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!