Aix-En-Provence
After paris, we arrived in Aix_En Provence, where Alex lived for about 3 years. We arrived with a hostel booking and address at a dead train station at night with no map, and with an impression that the hostel was a fair way out of the city and that the buses may well not be running anymore, and that the train station was also a fair way out of the city and we didnàt know how to get into the city let alone get out of it again. We walked the long way through a carpark and over a bridge to end up about where we started where it seemed that we could catch a shuttle bus into the city. Sitting in the warmth on the shuttle-bus we must have seemed to any onlooker just like all the other people on that bus who were organised and knew what they were doing and certain of beign accommodated that night, our faces baring no sign of our disorganisational inner turmoil. But google maps had failed us again and it was too hard to find bus timetables, and it was only arriving in the dark that we realised our stupidity.
Anyway, we made it into the city, which was actually very close, and then prioritised getting out again to our hostel over, say, getting food to eat dinner. Alex had to convince the driver of bus number 6 that, since the stop we wanted near our hostel was on route number 6 on the bus map, maybe he could take us there even though "it isnàt on the route" and "it is on the route but i donàt stop there" and "you need the bus number 4". But he kindly took us there.
In our hostel, the 2 women in our hostel greeted us with a "bonjour" so i left the talking to alex. After that alex and i said a couple of things to each other and the woman whoàd been having a fluent conversation in french with alex said "oh, you speak english" and alex said "yes, we re australian", and she said "we re australian too". Then the other woman started talking about nto liking the breakfast in some hostel even though they had cornflakes, which werent an option for her cuase she didnàt drink milk, alex said "well heather doesnt either cause shes vegan" and the woman said "oh, im vegan too". They were kind of excitable and wanted to talk to us all night, and could talk a lot, and were so daggy, and i didnàt feel australian at all compared to them, but they did give me some phrases to say to get vegan food, and restaurant recommendations in rome. I do feel funny saying "senza formaggio" though, its like im asking them to censor all the offensive things out of my food.
In aix we bought a lot of great olives, persimmons and fantastic grapes at a stall and tried fresh dates, which have about the same amount of fibre as a dried date, but taste a bit more like a persimmon actually. We then went to markets with lots of cool things we couldnàt buy, mostly paintings we couldnt carry. I bougth a poster which i found very interesting, a whole store had framed pictures cut out of magazines from decades ago. Some were old adverts and things, old photos of celebrities and so on, but also things like photos of nixons cheerleaders. The poster i got is a photo, i dont know the context of it at all, like what article accompanied it in the magazine, but its a photo of a little blond-boy holding a camera right in the face of a little black girl, who"s looking back into the lense. I"ve interpreted it a lot of different ways since i got it. It"s interesting, cause it is like an exaggeration of a real attitude, a caricature of examining someone, but possibly not much of an exaggeration for how the girl feels. It"s interesting that they"re children - is he in training, is he more innocent, is he oblivious to how stupid he looks or is from the point of view of the person taknig the photo? How does the girl feel - can she only judge, understand, see him through the camera lense also? WHat did it mean in the magazine in the 60s - was it supposed to be serious, or cute kids - was it makign fun of racism?
We also went to an art museum that the guidebook and promotional stuff said had lots of cezanne paintings in it, but actually only had one painting by cezanne in it, apart from the giftshop, which was full of cezanne postcards and paintings, souvenirs to remind us of all the stuff we missed out on.
Anyway, lots more to add, maybe ill spend my first few days at home finishing these damn posts off for my own records and stick them up.
See you all in a bit over a week,
Heather
