or we could take the Mercedes...

Time : 11:22 am


Location : my room

Weather : post-rain chill



Yes, so yesterday was so excellent that by the end of the day I was simply too tired to make an entry, so, here goes it.



"oh look! Phesants! They're delicious!"

 Even though it was Saturday, I woke up relatively early to get out there on the bike. About half way through my ride, and while going up a not very big hill, I realized that this was just too hard. Not in the way that I could not do it, but that there was something wrong. Sure enough, after a quick inspection, I found the tires to be desperately needing air. I hopped back on and headed home. I still need to find out what they do about flat tires in this house.

Once I was showered and all cleaned up, I headed over to Evelin’s for our crepe brunch. I have no idea how she did it, but she managed to actually make them paper thin. Accompanied with a little bit of Maple Joe and some kiwi-banana-smoothies made by yours truly, we had a delicious meal.

euro trees

so good to be in a forest

Following, I helped Evelin with reading one of her French books. This is also good practice for me. I get to work on my explanation skills, my comprehension skills, but also work on my expanding vocabulary skills.

same trees

Being bombarded by sunbeams all this time, we decided to go out for a walk around town. It didn’t take very long for us to decide to leave this town and go out on a real hike somewhere.

Evelin was driving and I was the navigator aka directions reader. Somewhere in the directions, the exit we were supposed to take on a round point was incorrect and we ended up wandering a grocery store asking friendly and trusting looking couples how to get to our destination. And by ‘we’, I mean I did the talking and attempted comprehension while Evelin browsed haha. It’s odd, I can understand people perfectly, except when they are giving me directions. Maybe it’s the pressure and my brain just shuts down, but al comprehension skills go out the window.

no idea where we were...

up on the roof top

We eventually drove by a clearing with a lot of abandoned cars that were assembled in the way people park when they’re at the beach or at a park. Trust me, there is a definitive style as to how people park (normally under trees). Pulling a U-y, we returned and found somewhere to hike. Sure, it wasn’t our planned destination, but it was good enough. We came across a shed of sorts (a very French looking shed, they’re everywhere here) in an olive garden. Evelin joked about climbing up on it to sunbath. She still must not know not to make jokes like that unless she wants a follow through. Needless to say, we spent some time, no idea how much, hanging out on the roof of this thing, cracking pistachios and taking in the rays.

It was an absolutely lovely area. The olive garden seemed to go on forever, and the soil was red. Lovely contrast going on and the sky was clear as could be.

olive garden

Unfortunately we could not stay all day in this paradise by Tholonet. I had to get back to meet Anna in Aix.

We met in front of the tourism office. There was an incredible amount of people in Aix that day. You would think that there was some kind of festival going on something, but no. Just nice weather for once.

gorgeous day

We wandered up and down the streets, chatting about this and that. The afternoon faded away and we grabbed something to eat. When we asked if they had a washroom (it was just a small place), we were handed a key and instructed to a side door. Finally figuring out how to get in, a dark hall way with stairs leading up greeted us. It was like the beginning of a slasher flick. It was creepy.
Anna and I popped into the Musee de Vieil Aix. We thought we were going to enter a museum all about the history of the city with artefacts and museum stuff. I was fairly disappointed. All there they had to show were walls of information and photos on the preservation of the old city in regards to shop fronts, millwork (doors, shutters, decorative aspects) and terraces.

do our fields get this green?

One interesting point : I’m sure you’ve noticed the red tiles on all the roofs. Provence and Southern France is well known for all of the red roofs, probably because Cezanne painted them quite often. In Aix they have been protected as a historical monument meaning you can not alter your roof. Say you wanted to enlarge your roof top terrace, or put some kind of roof over it, you couldn’t. Bizarre and inconvenient isn’t it?


Even later in the day, I once again returned to Evelin’s for a PJ party. After the game at Institute on Friday, she insisted we watch Notting Hill (Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant). It was ok, kind of long and I was really tired. Half way through we took an intermission to go find a pizza place in Luynes. I knew we would be unsuccessful, but Evelin really wanted pizza I guess. Sure enough, nothing was open.

blue & green

As you can imagine, I was dead tied by the time I made it home last night. An excellent day if I do say so myself.

11:48 am