Every year Arles, France hosts a photography event where exhibitions are set up around the city. This year there were thirty-six galleries, six of which we were able to see throughout the day. My host-mom, Jeanne, and I left around noon for Arles and spent the day quizzing each other on elementary-level trivia questions (the perfect level of difficulty for my French right now). It helped me practice reading aloud in French and I learned some new vocabulary. For example:
Apple= pomme Apple tree= pommier
Pear= poire Pear tree= poirier
Cherry= cerise Cherry Tree= cerisier
When we arrived in Arles after an hour drive, we went to get our tickets at the museum. Although living on a farm in the French countryside is great, I love visiting the cities in the area. There was some kind of festival downtown and I got a red pin with a dog wearing a sweater, the main photo that was used for the photography event. All around the city, this picture was put up on walls. We eventually went to the photographer William Wegman's exhibit later in the day which was just an entire gallery of dogs wearing odd outfits. For lunch we got sandwiches downtown then started to visit the exhibits.
Each exhibition had different layouts; some had their own buildings, some were in museum galleries, some were outside. It was fun visiting the exhibits around the city despite how tiring it was. I remember seeing Robert Frank, William Wegman, and Raymond Depardon, among other photographers. They were also showing some films, which we were able to watch parts of.
We also visited two ancient Roman amphitheaters. This wasn't part of the plan, but we found them while walking (my host-mom was casually walking through while I was amazed at the fact that we had come across an actual ancient Roman amphitheater). The second one had a tower you could go up, with a great view. My host-mom got me and Jeanne some popsicles, which was an extra positive thing during the day.
By the end of the day we were all exhausted from the amount of walking to and from exhibitions and we drove home at around 6 or 7pm. We had crêpes for dinner and tiramisu from our neighbor Yves for dessert.
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