A group of students arranged their own visit to Marseille last weekend. Here are a bunch of photos taken by one of our students, Jiaxi “Jessica” Wen. There are also some more great photos on the blog of another student, Zheng “KZ” Kang.

Arriving in Marseille:

The hotel:

La Grande Roue:

Le Vieux Port:

Going to Notre Dame de la Garde:

Notre Dame de la Garde:

The students in two of the classes had chapter tests on Monday. Then we had a language lunch. My group went to Les 2 Suds in the Espace Van Gogh, on the site of the old hospital where Vincent Van Gogh was brought after the ear-cutting incident. We had delicious quiches.

Most of us had something chocolate for dessert, but Aileen had this beautiful tarte tatin with pears.

In the afternoon, a group of us went and had Moroccan-style mint tea.

Then, we went to a movie! It was “La Tête haute,” which opened at the Festival de Cannes this year.

The movie was distressing, so here’s a video of kittens.

In the near future, I will post pictures students sent me of their weekend trip to Marseille! As for me, over the weekend I saw this…

(Les Alyscamps, an early Christian and also medieval necropolis)

…and this.

Stay tuned for student photos of Marseille!

(Note: most of the photos on this post were contributed by one of our students, Jiaxi “Jessica” Wen. I will note which photos are hers by marking them with “JW,” and mine by marking them with “JN.”)

On Friday, we had our first excursion! We went to Aix-En-Provence. First, we met in the morning to catch the bus.

(JW)

(JN)

We arrived in the Place Charles de Gaulle, which would also be our meeting place in the afternoon.

(JN)

Our first stop was at the Cathédrale Saint Sauveur, where we were given a tour of the adjoining cloister by an extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide. The carvings on the pillars tell the story of the history and beliefs of Christianity. The complexity of the story was more confusing than the fact that we were hearing it in French.

(JN)

A few students asked me how old the cathedral was. As you can see from this plaque, it’s a complicated question! Different parts were built in different time periods.

(JN)

(JW)

(JN)

After we left the cathedral, we had lunch at a restaurant called “Chez Nous.” The vegetarians had risotto, and the others had lasagna and salad. Then we had a café gourmand (explained in a previous post) for dessert.

(JN)

(JW)

(JW)

(JW)

(JW)

(JN)

The afternoon was free, so most everyone went shopping!

(JW)

(JW)

We found many local products: books, art, macarons, calissons…

(JW)

…and, of course, lavender! We are in Provence, after all!

(JW)

Everybody ended up at the meeting place on time, so it their map studying earlier must have helped.

(JW)

(JW)

(Not gonna lie: I started the bunny ears thing. But Brenda got me back!)

(JW)

Then we took the bus back to Arles.

(JN)

This weekend, several students are traveling as a group to Marseille. I can’t wait to hear how it went!

On Thursday, we had class like usual. Everyone had lunch on their own.

In the afternoon, a group of us went to the home of one of our host families, where “host mom” Hélène taught us how to make chocolate mousse and crepes. Yum!

Everyone got to help with the preparation…

And of course we enjoyed the final products!

Friday, we had our first excursion: Aix-en-Provence!

I’m having some internet connectivity issues, so it’s taking a while to upload photos for today’s update.

Please enjoy this musical interlude. It’s a video of The Gipsy Kings, a band whose music I adore. Since they often perform in Spanish, I didn’t learn until very recently that they were from Arles! In this video, they perform in the Roman arena here in Arles for their 25th anniversary concert. They have another concert in Arles at the end of June, on the day after I leave!

Today was the first day of class! These classes are usually a semester long, and we only have four weeks in Arles, so class days are pretty intense.

We had a language lunch today, and my group went to le Café Georges. We had delicious couscous with vegetables and meatballs.

For dessert, we had a “thé gourmand.” A thé gourmand or a (“café gourmand,” if it’s with coffee) is tea served with small portions of desserts. Here, we had mint tea with fruit and a tarte tropezienne.

After class, we had a tour around Arles, led by our marvelous guide, Jacqueline. Here, she talks about the Roman theater, which was built in the 1st century BCE.

The most iconic feature of Arlesian antiquity is the Roman arena, built in the 1st century CE. For centuries between the fall of the Roman Empire and when the community started restoring its Roman ruins, residents re-purposed the space and built houses inside the arena. Here, you can see walls of some of these houses on the upper level.

We walked through the Jardin d’Été, next to the Théâtre Antique (Roman theater). Vincent Van Gogh frequented this garden and painted it. Here is one of several easels that are found around Arles, marking locations that are featured in his paintings.

Jacqueline showed us where the medieval ramparts were built as reinforcements for the pre-existing Roman ramparts.

We went to the lookout next to the church of Notre Dame de la Major. The view was impressive!

The Hôtel de Ville (city hall) is interesting for having a mostly flat vaulted stone ceiling, which the architect managed to build without the typical large arches.

Our guide told us about the carvings on the front of the Church of St. Trophime, which tell the story of the Last Judgment.

Arles is a beautiful little city with many narrow cobblestone streets.

Allow me to introduce Aileen Evans, an intern at Arles à la Carte this summer! She is working on her Master’s at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, and she previously lived in Arles for two years. She even did study abroad in Senegal! Aileen is a great resource for the students (and for me!) and an all-around super cool person.

We finished orientation today, including the health and safety presentation and an introduction to the excursions. Here, Julie tells the students about some of the interesting things we’ll see in Arles.

One famous Arlesian she discussed was fashion designer Christian Lacroix. Julie explained that Lacroix uses the five colors of Provence in his designs: blue for lavender (we all thought lavender was purple), black for bulls, yellow for sunflowers, red for poppies, and green for cypress trees.

Today, we had the first of our Language Lunches, where we split into smaller groups to chat over lunch in different restaurants around town. My group ate at Le Tambourin, which is owned by a former bullfighter named Charlie. We had Provencal salad and a chocolate and banana cake for dessert.

Some of Charlie’s bullfighting paraphernalia is on display in the restaurant, including the head of an actual bull!

After lunch, we had a visitor named Cyrille who taught us a bunch of board games as an icebreaker activity.

Dobble was a big hit because it was also a good vocabulary practice.

I thought this one was particularly clever. It’s called “Riff Raff,” and it’s a balancing game with a pirate ship.

Classes start tomorrow!

I’m having some internet connectivity issues that are affecting the photo upload. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get the next round of updates!

One of the first things we teach the students is how to open and close all the necessary doors. Since many of the buildings are very old, including the one where we have class, the doors often have multiple locks or complicated locks. You have to unlock and re-lock the door every time you open it, whether coming or going. It is important to pay close attention to the instructions: “Push this, then turn that, then pull here…”

Students may notice that some of the doors in France are very, very tall, like the size of a garage door. Many of them were built that size to accommodate a horse, or even a horse and rider!

Today was the first day of orientation! Here, Katie begins the morning’s presentation.

Afterwards, the students had lunch on their own. Here, a group relaxes at a nearby cafe in a hotel called Le Calendal, where there is a beautiful garden. We overheard the students speaking from among each other, which is wonderful! Bravo!

Look that this size of this palm leaf! We’re definitely in a Mediterranean climate here.

After lunch, we split up into groups for tours of the city. Seen here, a group in front of the Rhone River.

After a few hours of free time, we had the welcome dinner at a restaurant called Cuisine du Comptoir.

The main course is something called a “tartine,” which is a piece of bread cut into pieces with different toppings. Katie and I split ours so that we could each try two kinds. I particularly loved the salmon one!

The meal included dessert, and even Julie (who doesn’t normally eat dessert) couldn’t pass up the chocolate cake!

More orientation tomorrow!