Aix is a really beautiful city, but everything’s dirty. There is graffiti ALL over the place—in the streets, on the buildings, in the buildings, in the bathrooms, and even in the classrooms. Some of it’s nice: peace, love, succeed, dream, etc. Other stuff is not so nice, but I’ll leave that up to your imagination.
The city itself is kept relatively clean—well, other than the dog poop. There are dogs wandering around the city with no collar and no owner at all times. They must all have a place to live, however, because at night, they’re all gone—except for the ones that wander around in the bars. A girl on my floor, Mélissa, was in a clothing store yesterday and was shocked when she saw a dog just strolling by. She was even more shocked when it took a dump right in front of the elevator. So yes, the dog poop is annoying, however, even most of that is swept nicely to the side of the sidewalks.
Another thing, the sidewalks here need a different name. SidePARK? If it’s on a narrow street and the cars have nowhere else to park, apparently it’s perfectly all right to pull right onto the sidewalk and park on it, forcing the pedestrians to walk on the other side of the street.
And the pedestrians here—wow--there are so many of them! I was told that Aix has about 17 000 international students [that’s along with the other universities and not just mine]. But only about HALF of the people walking around are students. On the main street, people just sit in the cafés and people-watch.
Let’s see… other interesting things I’ve noticed. Oh, the poles! They have these thick poles that shoot out of the ground in the middle of the streets (most of the streets are one-way). They are supposed to change the direction of traffic in the evening to discourage people from entering the city to park overnight. It’s quite shocking to see these metal stumps in the middle of the road shooting up or back into the ground.
I dunked my head in a fountain today with a Quebecois named Wissem (not a very French name, I know, but he’s originally from Tunisia). There are amazing fountains all over the city. I’m not sure if we were really allowed to do that, but it was so hot and the water was really refreshing. They have huge problems here with drunken students dancing fully clothed in the fountains on the way home from the bar. That’s why they turn most of them off at coming-home-from-bar time.
Coming-home-from-bar time, by the way, is 6am here. The French routing is the following: go out to eat dinner (late of course) at about 7 or 8. Then around 9 or 10, you go to the bar and drink. After that, anytime between midnight and 3am, you go to the “boîte” and dance. Apparently, I’m up for a night similar to that tonight. And because classes don’t start until Monday, and I spent almost three hours doing something I was planning on doing tomorrow, it’ll probably be a good night followed by a sleep-in! I won’t sleep in that long. If I want a section of a fridge, some covers for my bed, and a kitchen kit that’s NOT ridiculously expensive, I have to show up tomorrow between 9 and 11:30am. You see, everything completely shuts down here for two hours between 11:30 and 1:30 in the afternoons. And some places choose not to re-open after that. Sometimes, they decide to not open before then, and instead open after—and only on certain days! Going anywhere really requires some planning. Ahhh… the French!
(Wissem dunking his head in la fontaine des quatre dauphins.)
(The same fountain as above, but during the day. It's the fountain in the middle of the roundabout (they have roundabouts at almost every intersection here) right in front of where downtown officially begins.)
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