-The Euro keeps rising and the USD keeps tanking. $1.55=€1, and that is just plain unfortunate news as far as I'm concerned.
-We had a dreadful cold spell last week. At one point it was colder here than it was in Anchorage (though I imagine they were having a warm spell) with a low of 28, and the cold had descended in the span of about two hours. We also had the insane mistral wind, which was up to 120 kilometers per hour (about 74mph). That lasted almost three days, which was a little insane. Thankfully the weather is more or less back to normal now, though it is a little rainy.
-I am sick with a cold once more. This is not good news either, but I'm hoping the cold disappears before I leave for Rome next week.
Last Friday we finally had our guided tour of the Palais de Papes. Our secretary told us that the building is always cooler than outside, which is quite nice in the summer—unfortunately, it was freezing while we were there. I did enjoy seeing the inside, though I would’ve liked more time there to look around on our own. The Palace was built in two stages, and there are two separate pieces: the old palace and the new palace. There isn’t a whole lot of the old palace that’s in its original form, most of it has been repaired to look more or less like the original. Some of the walls are still the same, though, and we were excited to notice some of the symbols on the stones there that were the same symbols on the walls of L’Institut. It’s hard to imagine that all of these buildings were created with such limited technology, and it’s even harder to imagine that some people spent their whole lives just constructing them. They also had one room dedicated to John the Evangelist and John the Baptist that still had some of the original paintings on the walls. The new palace has a lot more of the original structures, and it’s beautiful. There was one gorgeous chapel where they used to hold masses that was just incredible. Most of the statues there were destroyed during the Revolution, but there are still some of the original forms remaining.
After the tour we look around at some of the rooms that had information about the history of the Palais. It’s very entertaining the get the French version of the history—they refuse to consider that the Avignon Papacy was anything but legitimate. We also climbed up to the top of one of the towers, where you got a beautiful view of the city. Unfortunately, the wind was even worse up there than it was on the ground, so no one managed to stay up there too long to appreciate the view. We were too eager to get back to L’Institut to thaw out. I had lost feeling in my feet within about five minutes of starting the tour, and it was a good 45 minutes after it was over before feeling finally returned.
Nothing too exciting to report, hopefully there will be something entertaining in Baux de Provence on Saturday.
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