Another action-packed week. The boys have been really digging into their French at school, and making progress at a leaps and bounds rate with respect to comprehension. Jan is also making huge progress with her French language courses and sessions. I'm trying to convince her to take the digital camera to a class one day so we can shed some light on this aspect of life here.
On Thursday AM I sped down to Aix-en-Provence for a seminar in the afternoon, and then had guided your of Marseille, on Friday AM, courtesy of my main host (Sylvie, an economic geographer). The pics above were taken from Notre-Dame de la Garde in Marseille. We then headed north back to Aix-en-Provence for lunch at La Table de Mermoz (a very quirky relaxed restaurant beside a small airport for light planes) with Sylvie and Philippe (another one of my hosts, who I had met in Madison in 2005...he is very funny but this picture makes him look very suspicious of the photographer!) before driving towards the TGV station. One the way we stopped by Le Camp des Milles, a factory that looks like one of thousands in France, though this one has an important history as a former prison for Germans and ex-Austrians (mainly artists, writers, actors) and then Jews who were imprisoned (and often sent to Auschwitz). Philippe is a historian and he is a key person in preserving this space as a memorial.
I then took TGV back to Paris in the afternoon. It is hard to believe how fast the train travels (I've included a map above), and how much distance you can cover given the speed. This was one of those 32 hour trips that seemed like a week given how much was seen, done, and so on.
Time to get the boys out for some footie (soccer)...they are going squirrely on a Saturday morning.
