BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - IU volleyball standout Katie Pollom is studying abroad in France this semester and has graciously agreed to chronicle her time in Europe throughout the semester for IUHOOSIERS.com. This is the third installment of her diary series.

"Last Saturday, we had an excursion with the program, a trip that we had already paid for prior to arriving in France. We visited the cities of St. Paul-de-Vence, Vence, and Antibes, which are all located on or near the Southeastern coast of France. We took a bus to St. Paul-de-Vence first where we visited a well-known modern art museum called Foundation Maeght. There were a lot of famous sculptures and paintings, including a sculpture done by the same artist (Calder) who made the red sculpture that sits outside the Art Museum on campus. The architecture of the museum was such that there was a great deal of natural light inside the building. After the museum, we were on our own in the city of St. Paul, which is a perched village...so it is literally on the top of a hill, and it was built that way as a means of protection. This city is gorgeous though, and it seemed like there was not a cloud in the sky all day. After lunch, we boarded the bus and headed to Vence to visit the Chapel Matisse...a chapel that was decorated by the famous artist Henri Matisse. We listened to a presentation on the history of the chapel, and afterward, we had an opportunity to look around and view some of Matisse's artwork.

Our final stop of the day was the city of Antibes. This city rests right on the Mediterranean, and from the Musee Picasso (the Picasso Museum), which we visited, you could look out right onto the water and see the coastline in the distance with the mountains in the background (which are the beginning of the Alps). This Picasso Museum holds many of his works from 1946 when he spent several months painting in Antibes so it was amazing to see so many of his paintings, sculptures and sketches first-hand.

This week has been very hectic because it was the start of classes...The French system is such that we did not sign up for class beforehand...we just go to class and sign up on the spot! Very different than what I'm used to. Since I did not know much about the classes, I spent the week going to about 24 hours of class so that I can cut it down to 14 hours of the classes I enjoy the most. It is Thursday right now and I have no class tomorrow so I will spend the afternoon finalizing my schedule.

I also joined a gym this week called Gym Club :) There are only two gyms in Aix and it is the less expensive of the two. The gym is basically just one giant room with all of the free weights, weight machines and cardio machines crammed into a small space. There is a smaller room adjoining the larger one which is for the classes (aerobics, step, hip hop, stretching!, etc.)...the place is very small but it has all of the essential machines that I need to stay in shape in France. I bought a three-month pass because I figured that when the weather was nice I would be running outside anyway....however, one of my professors said today that spring starts in February over here so I can't wait for the warm weather!

Ok...it's about 8 p.m. my time and I have to run home for dinner so my host mom doesn't get upset with me for being late...take care everyone!

Katie"