JASON'S HERE!!!!!

I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!

He arrived on Friday afternoon around 4:30 p.m. I got out of my 3:00 class so that I could go to the airport to retrieve him, which I did without patience but with ease. We caught a bus back from the airport almost immediately and a bus from the bus station up to where I live so that we could drop stuff off. After meeting my roommates, we went down the street to a delicious pizzeria and had dinner with another set of friends. From there, we went to a bar and had a drink and more company and then we went to Florence's house to play dominoes.

Jason's done really well as far as jet lag goes. I think I'm sleepier than he is!

Yesterday, we ate lunch at Joseph, went downtown and wandered through the Saturday market, and caught a bus to Martigues with Michelle and Chris. Martigues, according to wikipedia, is the "Venice of Provence." It's a small town with a lot of water. We wandered around it for a while and caught the bus back. I took a lot of pictures - mostly of Jason - in Martigues.

This is what I think of when I think of Southern France.

Today, we went down to the gare routiere and bought our bus tickets to Nice tomorrow. We fly out from Nice to Geneva tomorrow night, see Geneva on Tuesday, and come back ridiculously early on Wednesday morning.

Tonight, we're going to see The King's Speech (in Version Originale with French subtitles) and then to the Bulldogge for burgers and live music.

What a good weekend!

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's quite dreary here today, actually. This weekend was beautiful, though.

Friday night we went to the WoHoo and sang karaoke as long as they would let us. It was a lot of fun; Liz and I actually got free drinks (a pint of beer for her and a glass of red wine for me) for being the ones who were singing. We didn't intend to monopolize the microphone, but there weren't many people there, so we ended up singing a lot. I think Meggie took a handful of pictures, so if/when she posts them on facebook, I'll edit this and put one or two here. It was a lot of fun. Singing karaoke makes you realize that you don't actually know the verses to songs that you thought you knew pretty well.

We had a Valentine's party on Saturday night that was a lot of fun. It was at Florence's place, which is about 20 square meters or so. There were about 20 of us there, which is about a person per meter. It was a fancy-dress party and we spent a lot of time taking pictures that looked like we were going to prom.

We went dancing afterwards, but it was late and I was tired, so I went home pretty early.

Sunday, Kevin invited us out to his house in Célony for brunch, and we stayed there until about 6:30 when we caught the bus back home. We went from there to Bessie and Anna's house and watched Easy A. Despite being a high school drama, it was very witty and really cute. I recommend it.

Here are some photos from our day in the country.

Kevin, our incredible chef

Lila is Meggie's puppy. She's the cutest French puppy I know.

What a fun day!

It just started pouring, so I doubt I'll be going out tonight. We have plans to go eat out as a group for Valentine's day tomorrow, which will be a lot of fun. I think we're dressing up again! Anyway, have a happy Monday.

A cross-cultural observation.

Sometimes the little things make me laugh the most. I got a package from my family today - I'm REALLY excited to have a bag of Reese's cups!

I traded a Reese's for one of my hallmate Lucy's Italian Valentine's day candies. It was a chocolate with an almond and nougat in it. It was delicious. Much in the style of Dove candies, inside the package was a "love message," that made me laugh.

The message reads:

Some women love their husbands so much that to avoid wearing them out they take their friends' husbands.


Now that's wisdom if I've ever heard it.

It's Tuesday Night!

I did Bikram yoga again. My all-you-can-take-for-a-week beginner's pass expired after tonight, but that's okay. Going to yoga 4+ times a week is certainly energizing, but it is rather exhausting at the same time.

We've got a group together to go play ultimate frisbee at La Torse (the park, not the river) tomorrow morning, so that will be fun and active. If you can't tell, the weather here has begun to be fantastic. It's been making it up into the 60s during the day and not falling much below freezing at night.

We're also going to see Black Swan tomorrow. I've heard a lot of great reviews, and I'm pretty excited to see it.

I took some photos of myself today. I wanted to try out the new remote that I got for Christmas. I'm really pleased with several of them, so I thought I'd share.

Mom - if you want full-sized images of these to print, I'll send them to you, just let me know.

I'm an incredible procrastinator.

I have been saying since last Tuesday that I need to update this thing. Every day last week was blogworthy, but did I get around to it? Clearly not. So: Last week in bulleted retrospect:

• Tuesday night we went to "La Cave," an international dinner that happens every Tuesday night at the Cathedral. There were people from all over, Chris and Maddy got the unlucky card and had to do dishes and I watched a guy juggle while we waited for them to be finished. This guy juggles better than Michael.

• Wednesday afternoon we went and threw the frisbee in the park. I climbed a tree.

• Wednesday evening I attached myself to some of my friends' plans to go to Bikram (or HOT) yoga. I did, it was fun.

• Thursday evening we went back to yoga. It was fun again. I was sore Friday.

• Friday night we went to Meggie's house and watched Superbad.

• Saturday we shopped at the market in the morning, we played frisbee in the park in the afternoon, and we went to Marseille in the evening. Michelle and I went ice skating, the rest of our friends went to see a "football" (er... soccer) game. Michelle and I made tacos at Cezanne for dinner and watched What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

• Sunday I sat around and beat the video game I was in the middle of, went to Cezanne to cook mashed potatoes from powder, sausages, and green beans, and went to The Bulldogge to watch the Englishmen who come there to play music play music.

I don't have class today because my teacher and her students are in Oxford, England. I slept in. I'm coming to realize that I may look back on this year as the most rested I've ever been in my life. In a bit, I think we'll wander down into town and sit at a café and watch people and drink hot chocolate and coffee and such.

I'll try to procrastinate less, but I don't make any guarantees.