Carnaval d'Aix

Today was the day of Carnaval d'Aix-en-provence, and although much smaller scale when compared to the Carnaval de Nice, it was really great. The colors were all so vibrant, the sun was shining, and it was in the mid 70°s! All the little french children were dressed up in various costumes, and people lined Le Cours Mirabeau, the main street in Aix. Confetti was strewn across the street and in the fountains. After the carnival came to an end the streets looked as if they had been been covered with colorful snow. It was pretty great. The plain trees are all starting to gain color again, and in no time at all, they will be full and shady for the upcoming summer season. I now have only 3 more weeks in this apartment, and then I will move all my things back to La Tour d'Aigues and start working again as fille au pair for the Jaspard family.
May should be a very eventful month for me. In 2 weeks I will be going to Monaco, in 3 I will attend the Cannes film festival and move to the countryside. In a month from now, I will spend the weekend in Cagliari, Italy, and most likely couchsurf there. It's crazy, thanks to the volcano in Iceland, I was able to get a ryanair flicht for 16 euros roundtrip. So I'll be sure to post blogs with lots of pictures on a regular basis.
Hope you all are doing well back in the states!

La Ciotat

As I hoped, it was warm and sunny today, so off to the beach in La Ciotat we went! It is one of my favorite villages, not as many tourists as there are in Cassis or Nice, but just as (if not more) beautiful. We visited les calanques of La Ciotat, and an area with some cool graffiti. I feel lucky to live so close to all these unique and breath-taking places.
I am sure as it gets more and more warm, I will be spending most of my weekends relaxing in les calanques...
Ok, off to get some last minute school work done.
Bisous à tous!

Vacances d'Avril - Paris

With spring break coming to an end, I figured I would make a blog post to tell you alll what I've been doing with my 2 weeks vacation from school. The first week I didn't do much, but the 2nd week was great! I went to La Ciotat with a friend, and was shown a beautiful set of 3 red rock beaches. It's been warming up here in the south of France, so I've been able to get some sun and sand, which has been wonderful. It was my first swim of the season. The day after, I went to Paris with the family I used to au pair for - the Jaspards, and their current Canadian au pair Morgan. I love this city, and can not wait to attend school there. During the day, we went around to various museums and parks with the boys, then in the evenings we would go out on our own. I saw a concert at this cool little venue called La Fleche d'Or, a band called Frightened Rabit was playing, and although it was not exactly my genre of music, I really enjoyed myself. The ambiance of a concert is enough for me to enjoy myself. Over by the concert there was a wall with a ton of tastefully done graffiti. One night, Morgan and I visited the Musée de l'érotisme, which is located next to La Moulin Rouge in the red light district of Paris. It was actually very interesting.
If it stays nice out, I'll be going to La Ciotat again on Sunday to enjoy the beach, so fingers crossed for that!
I also have an exposée to do for my french language course, and I think I may do it on Marquis de Sade, however, I have not decided for sure yet... It could be a very interesting topic!
All in all, it was a very productive break.
On a side note - CRAZY about the volcano in Iceland... 2012...