French Stories that would be really bad bedtime stories; Part Two

Story Two: The tale of two cities. Or more like one city. Actually just a provence. Aix en Provence.


Sometimes I catch myself realising I'm in France. It's like I can visualise myself turning to look straight down and popping out the top of my head surging upwards in an ariel view of this house, of this little down, of this provence, of all of France, Europe and so far out that I can see the world spin round to show Australia purely to emphasise to me how far from everything I know I am. These times are slightly surreal because it doesn't feel as different as I would have thought it would be since it seems no matter where I go it's not like I outrun who I am (not that I particularly want to, I'm loads of fun). And then, other times, I've scarcely the time to say to myself "My God this place is beautiful. I'm. In. France." before the next amazing site is before my eyes. Aix on Provence is one such town that inspires these moments :)

They don't suspect a thing... now I can sneak up on them and be all Australian mwahaha

 Commence the arbitrary dumping of photos...

They say it is the face of a woman who was waiting for her man to return home for so long that she turned to stone as she waited and waited...but he never returned

Turns out he never returned because he forgot to buy milk and he knew she'd be pissed so he didn't want to face her. He also forgot his legs somewhere or potentially traded them for that lovely loincloth full of fruit
(Yeah...mayyyy have made up that story...possibly...but it's probably true)

Actually the more I think about it the more I wonder why this lovely house was decorated with such tortured looking men...

This photo doesn't do it justice, but it's a stunning garden

I could easily die happy if I did nothing but traverse little streets like this for the rest of my life

Actually I would probably die quickly, hungry and confused why I was doomed to carrying through on a flippant remark I made in a blog... but still... it'd be pretty awesome for the first day or two

So now that I've dumped some photos on you, I'll admit that these photos in no way do this little quaint town justice. It's otherwise known as the "village of water" and has 70 fountains in it (because 71 would just have been crazy, but 70 is a totally acceptable way to spend the city's money) and is just utterly gorgeous. It's also home to one of the main uni's down here. I am seething with jealousy (how extremely negative does that sound!) Okay, I'm more like...hmmm... the kid outside in the cold with his nose pressed up against the window of the warm bakery, looking inside longingly (why did I make myself a boy in the metaphor? Well, why not). anyway so to capture the experience more aptly I stuck to the pattern and made you a movie. But, since it only goes for a minute or so, sticking with the time travelling nature of my stories, I combined it with the film of our trip around Marseille's Notre Dame a few days later.


Interlude between Story Two and Three; The story of Lisa's exhaustion


I've been really enjoying seeing all of these old buildings and the style of these towns where everything is this typical provincial look, and I'm so grateful to the various people who have taken me there and around but there's a part of me that is getting restless to go somewhere alone. It's exhausting trying to speak French all the time and plus I think there's a different experience to absorbing the essence of somewhere beautiful with a group of people and on your own. And part of me just wants to go spend the day walking around the town with my own thoughts without worrying about being an imposition or rude to anyone I'm with. It's a weird desire since I'm constantly forced to be in my own head here anyway since the language barrier frequently isolates me from a lot of conversations. For once in my life I'm genuinely forced to shut up and just sit there. It's a pretty bizarre experience to feel like you can't express yourself at all to the people around you. Even the people I have here who can speak a little English and give me a break now and again and let me speak English, don't understand all that much and I know as I try to talk, they aren't reeeeally understand what I'm trying to say. They understand most/some of it, but I know I can't really talk naturally and they just don't quite really get it. It's a little bit draining really to be honest, especially since anyone who knows me knows I love having discussions about things and delving into thoughts about complicated interesting things, I like talking to people and generally like making people laugh by making jokes. I like being expressive and engaging and it's ridiculously challenging over here. It's not so bad if anyone directly engages me one on one in a discussion or a few people chat with me and forgive some of my mistakes. Then I can keep an upbeat conversation with laughter and chatter going in French. We've had some good nights like that at cafe's or the pub with a group of Celine's friends I really like. But when I keep meeting new people with Celine I feel really rude having to just sit there like a weird 3rd-silent-Australian-wheel for ages while they talk at a speed that just blurs into white noise for me. Those are the times I either just want to hide somewhere, close the doors, take a deep breath and blow it out slowly and just be on my own for a while (I haven't rubbed my face and sighed this many times in my life) or I wish I could speak French (obviously this option is the more appealing...but the less realistic in that moment). Some nights I'm able to keep it going and keep in good spirits and other nights I'm just too drained and want to recharge on my own. Funnily enough it's taken me two nights to get this post together. Last night when I started this I was pretty drained and didn't really feel like sitting for ages in the midst of French chatter I couldn't understand when I could be reading or something instead, tonight however, I'm in a good mood haha, it's a nice reminder that it always rolls back around to me being re-energised again. I know this may sound ridiculous since it's only been one week (IT'S ONLY BEEN ONE WEEK!?!?) But I've been so busy and done so much, I could swear it's been 2-3 weeks or so. I don't want to end this section seeming to come off as saying I'm not having a good time or I'm exhausted, but I'm also not about to lie and say I'm constantly cheery and full of energy. I am having an amazing time, but amazing times are exhausting. And the truth is, some days I'm getting exhausted... But I'm happy. I really am. :) (Look at that, I couldn't help it anyway!)


The DVD version of the book; Remember that video I mentioned?
Yeah so it turns out I got carried away making that "short" video, as I always tend to do when I start making videos, and it is now epic. The next post will soley be France, brought to you in VHS form...

French Stories that would be really bad bedtime stories; Part One

I have a bad habit of taking photos completely arbitrarily or not at all and thinking I'll post a blog of the day at the end of each day then ending up being busy being French and shiz, ergo I now have a mess of stories to tell and I was debating if I should lay them out in a few neat, orderly posts or just dump them on you with blatant disregard for order or narrative time flow like armfuls of random clothing thrown on the bed when I do my washing... which is rarely anyway. I have hereby decided this is a lovely idea (seriously...it's because it's lovely...not because I'm lazy) and have complied a series of eclectic stories from France for you to enjoy. I pay zero reverence to balance of time flowing in a sensical manner. Without further ado, I present to you:

French Stories that would be really bad bedtime stories

~A series of short stories and musings by a woman sitting in a French bedroom pretending to be French and sane and stuff like that

Story One: The tale of how Lisa became immensely fat

So I'm sure I've established by now that I'm basically being starved over here. I rarely get food to eat, and when I do it's only stale bread and vegetables. Hah. Seriously, if I haven't stressed enough yet how delicious this country is, allow me to regale you with my travels in food form. The update being the following highlights:

The other night we sat around having drinks and chatter before dinner and Patrick (my fake French Papa) heard me say I like scotch and we were talking about how in France it's only called whisky, so he opened a 15 year old bottle of scotch before I could work out how to say "No no really that's far too kind" in French. Freaking awesome sensation sitting inside sipping that when you've just come in from the cold and you can smell dinner about to be served.

All good stories should start with the main character getting slightly drunk before dinner

The story then progresses to some strange woman being allowed into a French university for the day to go with her French friend to her classes. The English class in the morning was interesting but a bit weird. They seemed to focus on learning things that didn't really seem insanely crucial to know when the students didn't really have a full grasp on some of the simpler concepts. What sort of language class teaches what it means to "clock in and clock out" or "knock off" and "enforce strategic planning" before they teach the difference between "he, she, his, her, my, yours, you, ours" :S Well anyway, for lunch we  went to a nearby bakery (I swear I've used the phrase "ca sents bon!" "It smells good!" so ridiculously many times). The bakery had an upstairs area, a little like an old European pub, very cosy. I had an awesome slice of pizza and a chocolate pie :D The afternoon lecture was surreal. Sitting in a dusty warm room with something like 5 students and one old professor who resembled something like a cross between Santa and David Attenborough who spoke the most rapid animated French and loved saying "Cuckoo!" when his students weren't paying attention.

Yes, hello, I would like...everything

We now flash forward through time, because it's my story and I can do stuff like that. I can also do stuff like this! Hello Renee and confuse many of you and please one of you :) Anyway, so back to our time machine story... we're now in the middle of our day exploring Aix en Provence at lunch in a little restaurant with Patrick and Chantal (neither of whom speak English just ps). The lunch was pretty nice but mainly I just loved the decore of the place. Plus there was this adorable little dog who I think belonged to one of the waiters. The little pup really wanted to be with his owner and kept finding a way inside and running over all happy then having to get taken back outside over and over haha poor little guy...

Have eaten snails. Am basically French now.

O hai guys I think you accidentally put me outside...guys...hello?

RETURN TO THE TIME MACHINE! Suddenly we're in yesterday's evening in the middle of eating a Chichi with Nutella (Nutella is everywhere over here! Which is just fine by me, I would hook that stuff up to my veins if I could...and if that didn't just totally defy the point since my veins don't have tastebuds...and if that didn't kill me) We had these after our walk up to Notre Dame in Marseille, sitting on a wall overlooking the port as the sunset with a group of awesome French friends. I seriously don't think life would get much better moments than this...

I can get away with this because the next photo is really pretty

So many classical little French houses overlooking the sea...ahhh :)

I think I live here now

Is your heart sighing its heart out? Yes, take a moment to enjoy the weird image of your heart having a heart as well as an ability to sigh, then come with me into the time machine again which now resembles the Willy Wonka boat (the old school film of course) with images flashing by you as we travel onto the next story. Except instead of unexplainably weird, horrible and totally irrelevant-to-the-plot-line-of-willy-wonka images (SERIOUSLY did we EVER get an explanation as to why that tunnel had to appear in Willy Wonka?!?) the images are of awesome things I've consumed here.

Ignore the girl.
It was essential for the story line.

So turns out I don't actually want to take you through a rape tunnel though. My tunnel would involve flashing images of French wine and cheese, a lot of petite coffees, more cheese and bread, more crepes, soup, avocado boats filled with a shrimp paste (sounds so so weird I know but it was DELICIOUS!), chocolate, fig jam and more things all of which I ate. The moral of this story is, if you don't want to get fat, don't go to France. But it's worth it...so go to France.

Story Two: The tale of two cities. Or more like one city. Actually just a provence. Aix en Provence. ... Coming next...when it isn't 1am here :) Bon nuit tout le monde!