From Fancy Bars to Nature Parks

Hey so I haven't posted in forever..1 month in marseille and 2 posts? Oh c'mon!

So I'm being lazy and writing in English (you can't believe how tiring putting in all the accents when you don't have a French azerty keyboard can get)
Just wanna let you know what I was up to last week in this post...

Back to September (pretend it’s the end of the week Sep 22-28)

Maria's birthday!
1 of the 2 other grinnellians at my school had her birthday last Thursday. Her host mom was psyched and said she was taking her to a bar to celebrate and I was invited to come along

A little more white wine please?

Talk about fancy bar in a fancy hotel....

Only in France would this place have been a former hotel - come on look at it!

We both enjoyed our too-expensive drinks and complimented the DJ on the electro night music theme… 

Talk about not sticking to the cultural 'private space' norms in France

Just chatting with everyone as if we knew them!

 Hung out with my language partner again!We went to this lovely bakery that had so many tempting cupcakes (one lady bought like 100 – I’m not exaggerating, this is the almost empty counter after they boxed up her order)

No lie!

And this is my absolutely delish red velvet cake – mmm!

While we were chatting, Agnes told me about her new dog and I learnt something really interesting about the French.

Fun Cultural Fact: The French name their dogs (and cats) based on the year ‘x’SO this year is year “I” so Agnes named her dog Icare so it would correspond with the rule – can you believe it? It’s not as crazy and random as it sounds; basically it helps the vet know instantly how old the dog is based on the first letter of the dog’s name. And it’s really only obligatory for pure bred and animals that compete in those fancy animal competitions (whatever those are called).

Read more here: http://www.lefigaro.fr/assurance/2013/01/04/05005-20130104ARTFIG00471-2013-l-annee-des-i-pour-les-chiens-et-chats.php (Sorry best explanation is in French tho) 

Also, what I love about being in a big city. There will always be malls and lovely places to go shopping! Thanks Marseille!

Well what do you know? I already have a French lingerie line named after me!

 And if getting to go shopping in a big city isn’t enough – you can always witness the strangest things on the streets.

So who needs legs? Not this guy!

 I spent my Saturday touring the countryside with other students – specifically the villages of Luberon. So it was a huge contrast from the city, but so lovely to see another side of Provence.

We visited old ruined castles, climbed up mountaintops (well not literally climbed, there were stairs) and picnicked with a lovely view of the countryside and the houses perched on top of the hills like in a fairytale. Awww!!!

I apologise for the lack of pictures and also the picture quality cause my ipod camera was out-of-service at the time – (I think the stupid electric current messed up my charger even tho I have an adapter)We even got to visit Roussillon to go on the ochre trail – a pretty popular natural park here in Provence.

Me on the Ochre Trail

 Since my pics suck, it’s supposed to look like this:

See the difference!

Yes, well now that I've updated you - I probly should get started on my next post since I'm so behind.

Thanks for reading :)

Bisous!