Day 45-In college again!?

"Enjoy the rest of your travel as if each day were the first day you arrived in Europe."

This is a line from an email I received from a new Mexican friend I met in Firenze, and I think it's excellent advice. At this point in the trip, it's difficult not to feel worn down a bit, but we are trying to experience everything with the freshest faces possible.

Today I went on a day-trip with the SCAD kids, just like I'm in school again! We boarded the buses at 9am, and waved goodbye to Hannah, who decided to spend the day in solitude in the soon-to-be deserted village. The entire town area has 300 people, but the central village only has about 100, 70 of which are SCAD students and professors.
I spent the bus ride and day with Hannah's former roommate, Meghan, her current roommate Jennifer, and their friend, Nathan, all of whom are architecture students. We went exploring the town of Aix en Provence, which was home to Paul Cezanne and Emile Zola, among others. (Not a bad claim to fame for a small-mid sized town.) The town is filled with fountains, all quite interesting, including spitting fish, spitting men, and other waterworks, large and small, sprinkled throughout the town. We explored a cathedral with a 5th/6th century Baptistry and exterior architectural styles ranging from Roman to Gothic. I also saw an ancient Roman bath, the most of which is used today as a high-end spa.
There is an old mideval part of the town and a more grid-like Baroque part, and we preferred to wander and lose ourselves in the disorganized yet interesting angles and architecture of the old part. This town is built to human scale, and most buildings are beige/tan, so it's a cozy place to be. The weather was the only downside of the day, a little overcast and drizzly, but beyond that, it was great. We wandered the marketplace, bought amazing sugar/coconut cookies in a sweets shop, and tried a liquer that tasted like lavendar soap.
At 3:30, I met back up with the group, and parted ways with the others, who opted to spend the night in Aix, exploring its cafe culture. The buses then carted us to painter Paul Cezanne's last studio, where we were able to tour 15 at a time and see it exactly as it was at his death. We saw the objects (baskets, tins, ceramics, bottles) he used for his still lifes (which they had in reproduction), his easel, some destroyed canvases that he had disgarded in the garden area, and most interesting, a tall, slender hole cut in the wall where he could remove his large scale paintings from the second story home to the hillside garden area on the other side.
After seeing the studio, we boarded the buses again and headed back to Lacoste. I met a ton of great SCAD students, including Matt, Devin, Diana, Dana, Robin, and more whose names escape me now. We had lively conversation about our travels, then napped to shared iPod music.
Back in Lacoste, a director let Hannah and I eat dinner there since hardly half of the students had come back with the bus. In exchange, I informed them of the way in which we'd arrived by train and bus which cost us only a Eurail day and 3,70 EUR. The students had previously been advised to take a taxi from a nearby town for about 100 EUR if they didn't arrive with SCAD flight times. Yikes. He seemed excited and grateful to get the information, which I think helped in his decision to allow us to eat free of charge. Libre? Merci!
We'll definitely miss the comforts of a SCAD environment, but tomorrow at the crack of dawn we begin our trek to Madrid. The updates won't be as frequent afterwards, but you'll just have to wait in suspense!

Day 44-City mouse and country mice

(Asli vs. Hannah and I)
Asli decided to stay in Paris for another day and Hannah and I boarded a train this morning on our way to we-weren't-sure-where. We intended to end up in Lacoste, France, which is a tiny mideval village where my alma mater has a campus, but it's literally not on the map, and with no train station, it was a challenge. We took a train to what I assumed was the closest station in Cavaillon, then hung out there for a couple hours before hopping a bus. The bus wound up through vineyards on a tiny road to the top of a hill where we were let off at an intersection with a sign pointing to the left to Lacoste. The road was nearly a sidewalk, and at the end, one is met by the chateau of the Marquis de Sade. From there, it is difficult to tell where to go, but we started down a few paths until we found a roof, then another and were in the village only minutes later. At the first prive gate that I found, I went in and saw a drawing on someone's door and knew I was in the right place. A historic preservation professor pointed us towards the cafeteria, where we found Hannah's roommate, Meghan, along with some of my other friends, Michelle, Lucas, Missy, and John, all of whom were very surprised to see me. We ate dinner there, and I took advantage of the vegetables, which I definately have not had enough of in recent weeks. (I'm incredibly sick of bread, but that's nearly all I can afford...so sad!) We said hi to those we knew and Meghan showed us around a little bit before we hit the internet and I am getting to do laundry as we speak for the first time in a (I'm embarrassed to say how) long time.

Last night was a blast after the Louvre update, we headed to the Centre Pompidou, which is an amazing and huge 6 story postmodern art museum. They had a dada show up as well, but I didnt have enough time to see it, sadly. (Duchamp's fountain was there!). After that, we headed to the Moulin Rouge and saw yet another red light district (somehow I see a trend forming). We wanted to get something to eat/drink, so we randomly turned up a little street and to my absolute delight, we ended up in the cafe of 2 windmills (Cafe des deux moulin- or something like that), which is the cafe that Amelie Poulin worked in the the movie, Amelie! I love that movie and it was such a happy surprise to me. Hannah and I decided to get a beer (we hadn't bought ourselves anything all day) and of course, some famous Amelie creme brulee, which we both cracked at the same time. It made my night, and we headed back to the hostel as very happy little mademoiselles. (again, spelling...English I can do, French, not so much)

So from here, its a 24 hour travel extravaganza to Madrid from Saturday at 6:50am to Sunday at 7. Yikes. We'll meet up with Asli again there, and continue our journey to Madrid, Sevilla, Granada, and Barcelona though our 9th country, Spain.

For those of you who are curious, I'm flying from Barcelona to Istanbul on the third, then back to the states on the 7th. I have a job waiting for me in Jacksonville, FL (thanks, Chad!) and will head down there after a few days in PA (including my b-day, which will be co-celebrated on the 12th with Mom, who's was on Oct 18). I'll be stopping by the SAV to get my life out of the storage unit there, so I'll keep all of you SCADites updated.

Day 43-Musee du everything

We had a very long but really amazing day at the Musee du (everything) Louvre today, seeing such works as (of course) the Mona Lisa, sculpture by Cavona, Greek and Egyptian antiquities, masterpieces by French, Italian, Dutch, and other masters. We only spent 5 hours there, and had a bit of a speed tour, but saw every specific piece that we wanted and quite a few in between, which definately took some fore-thought.
Yesterday Asli separated from Hannah and I for the day to go shopping on Champs-Elysees, which sounded like great fun to her and a waste of a day to me. Hannah and I preferred to see other things, and were joined by a new Australian friend named Alex. She was really cool and the three of us saw quite a bit, though we were off to a slow start after we arrived at the Centre Pompidou to find it closed. We parted ways with her around 6, used the internet/phone, then were off to the Eiffel Tower. Since we're poor, especially me by this stage in the trip (do you think 300 EUR will last me for the next 2 weeks?), we decided to find our own way to make it special. We stopped by a super market and picked up some cheap wine and brie, then by a Patisserie for some "pain" (thats bread, if you didn't know), and headed off. I don't know if taking a bottle of wine to the top of the 300 m tower is allowed, but I assumed not, so I slickly removed it from my bookbag before the brief inspection, and slipped it back in before we boarded the elevator up. The view from the top was fabulous, and though we were a little chilly, we sat on the base of a coin-operated viewfinder and indulged ourselves in our mini evening picnic. The strobe lights sparkled on our way up at 9, and again on our way down at 11. In between, we just sat and talked, took in the view of the expansive city and the Seine, and watched people envious of our wine idea stroll by.
Our next stop is possibly Lacoste, France, which is in the south and is the location of one of my alma mater's campuses. We'll see how that goes since it has no train station and the closest one is about 25-30km away.

By the way,
Amsterdam was a blast and really seemed familiar to me for some reason. A lot of brick, bicycles, not too many tall structures and the autumn leaves reminded me of a combination of Savannah and Pennsylvania.
We did all of the expensive museums there of course, including Van Gogh, Rijk, Anne Frank, and saw some other sights like the very interesting Red Light District ( a story for another time).