Spring

Its spring, and that means the tourists are arriving. There are suddenly a lot more people in the streets, and theyre paying much more attention to the buildings than to where theyre walking. Im already beginning to hear more english than french in the markets. The streets are hectic, workers are trying like made to finish all of the ongoing construction from this winter. They've cleaned a lot of the fountains and planted more flowers. There are tourist buses everywhere, and suddenly all of the restaurants are serving regional specials and the boutiques are offereing special deals on postcards. these deals, it turns out, arent actually that special.
The weather is wonderful- low 20s C, generally sunny, and with a pretty consistant wind. The wind makes wearing a skirt difficult, and tends to blow dust into your eyes.
There are flowers everywhere- poppies are springing up like mad, and the lilacs just finished blooming. When I went to L'ardeche, a region just north of here, there were roses in almost every yard. There was also a pink wildflower that was growing out of the stone walls and even, in several cases, on the tiled rooves.
At night i close the shutter but leave the window open, so i can hear the frogs croaking. They make for some pretty loud backgroud noises, and thats from my room on the 5th floor. street level and it sound like the construction workers left theyre equiptment running.
Ive also spotted several lizards.
And the fruit! Today i passed a fig tree that was loaded with little hard green knots that will soon be ripe delicious figs. There are cherries and peaches in the market -though theyre still ridiculously expensive. Asperigus and Artichokes have become my main source of green.
The only downside is the homework- in the next 5 or 6 weeks, I have 6 papers to write, a minimum total of 48 pages. in french of course. I console myself by taking my lap top to various cafés around town. I like to think of it as multitasking- enjoying the weather while dealing with the workload. But it always ends with me spending too much time people watching.
Life is so hard for a student in provence.