Today, Nutella-flavored ice cream.

Howdy. Let's get onto the weekend's events!

During the routine café stint during the break in class, some of the girls in my class told me that there was a performance tonight for which they had free tickets and had extras, so I was invited. Briefly speaking of class, I believe I previously mentioned that I was in the second level. I was slightly disappointed with that placement, so was the rest of the class. The school realized that we really should have been in the third level class, so for administrative purposes the class level was changed and I am in the third level, which is "Advanced Intermediate" or something. Anyway, I had plans for Friday night. I was told that it was a ballet. I got there and it wasn't ballet. It was modern dance. Like most modern art, much of it was abstract, and I was disappointed because I was really hoping for ballet. Regardless of that, I got to see a cultural event for free.

For Saturday, I ambitiously decided to make my own trip to somewhere in France. I decided on Avignon and Pont du Gard. These two places really excited me because the former is a fortified city, and the fortified city I saw last time I was in France (St. Malo, and I know I'll be corrected on that one if I'm wrong) amused me so much. The latter is a Roman aquaduct that I saw pictures of in my Archaeology of Ancient Greece and Rome class textbook (Mom and Dad, it's in Roman Art, which is one of the books I put on your bookshelf if you want to read about it.).

Et voilà, Avignon! Here I pretty much just walked around the city while eating and taking pictures. The bus left for here at 8:30 a.m. and one of the girls that decided to come along didn't make it to the bus stop on time. It was just one other girl from my class and me.

The tourism office in Avignon told us that the best way to do a trip to Pont du Gard was to leave around noon and then take a bus to Nîmes and a train back to Avignon since we had return bus tickets to Aix from Avignon. The kind people gave us all of the necessary schedules, and we were set.

Again, there was walking around in Avignon and taking pictures of the walls and the buildings. Nothing aside from the picture above really stands out enough to put it in here.

I must mention that if I were to move to France, I think I'd want to live in this city. It's beautiful, fortified, and not ridiculously expensive.

The bus to Pont du Gard was next on the itinerary. The bus drops off passengers about half a mile from Pont du Gard, but the walk is entirely worth it as you start to see the stone arches through the trees.

This is a first look at Pont du Gard.

My reaction to this structure was very similar to that of Stonehenge: taking massive amounts of pictures and being stuck there for several hours with nothing better to do other than taking those pictures and spend money in the gift shop.

Want another view of Pont du Gard? Here you go! I was allowed to touch this one, unlike Stonehenge.

After sitting on the side of the road for about a half hour waiting for the late bus, the Nîmes was the next stop on this tour. According to the train schedule back to Avignon, we were going to miss the first train, but the second one was about an hour later. There would be just enough time to go to the Roman ampitheatre and then catch the train after walking around the town a bit. It should also be noted that the girl that missed the bus from Aix called us to tell us she was in Avignon while we were headed to Pont du Gard. We would catch up with her in Avignon when we got there before the last bus left for Aix and ride back with her.

We got to Nîmes and headed right for the Roman ruins.

In front of the ampitheatre were all of these tour buses. I automatically thought "tour group". There were signs all around pointing in the direction to get into the whole thing. As we walked, I saw shirt vendors and people sitting around as if it were a concert. I didn't think they held such things in such places. While walking further around, some American tourists were encountered that clearly couldn't figure out how to get in either. They informed me that there was a Radiohead concert there tonight. One word: ridiculous.

Apparently bullfights go on here when there aren't concerts.

After walking around a bit more we walked back to the train station. There we found out that the train we wanted to get on in twenty minutes didn't exist. That's fine, there is another train forty minutes later that will get to Avignon in time to make the bus.

Unfortunately, the sign indicating departures showed that our train was a bus. I inquired at the information desk and I was told "Today, that train is a bus". I was reassured that it would get to Avignon 25 minutes before the bus to Aix was to leave.

After a long wait, the bus shows up 15 minutes late. The bus was also driven by the only safe bus driver in France, so the bus pulled into the train station of Avignon instead of the bus station as my anxiety was sky-rocketing because we arrive about a minute before the bus to Avignon is to leave, which would have been fine if we were in the bus station. Our friend was on the bus, but apparently didn't think to try to stall the bus driver. When we get off the bus we take off running, and I make it into the bus station just in time to see the Avignon-Aix-press pulling out of the station. I run after it for much further than I thought I could run, but the driver doesn't stop. The girl I was with was on the phone with our friend who was now trying to get the driver to stop. He said he would if we could keep up. He made no attempts to slow down. We didn't keep up.

Stranded in Avignon would have been alright had I not had plans for a trip Sunday morning. There were no more buses back to Avignon until the morning. The only direct route is a taxi, which is not cheap since it was over an hour by bus. I apparently have pretty good troubleshooting and thinking-outside-the-box type skills because I realized we could take the train to Marseille and then the bus to Aix because those buses run almost all night. Train tickets were obtained ten minutes before the train was to depart. While standing on the platform, the train that was to leave after the train to Marseille leaves. A minute or two later the departure board changes to indicate that the train to Marseille is deleted. That is the second train that didn't run when I needed it to! Fortunately, there are two more trains to Marseille on Saturday nights. The next train leaves around 8:40 p.m. (the bus left at 6:45 p.m.). Finally, I was slightly relieved when I found myself sitting on a train. We arrived in Marseille a few minutes to 10 p.m. Fortunately, I knew the name of the bus that runs between Marseille and Aix, so when I saw someone at the desk, I was overjoyed. She told me that there was a bus leaving in about three minutes, but it was at the bottom of the hill. We took off with more rapid motion and found the bus with a minute to spare. After finally arriving in Aix there was no way I was walking back to the apartment. I sucked it up and paid for a taxi. That is my fiasco. I wonder if the moral of this is that I shouldn't plan travel on my own. That's foreboding for Paris.

A few hours later, I was headed off to Luberon!

The first stop was Isle-sur-la-Sorgues. Here there were a bunch of water wheels!

There was the second largest market in France (second to Paris). Here I purchased fougasse that put Wegmans' fougasse and entire bread counter to shame as well as half a kilogram of strawberries. This was the best meal that I have eaten in France. All I need is some fruit and bread, and I'm satisfied. That is a surprise to no one.

After this was Roussillon, where my camera battery died because I foolishly forgot to recharge it the night before.

Roussillon is on top of a mountain and off to the side is a quarry of red, orange, and yellow rocks. The buildings of Roussillon are made out of this rock and are beautiful.

The rocks themselves make one wonder if they are in France. The colors were beautiful, and there was a hiking path, that I naturally had to take even though I was ill-equipped and full of strawberries.


This is for Renée.

I matched the rock. Had the color stratification been more rapid, I could have matched all of the colors on my shoes.

Commence the making fun of me.

After Roussillon, it was off to Gordes, which is another city on the top and sides of a mountain. I will soon have the pictures of this city when one of the others on the trip e-mails them to me, she kindly let me use her camera when mine was not agreeable. This is the single picture I have of Gordes at present. It is the castle in the center of the town. Here, like Roussillon and Isle-sur-la-Sorgues, there was just a lot of walking around.

Most of the streets in French cities are unpaved. Gordes claims the title for the first place to make me fall because of the uneven stones. I've stumbled, but recovered in almost every other town I've been in.

Finally, tonight at dinner, the little girl in my host family told me that they missed me this weekend. It was precious: Toi, tu nous manques.*



*For those that know French, a note: Yes, she used the present tense. She is eight and her homework sometimes resembles mine. Yes, that is how manquer is used; I was right the first time.