Excursions

This Sunday we went on an excursion to the old Roman city of Arles and Les Saintes-Maries de la mer in the region of Camargue.  Arles was a city established by the Greeks and it became an important city throughout history because the Rhone river located there was helpful for transporting goods.  We went to see the Roman arena where they used to have gladiator fights and got to sit where the nobles got to sit.  Now they use this arena for sporting events such as bullfights.  It was also the city where Van Gogh was from and painted a lot of his paintings there.  Apparently the reason all the painters loved to work in this town is because the light and sun is always perfect and there are not many places where you can find specific colors in nature like in Arles.  We went to a cafe which was where he painted "Café terrace at Night".  Les Saintes-Maries de la Mer is a town where apparently Mary, mother of Jesus, Mary, sister of Lazarus and Mary Magdalene came after the death of Jesus.  Also, Saint Sarah went there as well and still today gypsies from all over Europe come to this town to gather and celebrate their pilgrimage.  This is a very touristy city, but it was beautiful and we spent our free time eating ice cream on the water.  The weather was beautiful, it was about 60 degrees and sunny.  

Although this week has been, to say the least, a tad stressful, I am officially done with my first class, we had our final exam today and it went pretty well.  Now I am on vacation for for a week and a half and heading to Provence, Barcelona and Morocco, Africa soon!  I'll be sure to put up a lot of pictures from my trip!

I apologize for these pictures being slightly unorganized, but here are some from our excursion.

http://s274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/krdorcas/Excursions/?albumview=slideshow