Bonjour tout le monde!!
Megan and I waiting in the airport It didn’t hit me when I was still packing ten minutes before I left for the airport; it didn’t hit me when I watched Wreck-It Ralph over the Atlantic Ocean; and it didn’t even hit me when I stepped off the plane and saw a huge “Bienvenue en France” sign in the airport. But, when I had my first bite of a real French Nutella crepe… that's when it hit me - I'm in FRANCE!!
Megan and I arrived in Aix-en-Provence safe and sound on late Saturday afternoon. What pleasantly surprised me was when I rode the escalator down to the baggage claim; I saw a man and woman holding a sign saying “Megan and Ashley Raedy”. Our host parents came to the airport to pick us up!! Madame and Monsieur are super nice and friendly and even helped us get our luggage from the belt. I spoke some French to them and came to find out they speak very good English, which was a sigh of relief for Megan.
When we arrived at their house right in center of Aix, Taia, their dog, greeted us at the door. She reminds me of Snowy, the little white terrier from the French cartoon series, Les Aventures de Tintin. I loved watching that show in my middle school French class. In fact, my whole room is covered in posters from this cartoon series! Can you see the similarities??
After a home cooked meal of various delicious pizzas and a walk around the city with my host family, Megan and I passed out and slept for not eight, or nine, or even ten hours. Oh no, we were out for fourteen hours!! I woke up the next day around 1 in the afternoon, after my host family left for a prior engagement. So Sunday afternoon consisted helping Megan, or “helping” I should say, learn French. My host family has a swimming pool (which is not common at all) so we vegged outside in the sun. Of course we constantly watched for bird droppings because Megan was fortunate enough to get a present from one of the pigeons within the first ten minutes of arriving at the house!
That night, Mme took Megan and I into the center of Aix to meet up with her friend who was also hosting students at IAU. One of the girls, Vera, met up with us and together we watched the festivities of Le Feu de la Saint Jean. This is a Catholic tradition that has to do with the summer solstice, which was just a few days ago. There was music and dancing all night until the big lighting of the fire in the middle of Aix by La Fontaine de la Rotonde. Megan and I were as close as we could possibly get, right next to the metal rails that the police set up. It was a chilly night with the wind blowing down from the north, but as soon as the pile of branches went up in flames, I was très chaud! (I have a really cool video of when the wind pushed the flames right towards Megan and I!). The night went on with lots of celebration, and eventually Megan and I meandered our way back home.
Today was orientation. It consisted of a lot of learning, a lot of walking, and a lot of remembering of all the information from the day. It made me really excited for the first day of class tomorrow as well as the rest of this week!! More on that to come for sure :)
À bientôt mes amis!
-Ashley
À bientôt mes amis!
-Ashley