Collines vs. Montagnes

Today velo (bicycle) and I went on an adventure together in the mountains. I called them hills, but my landlady said not to call them hills, people call them mountains. And indeed there were mountains around, but I guess it didn't feel like I was biking up a mountain, just one extremely large hill. I think it took me about a quarter of the time to get back to Aix then it did to get me to wherever it was I went. I probably went only about 35 km or so, but 85% of the effort was put forth going east. As I said, I pretty much sailed home.

Until my bike tire stopped working. I'm not sure how it happened, but after pedalling through the "mountains", downtown in search of a bank machine, and almost all the way home, my back tire shifted at the last intersection (about 10m from my house) and would no longer turn. After some fidgetting, I realised that the tire was rubbing against the chain stay. Not sure how that happened at all. So I bonked around and fixed it, and got a bit messy.

Last night I went to "Monoprix", which I had been to before in different French cities. This was different, however. First, it was massive. It put Super Wal-Mart to shame. Second, it was a freaking zoo. Slightly overwhelming for this Canadian lass. I kind of panicked and hopped off with not so much food, which was fine as it was getting dark. It had a huge grocery section with a bakery, butcher, fromagerie (I don't know if that's a word, but a cheese counter), frozen food, fresh produce, EVERYTHING. Although the entire complex was called Monoprix, it was almost like Monoprix was the anchor of a mall. There was some other smaller stores in hallways: Bata, McDonalds, another bakery type place, random shops.

So, I didn't really expect this, but Aix and environs are great for hiking-type people for short one-day trips. I biked to what I thought was... actually I had no idea what it was. But it turned out to be tonnes of hiking/mountain biking trails ! There was a MASSIVE dam there too, with incredibly blue water. This was when I realised that I was up much higher than I thought - looking down on the Earth below.

Two things I had a hunch would happen before leaving home: 1) Losing sunglasses, and 2) Being mistaken for an Italian. Both happened yesterday. Sunglasses are... somewhere. I think at Monoprix in the parking lot. Cute old man who was blabbering away to me in the line-up where I bought my bike asked if I was Italian. Nope, sorry sir.

Blah blah blah. I'm basically killing time waiting for my Facebook photos to upload.

First day of school tomorrow! Will anyone pack me a lunch?