Sensational Sonya's Super Stay in Super Super France 1-12 Janvier 2007

Guess who came to stay? Our friend Sonya, from Sydney. You'll all know her work soon, just keep checking bookstores in the space next to Bill Granger's latest book. If you can't wait, try and get your hands on a Korean newspaper, or else see what she got up to during her holiday here in sunny Aix with us...

Before I talk about her visit here, I think it is worth introducing you all to my friend sonya.
This is her:














When Sonya and I are together, we get a bit excitable…we start dreaming about all these
things we would love to do together. One of those dreams was for her to visit sam and I in france. Plan after plan was scrapped until November, when our little dream-for-two was re-kindled.



















One day, in a land far far away…
We found an opportunity. A paid media internship for Sonya in Korea.
With the money she would get from that, she could make a tiny detour through Aix en Provence. Floating through interviews with positive thinking she came out bright as a brass button having won the veritable golden ticket!
Sonya (and Sam and I indirectly) had won an internship!!













And before we knew it, on January 1st, our first big dream-come-true occurred.













She arrived on the first day of the year, and was pretty soon settling into the French rhythm. She figured out how to order breakfast, then coffees, and by the time she left had worked up the list past hot chocolates to restaurant menus (she skipped to the end- le dessert). We gave a few other things a go as well though, like the outdoor iceskating rink in Marseille. Speeding along the ice, avoiding the freestyling ice rink heros (straight from "Encino Man").



















Sam also found a way to put her and Mayan to work: as guest stars in the first lesson of semester two, at one of his primary schools. If you' ve ever thought kid's french accents were cute, like Sonya did, then wait till you hear them at full volume. Even May got a headache, despite years of hard slog with littluns.














While Sonya was here, we showed her around Aix a bit. Aix may have actually been built for people like Sonya. To enjoy Aix you have to be one of those people that loves the little things. And Son, Sam and I are all those kind of people.

Sonya got “uber” excited, while Sam and my love for Aix was totally rejuvenated! It is, afterall, the little things that count!

Like:














The way little daschunds are painted on the street




















The inscriptions found on the inside covers of second hand books















Foie gras, cheese and saussicon















Pumpkin soup, like a party in your ladle!














Tartes aux framboises, eaten in the luxury of an ex-bourgeois palace.


































The care they take to make their pastries feel like royalty.




















We eventually packed her off to the city of love, Paris, to meet some snooty waiters and really round out her visit. But it is obvious to us that Aix is the city she'll really carry the torch for. That and foie gras.

2006 is dead, long live 2007! (31/12/06-01/01/2007)

We had a few choices for New Year’s but thanks to visa problems we were left with but one: the big city just next door: Marseille.

Mayan had heard about an all-night ice skating rink (a patinoire) and fireworks at the Vieux Port, and we’d together googled the best all-night events in Marseille. We had our plan, our party clothes, and our one-way bus tickets and got ready to double-check that the sun would still rise in 2007.

We made straight for the patinoire, which we found rather elusive, so we sat ourselves down to rethink our strategy over a cocktail and met our first rude French waiter. It was like a postcard moment. So satisfied that we’d already begun a thoroughly French NYE, we went in search of the patinoire. For some reason it was closed this year, so we installed ourselves in a bar with a good view of the fireworks display with a big bottle of champagne. We waited for the France-famous fireworks display with a group of friends we met, putting back another bottle of champagne and starting on the martinis. We were reminded to count down the year by all the beeping cars and boats, and turned our anxious little faces skyward…and saw nothing but stars. It seems the firework display was cancelled this year too.

But never mind, we continued to revel the Reveillon with our new friends until they disappeared a few hours later, and we headed off to the bohemian quarter for a bit of after-hours New Year cheer. But the widely-lauded student, reggae and party centre was totally deserted, empty except for a couple of emptying nightclubs and a few stray cats. This is the second time that we’ve come here of an evening to find it party-less, and I’m beginning to wonder whether it’s not all it’s said to be, or whether we’ve just thoughtlessly come on the same days as the French Anarchist Party meetings.

So, back at the Vieux Port, we had a couple of coffees and jumped on the early ferry to the Island of Frioul (our Rottnest substitute). We climbed the rocky paths, startling a few albatrosses, and braved the morning wind to watch the dawn of 2007.

We eventually arrived back in Aix at 10 in the morning, and went roughly straight to bed (we couldn’t really go straight anywhere, we were pretty sleepy), satisfied that yes, 2007 had come and yes, French champagne is an excellent way to begin another bonne année.

Un Joyeux Noel (23/12/06-27/12/06)

We thought about going to Paris. We searched high and low in the Alps and found that it was all incredibly expensive. We’d starting contemplating staying all alone in Aix when, nearing the last minute, a friend messaged us to say we could stay at his house in Briancon. That's in the Alps, that's cold, and it's winter, which means yes, it was exactly what we were looking for.

Since this years Christmas could not be spent on the beach in the sun with family, we both had decided a while ago that thought it would be the best to do the total opposite: in the mountains, amidst the snow, with some friends. Since our friend Raphael offered us his place, despite the fact that he would be absent at the time, it seemed the perfect setting for a White Christmas.

We arrived in the arvo, and strolled up and down the town (really, it's built on the side of a mountain) drinking coffee, after chocolate, after Kir, after mulled wine until we felt warm enough to buy some groceries and head ‘home’.

The other two housemates Florent and Julien would both be home for Christmas. And together we passed the days before Christmastide at the local pubs, mixing with the other ski-mad tourists. Mayan managed to eat roasted chestnuts and drink hot wine at the same time!

Now Christmastide is the 12 days of Christmas from the 25th till the 5th January, following the 24 days of Advent. The 6th is Epiphany, when the three wise men arrived, and when tradition says you open your gifts. This is our plan this year, so we've held off opening too many gifts and mainly celebrated with big home-made feasts and mulled wine. If this seems like an indulgent plan for Christmas, remember we decided not to follow the 40-day festival which follows Christmas , but mostly so we could do our birthdays due justice.

Here's a frozen waterfall we passed while marching home from the city.

The big Christmas meal in France is on Christmas Eve, so there were lots of special menus on offer in town for those who could afford them. We did better.
With our two housmates and two more of their friends, we had a big old French Chrissy meal. We had our apero of a magnum of champagne with foie gras and salmon toasts before popping home at midnight for a quick light big old cheese fondue. When we finally finished in the early hours, clutching our bellies, we kept an eye out for santa for a couple more hours then popped off to bed, not noticing the snow that had started falling, the first all week, giving us the white Christmas that we'd been waiting for.

Christmas day itself and the next day were full of more great mountain meals and mountain walks, until the night of the 26th, when we had another party because our friend Raph was coming home! The guy who's house we had come to visit had decided to visit us! However, even the promise of a few more days of mountain fun couldn not make us stay longer, and we returned home the next day to the sun and cafes of Aix, ready to start finsihing the year.