Aha!

Welcome home -- to rain, near-freezing weather, and no hot water, heating, or Internet. Hello, autumn.
But is is nice to be back in my own bed, not sleeping on a couch or floor and living out of a dirty backpack. I was starting to smell like a serious hippie in my last few days, too cheap to do laundry and too busy to take a shower...

Aix-en-Provence. My home base, where both of my Couchhosts and my friend Remi lived. It's an adorable, but extremely touristy town, and full of students. It's actually the second most expensive city in France (behind Paris, naturally) for students, which inevitably drives up the price of housing for everyone else. It is also the birthplace (and deathplace) of Cezanne, a point of tourism attraction that is both interesting and hilarious. It's like exploiting William Faulkner.

 Clockwise from top left: eglise Saint-Jean-de-Malte; street in Aix; cool Picasso exhibit at the Musee Granet; street near Picasso's chateau; Cezanne's atelier; church near Picasso's chateau.

From top: last lavender bloom of summer; view of Mont Saint-Victoire; pistachio macaron; unbelievably fresh olive oil.
  

Panoramics, from top: view of chateau where Picasso stayed for awhile; view of the city of Aix from the top of le Grand Theatre; Aix countryside from the top of some little mountain.

Because of its thriving student life, however, Aix does does possess quite a bit of culture and entertainment. I went to see a great orchestra concert at le Grand Theatre (real Baroque music -- wooden woodwinds, lutes, not chinrests for the violins, no vibrato... AWESOME), snuck into a movie (La Tempete des boulettes geants -- or, "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs"), saw a couple museums, and went to lots of markets -- the rich people kind, the ones that are open every day during the hours that most people have jobs. Some real nice stuff.