It rains in the south of France?

Last night & earlier this morning it was rainy in Aix. We started at 10 this morning and for most of the week, so I left with a couple extra minutes to saunter through the downtown with the time and ended up running into the marché, which happens several places in the town on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. On Saturdays, everyone raves about all the great clothes they sell. SWEET.

This morning we heard more from our wonderfully professional program director who gave us the class schedule, which was exciting. Why? Because, with the classes I'd like to take, I won't have any classes Wednesday, Mondays and Thursdays are long, Tuesdays and Fridays, one class. Oh, wait, I forgot. I'm also going to take a wine-tasting class. So a couple times I'll have class Wednesdays so no big deal, I won't sleep the day away. I'll probably just be busy hanging out with my (hopefully) awesome French language partner and doing some community service and my "club," basically any outside activity that I'm interested in. I think I'll be able to handle it;)

Anyways, the world keeps getting smaller, as a couple of my classmates know the same people as I do and other connections are made. So far everyone's getting on well, but I guess when you're speaking a foreign language that helps since we can only make small talk at this point. Honestly though, despite of the language barrier, we're getting to know each other and having fun joking around & such.

This afternoon we had French classes for 3 1/2 hours straight. It was long but at the same time interesting because I got to meet some of my future professors, who were all different but very fun. One of them I will have for 2 classes, approx. 3 or 4 hours one day of the week, and he was great.

But my highlight for sure today was my 2.5 euro croque monsieur. SO GOOD. I've been looking forward to it (and many more...) for a long time. The cheese was on the outside of one side of the bread and it was served immediately off the griddle, so good.

After class I went with a couple other students to get a European phone finally since my program recommended it and I'm afraid American phones eat money for breakfast. The place was called The Phone House, probably to attract English speakers. It was pretty economical but I'm just going to have to play the plans by ear, I have no idea how much I'll be texting/calling at this point.

Tonight we had another yummy dinner: salmon w/ onions and tomatoes on top, baked potatoes (served sliced in half), salad, and of course yogurt for dessert. I forgot to report in but last night was wonderful too, we had a vegetable meledy of asparagus, califlower, brocolli, carrots, served together as a dish, in addition to salad and bread. Last night I went for one of my best runs of my life and I meant to write about it because it was honestly so freeing, so it probably put me in a good mood for the rest of the day. And I got to skype my bro, pops, and mom (AND NIGEL!) so that made me happy, too.

Tomorrow I think will be similar to today, but there's an adventure in everything, right? A demain.

C