Over the Half Way Mark

Bonjout tout le monde!

First of all, I would like to say that my thoughts are with all of you on the East Coast, especially my family and friends in New Jersey.  I understand that it must be difficult seeing the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy, and I can't even imagine what all of you are going through.  My thoughts are with you, and stay strong!

And on a brighter note... 

I can't exactly believe how quickly time seems to be passing over here.  Normally in the United States the beginning of November seems like nothing.  It would feel like an eternity until Christmas.  But over here, I've realized that I have only one month and three weeks left, and the feeling is absolutely bizarre.  It seems that it was only yesterday that I was stepping off of the plane and shuddering as I was overwhelmed by the incredible amount of culture shock.

But lets not dwell on this bittersweet thought.

The past couple of weeks have in fact been rather eventful, and I don't exactly know where to start.  Classes have been great, and I can actually see that I have been progressing with the language.  In the novel I am currently writing, I can see how my use of vocabulary and phrasing has transformed since the beginning of my trip.  I'm no longer writing like an infant; I'm able to explain things as in-depth as I want to.  I can understand people when they speak, and I feel as if I can talk my way out of a paper bag.  Even so, I have been unimaginably busy.

So I guess I'll start with last Thursday, where I had the experience of a lifetime.  J'ai fait le parapente!  

Now one might ask, what exactly is le parapente?  Well to sum it up, I jumped off of the side of a mountain with a parachute (and a trained guide of course!) strapped to my back.  I went with a group of 7 other individuals, including a two fellow Rhode Islander, Azure; one of my German friends, Hannah; four GAP Year students who have just recently graduated high school,  Jeremy, Camilo, Aubrey, and Olivia (okay, so I guess I can consider her a Rhode Islander too...); and at last another girl named Olivia from Boston University.

Hannah (left) losing her stomach, and Azure (right).

Unfortunately, at this moment I do not have any pictures of myself landing, and I think I'm going to have to bug Hannah for those.  Also, Camilo luckily let me borrow his GoPro camera, so I have a 16 minute long video of the experience, in which I think you might be able to hear some conversation between my guide and I.  Thanks Camilo!  However, I'm still trying to convert the MP4 file, so it will take me a little while to get that on here.  Sorry guys!  I promise, I will have video/picture proof soon.

And this surely was a great start to a great weekend.  The following Saturday, we departed for Aix-en-Provence by bus.  We had a guided tour of the city entirely in French, which I surprisingly understood at the time.  However, I can't exactly remember what was said.  What I can tell you though is that the city was INCREDIBLY WINDY, with wind gusts up to 65 km/hour that night.  Here are some pictures to highlight the experience:

Directly behind this fountain, one can see the city of Aix-en-Provence.  To the left, the fountain faces towards Marseilles, and to the right, I believe the fountain faces towards Avignon.

So isn't some of this architecture absolutely amazing?

I sincerely apologize for my fingers being in the way, but I think I'll be able to get my point across.  Apparently quite a few centuries back, when one went to the bathroom, they simply hurled the excrement out of the windows after calling a specific phrase to everyone down below.  Can you imagine what this would have looked like a few centuries ago?

I figured I'd put a picture out there for all of you who have been complaining about not seeing enough pictures of me.  Yeah, I can't exactly get away with rocking the sweat pants in France, so I kind of needed an outfit adjustment...

So after our stay  in Aix-en-Provence, and what I'll call an eventful night for reasons I'm not going to write on here, we traveled to Avignon the next day.  That, however, will be explained in French in the next post.  Sorry for all of you Anglophones who won't be able to read it!

Au revoir!