The Flight, and Aix en Provence

My flight out of Houston Left at 3:05 pm. My mom and Benjamin drove me to the airport 2 hours before my flight left. Maybe that was a little too early, but I always get nervous about missing my flight, and flying in general. I was sad to say goodbye to my little Benjamin, but I knew that he was in good hands. Benjamin wasn’t even fazed when I left without him.
The flight was a direct flight to Paris, and it was the first time that I had ever flown over the ocean. I’ll admit I was a little excited about the plane meal and endless entertainment. I was lucky to have a window seat, and was so close to having the seat next to me empty, but 5 mines before we flew off, a couple came rushing onto the plane, and my hopes of sitting alone were dashed.
The flight was a little long—9hours to be exact. I think the anticipation made it seem long. I missed Benjamin very much and was anxious to not be flying.
In fact I was feeling very anxious. Lets just say while we were flying over Illinois, we hit some MAJOR turbulence. It was a little nerve racking--- shaking plane, lights flickering, stewardesses flying all over the place. I nervously laugh and asked the guy next to me if this was normal--- he looked at me and shook his head. I felt a little emotional afterwards --- I laugh at this story now, but remember I had just left my baby for the first time, and flying all night long.


I arrived in Paris, Monday Morning at 7:45 am (which was about 1 a.m. Houston time). Customs in Paris was a breeze—all they did was stamp my passport and I walked away. If only crossing the American border was ever this easy ☺
Rob picked me up at the airport. We had two hours before we left to take a train to Aix en Provence, France. Robs Proff told him about this great little bed and breakfast on the top of Mount Saint-Victoire. Aix en Provence is famous for the artist Cézannes and Picasso spent the last years of his life living in a chateau around this area.
We arrived in Aix around 4pm and then drove out into the countryside to our bed and Breakfast. The countryside is so beautiful. We ate dinner at the small village, called tretes. It was this amazing 4-course meal. It was fairly cheap gourmet, and we had the best chocolate mousse ever! Amazing! This meal set the standard for our trip, so we assumed that all restaurants served only the most excellent meals, unfortunately, the next day we had the worst meal of our life.




We spent the first 3-½ days of our vacation in Aix en Provence. The next day we spent driving around the mountains and countryside. Wednesday we went to the Cezanne and Picasso exhibit, and then toured Picassos Château, which apparently was open for the first time, and they say will never be opened to the public again. It was really neat to see Picassos castle, and to see his studio, and to see where he is buried. I thought the coolest part of the tour was the never before seen silent home video of Picasso and his last wife, and children at the chateau. It was cool to see him working on his paintings.

Afterwards, we drove down to this little town that was about 45 mins away from Aix, towards the Mediterranean ocean. The ocean was beautiful with rocky cliffs surrounding it. The ocean was the beautiful turquoise and dark blue. It kind of reminded me of scene out of the Count Of Monte Christo.

We went to a little super Marche for some food to eat along the ocean. We then scouted out a nice place to swim. Apparently rob did not know that nude beaches existed. I did, and was on the look out. I found this--what looked to be a family friendly beach where everyone had bathing suits on. Rob didn’t feel comfortable and informed me that there was one woman lacking some important clothing. So we hiked up further for a more private place to swim. Rob found some pathway to the cliffs, and suggested that we head over there. I saw a group of people in the distance, and I was pretty sure that they were all in the nude. Rob didn’t think so—but yes---yes they were. There was a group of 5-6 old men, just hanging around in a circle talking and about 15 other people just hanging out in their birthday suits. We finally found a little cove where rob could dive in from the rocks. I waited till we got back to the family friendly beach, which ended up not being as bad as rob once thought for dress standard.


While we were in Aix, I had so many people just chat away to me in French, I guess they assumed I was French as well. I was really good at smiling and pretending to know what they were talking about. Rob couldn’t believe how many people would just start talking to me as if I was one of them.☺ It was fun to use my limited French (hmmm you would of thought that taking 200 level French classes at BYU I would have been pretty good at it, but no. Sometimes I could understand what people were saying, thats if they were talking slow enough).

ANYWAY, I was so glad that we got to spend time in a different part of France. South of France is very beautiful, and worth visiting!