Something I haven't mentioned is our excursions/weekend trips. My very first weekend here, I visited some tiny villages in Provence: L'isle-sur-la-sorgue, Fontaine de Vaucluse, Roussillon, and Gorde. They were neat... all really gorgeous, but in completely different ways.
The first one was built around a river and little streams. Almost like a mini Venice.
The second had the greenest water I've ever seen, due to the massive amount of plant life.
The water itself was probably clear, but the plants underneath made it look green.
The third was a red color due to oxidation of the stone they built it with (I believe that's the case), and the last is completely white stone and all on top of this hill.
It was cool to see more of Provence.
It was sorta crappy because we went on a Sunday, which is when entire towns shut down.
Aix pretty much does, aside from a market in the morning.
L'Isle-sur-la-Sourge had a massive market, but as the day went on, the towns were more and more dead.
No big deal... nice to not have crowds to deal with.
A couple of weekends ago, we went to Monaco, which is its own little country next to the France/Italy border. I had no idea 
of what to expect. There's the Monte Carlo casino, which is super famous, a royal family (which equals palace), and it's famous for some race... the racecar sort. It was ABSOLUTELY gorgeous. Right on the water, views every direction you looked. We watched the changing of the guards at the palace. I was taking some pictures and then a video and the cutest little old Italian woman in front of me forced me to exchange places with her so I could do my thing. Whatta gal! So I did my thing without people's head in my way. Hypothesized that people in Monaco are most likely in impeccable shape because there are stairs EVERYWHERE. To get from our bus to the palace, we had to climb about a million. That is not an exaggeration. We kept thinking they would be finished, and then there were twenty more flights. And to get down to the city from the palace, there is an incredible amount of steps as well. I wouldn't want to live there (it seems fake... with all the money from tourism and the casino and whatnot... everyone is rich, I'd say), but if I did... there is no doubt I'd have the fittest body ever. Anyway, did some wandering... discovered a table of oversized stuffed animals at a table in front of some cafe. I don't even know about that, but took that moment to have a grand photo shoot.
We got back to the bus and drove over to the casino. Yeah, it's rather immaculate. I couldn't take pictures inside, but it was dripping in gold-colored everything. And the toilets... they cleaned themselves!! I wanted to take a video, but people kept coming. There was this blue thing at the back of the toilet (like, if you sat on it... it'd be where the base of your back would be) that would pop out, then the toilet seat would unhook and rotate around, under this blue thing that cleaned it. Does that even make sense? It was like a record player... with the blue rectangular thing being the needle and the toilet seat being the record. LOVED IT. Wandered to the beach with Lindsey after being thoroughly amazed by a toilet, took some pebbles in a bag (as well as more pictures, naturally), and came back to Aix soon after that.
This past weekend, the kids who are in Paris with my same study abroad program came down to visit us. There are 8 of us, 18 of them... only one guy in each group. Ha! We kept saying... 'Man, when will guys figure out that traveling to France is the way to go to meet girls??' It was cool meeting some other people though and knowing that I have people in Paris to hang out with if I go visit ever.
We visited Les Baux-de-Provence, which is ultra famous (or so I'm told) and has the remnants of this enormous middle ages castle, which we explored for a while. There was one area where you went up these horridly worn stairs to this lookout point type place. I, being the 'I'm scared of heights!!' one that I am, did pretty well with that. Only not. When Lindsey started climbing on top of stuff for a photo opp, I about died. I get really nervous about those things. And we were so high!!! It was good for picture taking though. And there are a bunch of olive bushes below. [By the way, Provence is known for the olive oil and olives... they make me a happy girl. I hate olives in the states, but they are just sooooooo much better here, as is olive oil!!!].
After sufficiently exhausted all the castle had to offer, we traveled on to where Van Gogh was institutionalized, near St. Remy. I guess there are still 100 people there being treated, but they have a special place for 
tourist visits to see when Van Gogh checked himself into , did over 100 paintings (I believe), and underwent crazy surprise cold bath treatments and whatnot. And they had a mock setup of his room. It was really amazing. We moved into St. Remy next. First stop, chocolatier!! This guy makes chocolate with all sorts of crazy stuff... Provençal herbes, clove and lemon, jasmine, lavender, rosemary, coffee and barley, thyme, szechwan pepper, violet... and you'd expect that to be absolutely disgusting mixed with chocolate, but it's not!!! I suppose it's not too strong. He didn't just stick cloves of pepper in the chocolate. I bought a box for my host family and my real family (get ready, guys! Though, it's not exciting flavors because I knew you'd be scared) and then some of the exciting kinds for myself. Oh man... so good.