Return to Aix-en-Provence!

This blog will be pretty low key as this was mostly a travel day and a day to relax and enjoy the ambiance of Aix-en-Provence, where I lived for a year while studying abroad. Walking around the city today it felt like I never left. It constantly amazes me how beautiful the city is and how lucky I was to get to study here.
But before that, I had to get here which was unnecessarily complicated... In Madrid, to get from the main part of town to the airport you have to take three trains. This means you have to transfer lines twice. It is a good thing that I factored in the time it would take because it took me even longer than expected. Instead of the 45 minutes I thought it would take, it took me almost an hour.
I arrived at the airport about an hour and twenty minutes before my flight, and promptly walked right past my check-in area. By the time I found it we had an hour to go and they were doing last call for bags so I got there in time (at the time I thought I had just made it but looking back I still had twenty minutes before the bag check closed). Then I had to go through security. Well, all non European Union citizens have to get their travel documents checked before going through. This wouldn't be a problem except that there were only two windows where you could do this and it was also the complaints, questions, and everything to do with RyanAir windows. Now, according to my boarding pass, the gates for my plane were supposed to close a half hour in advance and I was really starting to get nervous because I stood in line for 15 minutes with no movement. Finally I got up and it took me about 30 seconds and I rushed to security.
I was in so much of hurry that I tried to rush everything. Now, because RyanAir is a budget airline, most people don't have checked bags. So going through security everyone was opening their bags and pulling out all their toiletries creating a huge logjam. While looking at the signs I saw nothing about computers so I left mine in and bypassed the logjam. I was in such a hurry that I forgot to take off my belt and set off the alarm causing me to need a pat down. I went to get my bag and they told me I had to put it back through because of the computer. So I went back and put it back through and they made me go through the metal detector again because I had gone back to that side of the line. This meant I had to put my belt through the thing all by itself because I wasn't going back to pick up another case to put it in and mine had already gone through.
After that, things passed without a problem. I hurried to my gate and it was already boarding, but since I had priority boarding I just walked on and got to my seat and relaxed. I got there with plenty of time and ended up waiting for over half an hour on the plane while boarding was completed. It was a good stressful hour though.
I arrived in Marseilles and as soon as I got there, a bus for Aix was leaving so I jumped on it (because why stay in Marseilles a minute longer then you have to? It's not that great a city to be in, in my opinion). I arrived in Aix with no further problems.
On the way to my lodgings, I stopped in at the old CSU office. It is exactly how I remember it and I met with Caroline and the new head of the California State University IP Program. It's a good thing I stopped in because they helped me find out where my lodging was and I don't think I could have found it without their help (despite my knowledge of the city). It was nice to see Caroline after these years.
Aix is pretty much exactly how I remember it and the beauty of the city is its small town charm. La Rotonde (pictured above) is the center of the city and one of the first things you see entering Aix. It is incredibly beautiful and one of the things I loved most about living here. Here is another picture of it.

The Cours Mirabeau is the street that runs through the heart of Aix. It is a wide thoroughfare with trees and outdoor eating. It can be kinda touristy but the street itself is beautiful. In the wintertime, people open outdoor shops up and down the street where you can buy homemade merchandise.

The Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) and the Palais de Justice are just some examples of the beautiful architecture in Aix. Everything in Aix has that small town feel and you can see it in the architecture. The city just opens up to these areas and has a very homey feel.

One of the sight seeing highlights in Aix is the Cathédrale Saint-Sauveur d'Aix-en-Provence, or simply the Aix Cathedral. I wasn't able to go inside today (but have been before) but I did take pictures of the outside.

Aix is known as the city of a thousand fountains and maybe in my later blogs I will have taken some photos of some more of the fountains here. This blog ended up being a lot longer than I expected so sorry about that but I thought the story about the airport was worth telling. Tomorrow, I will be going to Lyon.