I survived Mont Sainte Victoire! (and other events of the past few days)

So I just realized that I haven't done a post during the month of June yet! Granted it's only the 3rd day of June, but I do need to give some updates. And also, I have a test to study for and a paper to write, so what better time to blog than now?

For a recap on the weekend, Kim came to Aix on Thursday and stayed through Tuesday morning, and my roommates (and others from my program) were gone from Friday to Sunday (Barcelona). Kim and I stayed in Aix for the most part, but on Sunday we decided to go to Marseilles just to check it out. When we got there, it was raining. But we had planned to go to a museum, so we weren't too disappointed. However, when we got to the museum, we found that it was closed because of strike. Once again, the strikes here in France got in my way! But we went to a candy shop and bought a few things, and by the time we got outside, it had stopped raining. So we walked around Marseilles, but it wasn't as pretty as we had expected it to be. Maybe my opinion will change when I go there on excursion in 2 weeks with my program.

So other than that, I think I'm finally settling into a routine here, with orientation behind us and this being the first full week of classes. Monday and Tuesday of this week were pretty typical days: wake up, shower/get ready, do some work and eat lunch before class, go to class, go to family dinner, hang out and do homework, go to sleep.

Then today we went on our regular Wednesday excursion. Today's was hiking Mont Sainte Victoire, a mountain famously painted by Cezanne on multiple occasions. This hike was incredibly difficult. We all definitely struggled at some point (either going up or coming back down), but we did it! Basically we climbed over 3,000 feet! I did take some photos, but not many because I was too busy focusing on not falling. The climb up took about 3 hours and going back down took about 2 hours. All in all, today was very tiring. Now I need to get going on schoolwork. Tomorrow in my conversation class, I have a written exam and an oral exam, and on Friday, I have a 5-page paper due in my literature class about Daudet and Les lettres de mon moulin.

Clearly I should be working on that stuff, so this is it for now. A tout a l'heure!