The Beginning: Part I or My First Bar Experience in Aix

These past three days have been incredibly busy, so there's much to talk about. I think I will probably break it up into a few posts. I suppose I should begin with Monday.

Monday was the first day of our orientation. We had many things to cover like passport/visa formalities, how to get along with your host family, scheduling meetings and a course called "Aix with Margaux and Friends." Now, Margaux is awesome. She does all the planning for excursions, tells us different things to get involved in around Aix to better immerse ourselves, and is just an incredibly neat woman. For this course, she brought in her son Luic and one of his friends, Pauline. She talked for a little bit and then said, "OK. I'm going to turn things over to my son because I know that you're dying to find out what the young people do and what bars are the best." So she turned it over to him and he told us all about the best cafes, cultural sites, and bars around town.

Feeling the itch to go out, a bunch of us decided that we were going to meet up at IAU at 10PM and walk to Le Passage, a jazz bar Luic had mentioned, because they have live jazz every Monday night. was the first to arrive at IAU since Madame Rosso insisted on driving me. A few minutes later, a girl I hadn't met from IAU, named Ellie, came up to me and asked if I was a part of the group that was going out to celebrate another girl's birthday. I hadn't planned on it, but once the other members of my group arrived and we began walking towards Le Passage, we ran into the birthday group. One of the girls in the birthday group lives in a flat with one other IAU student, two study abroad students from Switzerland (I think), and a young French man. Well, the young French man came out with us because he knows what places around town are good.

Together, our group ended up being nine people, seven girls and two boys. We mentioned that we were heading to Le Passage, but we were told that it was very expensive and that we should grab a drink or two at the Sextius bar before heading there. (Insert: Sextius is apparently derived from the Latin name for Aix, Aquae Sextiae. I learned that in my History of Provence course today.) So we walked to the Sextius bar, only to find out that it was ridiculously crowded. Since we had the French guy with us, we decided to ask him what bar to try next. He said that essentially, you can get the same drinks anywhere you go. So we looked for the nearest cafe/bar, which happened to be right next door.

As we walked in the door, we noticed these guys looking at us strangely, which we attributed to the fact that we were Americans. We proceeded to walk in and ask for a table for nine, and we were promptly seated. After we sat down, we got some "why are you here?" looks from the guys at the table over from us who were playing poker. But nobody really cared and we proceeded to order. That's when things started getting a little strange. Rebekah, one of the girls who came with us, returned from the bathroom and informed us that there were only guys' bathrooms downstairs so all the girls were out of luck. That is after she walked in on a guy. Oops! Haha. Then we began looking around and observing the cafe. There were tons of pictures above the bar... only they were all of half naked men and women kissing... people of their own sex. And on the television, there was a music video of a guy... seducing another guy. So by now it had clicked. Oh damn. We were at a gay bar. And then my drink came out with a glow stick in it.

By now, the other guy who came with us, Christian, had begun looking around. And he noticed that most of the Frenchmen's eyes were focused on him. So we decided that after we had finished our drinks, we would leave. And about 15 minutes later, we did.

Afterwards, we decided to hit up the Sextius Bar even though it was busy. We all ordered drinks and sat down. This bar is out of control. On one side, there's the elegant looking bar with clean cut waiters. On the other side of the cafe, there's the shot bar with the hippy looking man serving flaming B-52s. Meanwhile, the music is blaring. And this music-- it's all in English and it's all either Reggae or Metal. The Sextius Bar is awesome. We plan on going back. Quite often.