It's Getting Hot Out Here! - July 11, 2010

 Sunday July 11, 2010

Senne's Summary: Today we are mostly relaxing. It is smoking hot here… 40 degrees today!

We slept in again today and had a pretty lazy day all around. I LOVE vacation!

We went for a walk thinking that we could pick up some basics at the little store across the street, but discovered that a lot of businesses are closed on Sunday in Aix. No problem… we wind down a few more streets in the maze and find a little sandwich shop. We eat on a bench down on the Cours Mirabeau. 

This is what it looks like when you walk the streets of Aix-en-Provence

All along the main street there is a market and people have stalls set up. It strikes me right away that it’s not your typical noisy market. There is a guy playing very nice “soft” guitar music in the middle of the market. None of the vendors harass you or even really acknowledge you. I like this, it leaves me free to look at all their stuff without feeling guilty about not buying anything. The products were varied and some were quite interesting. I actually saw some things I might buy if I wasn’t thinking about carting it around in my backpack for another 14 months, or mailing it back to Canada. I realized I’m going to have to really want something to mail it home because Carey told me it cost her about $100 to send a 12 kilo package home! Hence, we bought nothing, but saw lots of interesting stuff. Steve did a slow walk past the wallets, but didn’t end up with one :)

We headed down to the Tourist Information office as my online research had told me that there was English-speaking very helpful people there. My research was correct. We booked a half-day winery tour for tomorrow! YAY! I am very excited about this.

Next we walked down to the bus stop to plan ahead for Saturday when we need to take the shuttle back to the TGV station to go to Nice. No problem. Shuttle runs every 20 minutes and you just buy your ticket when you get there. Now I don’t have to worry about that for the rest of the week!

Next we walked back up the other side of the main drag and had to stop for some ice cream! Steve was feeling a bit sad that he didn’t have any yesterday, so we made sure to get some today. It was quite delicious if I do say so myself! We walked home and happened to pass a sign that shows you the outside temperature. It was 40 degrees on the sunny side of the building and 35 degrees on the shady side! Summer is definitely here!

We went back to the apartment and had a little rest in front (directly in front) of the fan!!! We actually watched a bit of TV today. No English channels… have you ever watched the old Melrose Place in French? It’s actually not that hard to follow… and extremely hilarious when Steve does the voice over in English :)

When a bit of shade was finally created on our terrace we sat outside and had a bit of the rose wine that Eric left for us. Then we both sat out on the terrace and read our books. Doesn’t this sound like the perfect day? (ice cream, walking, sunshine, wine, resting, reading…. Ahhhh!)

Love this terrace!

We decide to eat dinner again at the place we ate last night, as the people around us had excellent looking pizza and we wanted to try some.

Side note: When we arrived at the restaurant, I somehow determined that the guy with the menus asked us if we were just there to drink or if we were going to eat… and I answered “manger”. I’m just so impressed that I actually managed to understand something and respond with the right word! (End of side note)

The dinner was delicious. We started with the tomato mozzarella salad (new favourite salad!!!!), and then had a ham (real ham!), mushroom (big mushroom pieces) and mozzarella pizza. I am not lying when I say that Steve says this is the BEST pizza he has ever had. Tres, tres, tres bon!

The King eating the best pizza ever

After dinner we went for another walk and discovered a multitude of shops. (Mom, this is the town for you… there is A LOT of shopping here). Oddly, some of the shops are North American… the Gap, The Body Shop, Foot Locker… but there are also lots of little French shops as well. Steve did pause when we walked by Guess… he does need a new watch you know :)

When we were in Paris, I looked up where I could find an Internet Café, knowing that our apartment didn’t have Internet. I was so pleased to find one just a block away from our apartment. We walked by today to see what the prices were… and of course… it’s closed for a month. We’ll have to try to find another one tomorrow.

Now we are back home. Steve is watching the Soccer Final Game and I am out on the terrace typing this blog. It’s kind of weird because it seems like the whole town is watching the game…  I can hear cheers, gasps and roars from all around me. 

This is what I look like when I'm writing the blog 😀

This doesn’t really fit in anywhere but it’s an interesting (well interesting to me) fact about Aix. They do garbage pick-up every night. If you have garbage you just put it out on the sidewalk after 7 PM at night. The guys come around in a little truck and pick everything up (well everything except the sofa bed one guy left out on the street today)! I wonder what they’d think if I told them you only get garbage pick up once every two weeks in Saanich!