Alright. Time to fill y'all in on what I've been doing with my free time the past couple weekends. After I come home from my Winter Break vacation to the UK and Ireland, I had kind of caught the travel bug, and I decided to stop wasting time in Aix and explore as much as I could on my weekends where I wasn't traveling. So I decided to take advantage of the first weekend back in Provence and explore the beautiful town of Cassis with a couple of my friends.
CASSIS
Cassis is a little town right on the coast of the Mediterranean. It's probably the most beautiful place I've seen on my trip so far. The U-shaped port is surrounded by colorful buildings of red, yellow, blue, and orange, and at the base of every building is a restaurant packed with people eating all sorts of fresh seafood.
As we were walking down the port to the Office of Tourism - where we were planning on asking for fun things to do - we came upon a little stand selling boat tours of the Calanques. The next tour was leaving in 5 minutes, so we thought "hell, why not" and hopped on the boat. Calanques are cliffs jutting out from the edge of the sea - you could think of them as Mediterranean fjords, and they're almost always on the list of things to see if you come to Provence, so we HAD to do it.
Here are a couple pictures of the boat tour:
Needless to say, it was absolutely
breathtaking. It was one of the best days I've had this semester so
far :)
When we got back on land, we noticed
that there was a man selling sea urchins to all of the restaurants
around the port and decided that while we were on our Cassis-high, we
should treat ourselves to a feast of fresh seafood, so we ordered a
bottle of Cassis Chardonney and my friend and I split a dish of
Oysters, Muscles, Clams, Escargot, Crab, and Six Sea Urchins. It was
one of the greatest food experiences of my entire life. It took us 2
hours to eat it all, and we probably burnt more calories figuring out
how to get the meat out of the shells than we consumed actually
eating it.
Check out the pictures! :)
Me taking a shot of an Oyster :)
Unfortunately, the day after, I ended
up feeling the full effects of the fact that my body is not at all
used to consuming that much raw seafood and suffered from some pretty
brutal Food Poisoning. But, I'm gonna say that it was pretty worth
it. I don't regret a single bite :)
MADRID
The following weekend, I was back out
in Europe visiting a good friend of mine in Madrid! My tour of
Spain's capitol happened in the span of about 6 hours – Megan
literally brought me to something important, told me the name, took a
picture of me in front of it and then moved on. It was my kind of
tour :) Then, that night we went out on the town Spain style. In the
big cities in Spain, the metro closes from about 1:30 am until 6:00
am, so when people go out, they stay out until the metro re-opens. So
yes. I stayed out dancing until 6:00 am! Check and check :)
Here are a couple pictures of my first
day in Madrid:
Since I was there for St. Patrick's Day, we HAD to have Green Eggs and Ham and Green Beer for breakfast!!!
Some important government building - I really shouldn't be trusted to remember important information
Madrid's Cathedral (not necessarily known for it's beauty)
Us in the park - me rockin' my Guinness shirt on St. Patrick's Day :)
On our hardcore night out until 6 am!!!
Then on the next day, we decided to get
outside of the city and go hiking – which I had NOT planned for, so
(as you'll see in the pictures), my attire is not the most suitable
for hiking straight up a mountain. But it was definitely worth the
pain in my lungs for this view:
Terrifying.
Check out that incline...
And finally!
So happy I survived the climb
My hostess :)
LONDON
The weekend after that, I went to a
completely different setting a flew North to visit my other friend in
London. I know I've already been to the UK, but staying with a friend
is a completely different experience, and one I thought would be well
worth it :) And it was! She lives right by Hyde Park (when she tells
people where she lives, people don't believe her because it's such a
ritzy part of London). One huge thing I learned from being in London
is how thankful I am for not being dependent on public transportation
for my everyday life. The Tube (metro) in London costs roughly 2.5
pounds (which is over 3 dollars) PER TRIP. So in a day, you could
spend around 15 dollars just using the tube. And it takes a lot more
time than you would think because you have to go out of your way to
get to the tube station and then go down, wait for the train
(transfer if you need to transfer), get out, and then get back on
track from the tube station. So I'm happy that I live in a place
where you can walk everywhere. Because although it might take more
energy, it's nice to be able to actually experience your city.
Ok rant's over. Now's time for pictures
from my weekend in London!
Lake in Hyde Park
Kensington Palace
Off to Hogwarts!!!
Tribute to Amy Winehouse in Camden (a "city" in London)
Buckingham Palace!
I found out that the Queen owns some of the geese in the ponds in London, and you can tell which ones because they have to wear collars around their necks.
AIX
Since the weather's gotten nicer, and
the clock is winding down on my study abroad experience, I've been
itching to take advantage of every hour of the day. A lot of my days
are spent in Parc Jourdan. There's a beautiful park right on the
outside of centreville that I've kind of made my home. A lot of
picnics and a lot of laying out. It's heavenly :)
I've also been spending days off going
to Marseille. There's a bus that goes straight from Aix to Marseille,
and with my special card, it only costs me 2 euros to get there and
back! I've been to the beach twice now – it's crazy to think that
it only takes me an hour to get to the Mediterranean Sea, and I can
just spend a couple hours there before coming HOME to Aix. Life.
Well, there's a brief summary of the
past three weeks worth of travel!
À Bientôt!
No comments:
Post a Comment