with me in it. I look awful because it was really hot and we were all sweating really badly. The view here is gorgeous, though, isn't it? It makes the heat almost bearable. Here, I was walking up the steps to the Notre Dame de La Garde, Marseille's big church. There were so many different languages being spoken by all the tourists! It was the first time I really heard people speaking Italian and it was exciting for me! The bus ride there was a little scary because, like the Sacre Coeur in Paris, this church was on a HUGE hill. We were on one of those big greyhounds, and it was like going up the streets in San Francisco. I really didn't think we were going to make it!
This picture is of my two closest friends in the program so far, Katie (left) and Celina (right). Both are juniors at IU like me.
This one to the right is of the Notre Dame de la Garde. It was so huge!
This one in the middle is a fountain we stopped at for about ten minutes. I don't know what it's called, but it was so gorgeous. I've never seen anything like it.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

My dorm room












This is for you mom! Just some pictures of my dorm room.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

The scenic tour of Aix


Today two of my friends and I decided to explore a little in Aix, and we kind of got lost. We did see a lot of the city, though. To the left is the mountain we can see from our dorms (although this picture was taken about 10 minutes away from where we are staying.) We stopped at a patisserie along the road here for a pastry, and then we had to ask for directions. The man knew immediately that we were native English speakers, but my goal this year is to change that!


This picture on the right is the Parc Jourdain. It's really pretty during the day. People go there and have picnics, and we saw a guy singing and playing his guitar there this afternoon. At night, though, it gets kind of scary. There are supposedly a lot of drug deals that go on there.

I will post again as soon as I have something interesting to write about!

Bisous,
Meredith