Smartly, I've also gone out the last 2 nights. Tuesdays are ladies' night in Aix, and so last night everyone went out to the bars. We started at Wohoo, which is the "international bar" in Aix. Nearly all of the bar tenders are American or British, and last night they had 2 for 1 deals for foreign students, which meant the place was packed. We met lots of Americans from other programs, before going to a bar called Le Manoir. It was a really fun night, as most of our program (and the whole group that I've been hanging out with) all went out, and it was a good chance to get to know everyone a little better.
I'm taking 5 classes here in Aix, 2 in French, and 3 in English (or broken English, depending on the teacher). Yesterday I had French literature followed by political science. Whereas at Penn State we have "syllabus week" (the first week of classes which are very short and don't really cover material), in all of my classes so far we've jumped right in to the material. My French literature professor's named Florian (Flo-Flo), and is extremely French. He gave us all of the material that we will be reading this semester. The course is going to cover 19th and 20th century poetry and novels, and his goal is to improve our written French, as well as our phonetics (we'll be reading poetry aloud). I was somewhat surprised that the literature we're beginning with is babied up or edited at all; it's full-on French adult poetry. I have enough difficulty with poetry in English! For the second class (tomorrow), he assigned a rather long poem called Le Lac (translation). Needless to say, I didn't understand much my first time through. But after a few readings of it, with a lot of help from an online dictionary, I was able to get through the homework questions. My second class yesterday was Political Science. The course is Geopolitics of the Mediterranean Basin, which is an interesting class because it treats the entire region as one area, rather than splitting it up. Over the course of the semester we'll be covering the Middle East, the Balkans, Turkey, and the Maghreb. The professor seems very laid-back, but enthusiastic (those seem contradictory, but trust me). He was born in the U.S., was a Marine for 8 years, went to undergraduate and graduate school in France, and has been teaching for the last 10 years.
Today I had a 10:30 class, which was unfortunate as I didn't get home until 3:30 last night. It was another French class, this one advanced French grammar. The hour and a half consisted of the professor explaining the course, and trying unsuccessfully to get us, the half-asleep students, to engage in a conversation. My next class wasn't until 4, so I headed down to le cave, which is the basement of the school (it literally looks like a cave). There are a bunch of tables there, and vending machines, and it's the preferred hang-out spot. I met up with my friend Lauren, and we ended up running into my friend Alex (he's the only other guy from Penn State). We went to get lunch across the street from school at a boulangerie (a bakery), and got what's becoming my new lunch staple: pain bagne. It's a sandwich on a baguette with tuna, egg, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. On a freshly-baked French baguette, it's heavenly. We walked over to the Hotel de Ville (the square where the town hall is), and met up with two MORE friends at a café that has lotsa chairs outside (this is kinda the way our program is. Always running into more people to hang out with). It was a pretty amazing lunch of what I hope will become typical; eating French food, drinking French coffee, good company, good conversation, good weather, and some French guy playing his accordion.
Alex and I had our next 2 classes together (from 4-7), and he also had a long break, so after lunch we hung out in le cave for a while. Finally it was time for class: Com 312. This class is called "Speaking of Provence" and is a study of the region and its history through media. The professor teaches communications at NYU in the fall, and is the aged hippy-activist type. My final class of the day was Econ 304, globalization, growth, and development. The material we talked about today seemed extremely similar to the course I took this past semester, so I'm hoping it gets more in-depth! The material is interesting, although I can't stand the professor's voice: high-pitched, ditsy, with a horrible French accent.
Don't think that I've mentioned this yet (might have been in the first post that got cut short), but this weekend we're going on a big excursion! The whole school gets bussed out Saturday morning, and we start out by going to Nice. After spending Saturday touring Nice, we head over to Monaco and visit the classy Monte Carlo casino. Finally, we head over to Cannes and spend Sunday there before returning home. I can't wait, and will be sure to take lots of pictures!
Speaking of which, I went back and put a few pictures into previous posts. A lot more to come! I keep meaning to take pictures of Aix, and I will soon!
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