Hilary en France: The daily grind

This past week most of my time has been consumed by a video project I've been working on. It's a competition hosted by my program where you make a 5 min video featuring your study abroad location and why it's so great. We filmed all over town and after hours and hours of hard work it's finally coming together. We have the potential to win $1000 in travel money (split between my group of 3) and we're up against kids in other countries spanning the globe. We have no idea how many entries there will be but the voting process is going to be through YouTube so when that starts I'll post the link! Here's a sneak peak of some still shots I took of my favorite spots in Aix...

Pretty accurate reflection of an average street in Aix.

Newsstand down the street from my house.

The track where I spend probably most of my time second to my apartment and school; it's my home away from home. The pool is the building on the left where I have just recently started swimming since my wrist is healed and it is so great! I realized that this was the longest I'd gone without swimming in probably almost four years...I feel back to normal now :)

A chateau in the outskirts of Aix where our program director took us to take photos/videos for our project. She's our biggest cheerleader because if our group wins it looks great for her program and she certainly deserves a lot of credit.

One of the many beautiful doors in the city.

Now that spring has begun, so have the lively street performers outside of cafes.

I have also been busy cooking and trying out new recipes, per usual...I tried out a red lentil soup that was featured on my fav 101 cookbooks blog and it turned out so delicious. We had leftovers for days and it was conveniently during a rainstorm so it was the perfect comfort food. I also tried my hand at making a vegetable tart/quiche which turned out to be definitely one of my favorite things. The best was that it was so easy and relatively healthy with only eggs, veggies, and a little bit of cheese. Lastly, I made lasagna roll ups with a ricotta and basil filling. Very simple to make and paired perfectly with my favorite seasoning, herbs de provence. I'm so stoked to be cooking and succeeding because for those of you who'd lived with me/known me well previously, I was solely a microwave cook. In fact, I was quite afraid of cooking in general...I'm crossing my fingers that this isn't some weird France fluke and that when I go back to the states I'll still be as interested in it as I am here. I have a feeling that this is just the beginning of a beautiful culinary future. Who knows, maybe I'll just forget this whole med school idea and open a restaurants...just kidding :) But maybe some day...