up north

Fall break is already upon us.

Last year I flew to Spain to visit friends who were doing their semester abroad and spent my week training between Madrid and Salamanca. This year, I am staying in France, but have travelled as far north as I can get. I’m sick of palm trees and balmy weather in October — give me rainy, gloomy skies and thick scarves.

Kiely and I took the train from Aix to Brest, a main city on the westernmost coast of the region of Bretagne, or Brittany. The 13-year-old boy in me can’t help but giggle every time I say/hear/see the name, and it turns out that this is the only amusement Brest has to offer. There is absolutely nothing there. I’m not too clear on the facts, but apparently the entire city was razed during World War II, and it was rebuilt with ugly concrete. It is also strangely deserted (maybe as a direct result of its lack of aesthetic appeal). Kiely and I went wandering around last night and probably saw a total of 10 people on the streets. Coming from Aix, this was weird. We’ve gotten too used to the hoppin’ nightlife.

Aside from our two nights in Brest at the beginning and end of our séjour en Bretagne, we didn’t have to spend much time there. Instead we rented a car, an adorable little red Fiat Panda, and hit the road. We went south along the peninsula-ed coast, staying a night each in Crozon, Bénodet, and Carnac. We got lost a few times, did our fair share of retracing our steps, and had an interesting few hours where we couldn’t figure out how to put the car in reverse, but driving through this countryside was amazing. I was the captain of the Panda, taking charge of the driving since Kiely didn’t know how to drive a stick shift (but greatly improved thanks to our grocery store parking lot lessons), and Kiely was chief navigator/DJ, choosing the music from the iTunes open on my computer while simultaneously trying to find the right roads on a map that showed more drawings of little Breton boys on sheep than actual street names. We were so badly prepared and had to figure everything out at the last second — like where to spend the night in Brest when we got into the train station at one in the morning — but it was all a part of the adventure. And it was ridiculously fun.

Kiely had found us an adorable hotel right on the port of a tiny hamlet called Le Fret — Ar Fred, in the Breton dialect. A ten-minute drive from Crozon, we spent the evening in an old stone pub where they were showing a soccer match: Brest (hehe) versus some lame team that lost to Brest. All the locals were getting really into the game, pounding the tables and cheering when goals were scored. We savored our beer (Kiely) and cider (me) with little regard for the fact that we stood out as the étrangers, and hooliganed it up with the rest of them.

With a long stop in Argol the next day — where we went for a country promenade, attended the cider festival, saw a lot of French lady buttcrack (the woman kept crouching down as she was making the cide and her jeans did not fit her in the way one would have hoped), and ate delicious baked apples — we made our way to Bénodet, which the woman at Arrrrrrr Fred had told us was super fancy. It was one of those seaside resort towns that seems more like an amusement park than real life. It was hard to imagine anyone actually living there. We got in kind of late and, after attempting to drive up several one-way streets, managed to find our hotel, which was considerably less charming than what Ar Fred had to offer. We passed out for a couple hours and around ten at night went out for a walk, desperate to get out of our claustrophobic room that smelled faintly of the smoke of a thousand French cigarettes. We ended up at a restaurant/lounge that wanted so desperately to be hip and had a late dinner. This was Sunday, I should add, which in France means that absolutely nothing is open, including supermarkets. We had barely eaten all day. So naturally we gorged ourselves on pesto penne and profiteroles.

Up for the market the next day and had breakfast on the beach, then got back into the Panda and hit the road for Carnac, our southernmost stop. There are hundreds of ancient menhirs — Stonehenge-type rocks placed inexplicably in straight lines — in and around the town, so we wandered through them before making our way to our hotel, which had been inexplicably changed from more modest accommodations to a room in what was more like a mixture of a castle and a spa. It was awesome. We spent the night in, feasting on our bounty we’d bought from the OPEN supermarché earlier that afternoon. We shared two bottles of cider and a bottle of white wine, which provided an interesting intelligence test of sorts to open since we didn’t have a corkscrew. We ended up digging out half the cork with a nail file and shoving the rest into the bottle with the handle-end of a toothbrush, splattering wine all over Kiely, the bed, and the wall. We got the wine, but I’m pretty sure the intelligence test was an epic fail. Oh well!

The next morning we went down to the beaches and combed the sand for cool rocks and shells. Kiely accidentally slaughtered a few crustaceans by bringing them back with us on the 3-hour return drive to Brest, but they are now happily in a flowerpot somewhere in the city. We saw the Social Network at the cinema last night, ate dinner at an omelette/crêpe/salad place, and went back to our tacky but cheap hotel room to sleep away our final hours en Bretagne.

Now we’re on the train to Paris. Three hours into the ride, only one more to go. We’ve got a hostel reserved in Montmartre, the neighborhood where you’ll find the Moulin Rouge and tons of sex shops, and are meeting up with the one and only Dan Schneider-Weiler for three days and nights of Parisian shenanigans. I’m hoping the opportunity to shotgun a beer under the Eiffel Tower quickly presents itself. There’s nothing I love more than sharing my culture. 

drunk angel in disguise

Having been driven out of the park I've been running in for the past month and a half — a homeless man has taken to following/yelling at me and I'd rather avoid that — I have spent my past two runs exploring other possible routes.

Well, let's go back a little. I drop the whole harassment thing into this post like it's no big deal. I guess for me, someone who has gone on many a run in France, it's really nothing out of the ordinary. French people are not big fans of working out, and especially not girlies who work out (perfect French girl = no muscles and weak/slightly nauseated from too much nicotine). It doesn't even have to be working out like going to a gym in a full spandex outfit. Basically any physical activity outside of the realm of ambling is considered to be de la folie. I've made the 45-minute walk from Aix to my friend's house out in the countryside twice now — it's the countryside. It's gorgeous. Why wouldn't I walk? — and each time her host family was shocked into a near speechless state at the very idea that I would choose to come on foot.

So a girl RUNNING is almost unheard of. In all the time I've spent in France over these past years, I have seen less that 20 women running, I'd say. And the number of men isn't much larger. Someone running is so rare that they automatically stand out and are apparently deemed fair game for any sort of derogatory remark a Frenchy might deem to throw their way. Since I am a girly and have girly parts like legs — forsooth and lackaday! — that show when I wear running shorts, I am equally putting myself at the mercy of those pathetic perverts who think it's just a fab idea to yell things at me. I have also been kicked — I kid you not — and stared at, had mothers pull their children away from me as if I might infect them, chased by prepubescents, and generally not treated very kindly.

So the homeless guy popping out from behind a tree and screaming at me was just any other day, really.

But consequently I had to find other routes, and after two days I have come to the conclusion that Crazy Homeless Chap was really a drunk angel in disguise. Apparently I have spent the past six weeks running on the ugliest possible of routes available to me. I live in an apartment not too far from the centre ville of Aix, but close enough to the countryside that I can reach it on foot. I found myself out in the country, on small winding roads passing gorgeous old houses that could legitimately be called villas. There were cypress trees standing tall against the setting sun, which drenched the entire scene in a pinkish-orange glow. It was so beautiful that I had to shake my head a little to realize that I was actually inside that moment, and not watching a movie set in Provence.

I am still thrown for a loop every time I get yelled at when I'm running. I stomp around furiously, going on and on about how France sucks and every single French person can go choke on a block of Rocquefort cheese and die. Extreme, I know. But then I'll find myself in front of a country house with blue shutters sitting peacefully on a hill, passing by a smiling old couple walking their dogs in the evening light, and I remember why I came to Aix in the first place.

independent womanz

I love France. I've been a Francophile since the age of 8, when I found a French textbook buried in the piles of dusty old school supplies in the back of Mrs. Bonar's third grade classroom. I took it home and spent the rest of the year copying down phrases like, "Je m'appelle Dominique" (my chosen French name) et "Tu t'appelles comment?" 14 years later, here I am. And I love the country and the culture a thousand times more, but I also have the capacity to get soooo annoyed with it all.

My host mother told me a French joke about god looking at the earth after it was created, and he noticed that France was the most beautiful of all the countries in the world — mountains, lakes, beaches, oceans, plains, forests — every part of the landscape was diverse and breathtaking. And so, to make it even for the rest of the world, he created the French.

I laughed a little too hard.

In sort of a touchy mood...the wannabe-French director of the AUCP program shat all over me today, telling me that any issues I had with my host family were my own fault for having, "une certaine rigidité où il devrait être du douceur," or a certain rigidity where there should be sweetness. I'm sick of getting shit for being a strong and independent woman.

That sounds like such a cliché/a line from a Beyoncé song, but it's true. Independence and willpower, especially in women, is not valued in French culture. I'd go so far as to say that it's very much looked down upon. When my friend Kiely and I swear like sailors in front of some of our French guy friends, they shush us and say, "No, girls can't say that!"

To this I say, va te faire enculer!

I am all about traveling and discovering different cultures. But if it means that I have to change important aspects of myself in order to fit in — I work out, I don't smoke clope sur clope, I'm not a manipulative bitch, I wear shorts, I don't talk over people — then I'd prefer to retain that certain rigidity in lieu of gaining sweetness any day.

I promise a lighthearted post next time! Something about hot chocolate, methinks...

wanted: café americano

I have a few people in mind who I know will cringe upon reading this — my barista boyfriend, for one — but it must be said: I prefer American coffee to anything in Europe.

Yep. I went there.

I don't mind espresso shots, and I do enjoy cappuccinos and macchiatos, but nothing does it for me the way a steaming hot latte in a ceramic mug does. That is closely followed by chai lattes, mochas, and then drip coffee. All with skim milk. None of this can be found in France, or at least not in your typical, postcard-esque French cafés, where tables are placed inches apart on the sidewalk and crowds of chiseled-cheekboned, scarf-wearing chain smokers congregate to people watch and sip a tiny espresso. I'm not saying that this isn't without its own charm — the outdoor café is an undeniably European experience that cannot be skipped. But nothing can fill the hole in my heart that is left by the absence of American coffeehouses. You can order a hot drink, spread all your homework and books out on a table, and settle in for hours of studying and reading. If I tried to do homework at a French café, I think people would stare at me almost as much as they do when I wear running shorts — but that's another story altogether. My point is that I feel lost and oh-so alone, ALONE without the possibility of an enormous coffee at my slightest whim.

Today, that all changed. Ish. Slowly getting to know the nooks and crannies of Aix, I and my fellow AUCP students have been putting together a cheat sheet of American type coffeehouses, one of which I peeked at today. It's called the Book in Bar, and is an English-language bookstore with a small café that sells cookies, scones, coffees, and hot chocolate. Small wooden tables and overstuffed chairs are scattered throughout the two-floor shop, which is lined with full-to-bursting bookshelves that reach up to the ceiling. I can see myself spending hours there. They might not have lattes, but at least there are scones. There is apparently another place that sells pretty hefty-sized coffees, and another bakery called Le Cupcake which sells coffee to go — a rarity in France, where people are all about "savoring the moment" and shit like that. Pff. Whatever.

Having already mapped out four candy stores where you can buy bonbons en vrac — choosing each individual piece of candy you want from a bin and paying according to the weight — I am dedicating myself to finding the best American-style coffeehouses in Aix. And I'll make sure to sit at a French café or four along the way.

aixtoberfest

While some of the students of AUCP made their way off to Munich at the end of September, I finished off my first month in Aix with a pression pêche — beer with peach syrup. Girly and oh-so-delicious — at Pub O'Sullivan's with a group of pals who were also staying in the country. No traveling for me, unfortunately, at least not until les vacances de Toussaint, a week of fall break at the end of October. Me and my pal Kiely will be heading off to Bretagne, followed by a romp in Paris with my friend Dan, and we will finish off the ten days or of blissful freedom with a few days in either Copenhagen or somewhere in Italy. Or Berlin. Scotland is also a possibility...

This is one of the best things about living in Europe. Everything is so ridiculously close, at least compared to an American scale. France alone is the size of Texas, shares borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain, and is a mere underwater train ride away from England. If I wanted to leave the United States from Ohio, I could make it pretty easily to Canada, but Mexico would be something of a trek. Starting from Aix, I could hop in a car and be in Barcelona in three hours. This blows my mind.

Unfortunately I don't have an international driver's license and/or a vehicle to call my own, so I have to find my way around by the means of other forms of transportation. Like every other student who has studied abroad before me, I am slowly and steadily coming to see the beauty that is Ryan Air. I bought tickets from Marseille to London for the first weekend in December for about 50 Euros, and two round-trip tickets for me and my boyfriend to go to Venice for only a little over 100. The times of the flights are not what you would call convenient and you can only have one carry-on bag free of charge, but really, who really gives a shit when you find yourself on a gondola a few hours later?

I have those two trips planned, and am in the midst of figuring out the rest of my travel for this semester. The program I am with doesn't really want us to travel much, unfortunately. They're all about staying in Aix, which is okay for this first half for me, but I would get insatiably restless if I had to stay much longer after that. My friends and I are trying to pack in trips for every weekend we can after the October break — aside from the trip we're taking to London, Barcelona and Milan are also in the works. We have cooking classes with a Provençal chef here on certain Friday evenings, which means that when we have those we won't really be able to travel very far away that weekend. Oh well.

In the meantime, I'm just hanging out in the south of France and getting to know Aix pretty well. Pas grande chose. Went to Abby's house out in the country today for a bike ride. It was gorgeous, with striking views of le Mont St. Victoire — the mountain that Cézanne painted incessantly AND that I triumphantly climbed this past Sunday! — in the distance. Harumph. So typical.

21 jours

First and foremost: my brother is getting married! Clayton proposed to his girlfriend/my love Kelsey this past week. Aaaaaand Kelsey asked me to be a bridesmaid! I have been waiting for this day for years. It's weird having momentous things like this happening back in the states while I am so far away and removed from it all.

Haven't updated in (more than) a week. As they say, no news is good news, I guess. Made it through my third week here, and, as our program director informed us, the 21-day mark is something of a turning point. According to sociologists, it's when the initial culture shock starts to wear off — we're used to our new situation, the new language, the new day-to-day events like eating dinner with our host families and buying tomatoes for lunch at the market (not too hard to get used to that one, in my opinion).

Everything revolves around food and mealtimes in France, which is a big change for me. Lunch is not a big thing for Americans in general, I think, but here it is an event that can last up to six hours on Sundays. So I hear, anyway. I've never gone through such an ordeal, but I've heard first-hand testimonies. Dinner is less epic, but still a time when everyone comes together, sits at the table, and "shares a moment" together. The French are big on sharing moments, especially gourmand ones. Last semester I would eat yogurt and granola in the library for dinner every night — with my piles of work to do, it was all I had time for. If I tried to explain that situation to any French person, I am fairly certain they just wouldn't be able to comprehend it. Not in a language-barrier way, but rather a culture barrier, which is waaaaay harder to cross.

We've been talking a lot about culture barriers in classes at AUCP lately. Our program director likes to chalk up all French weirdness to a difference in cultures — I beg to differ. Sometimes they are just assholes. I'm not saying that Americans aren't — there are plenty of idiots in every country — but French people like to ride a fine line between being direct and honest and just being straight-up rude. For example, when I introduced my friend Abby to my host mother, Nadia cut Abby off in the middle of her first sentence to turn to me and say, "She doesn't speak very good French, does she?"

It's been an interesting three weeks, overall. I think my French is improving. This time in France — my sixth or seventh time over here, I think — the language seems to have really clicked. This is the first time I would feel like I could say I am fluent in French, which is a pretty cool thing, since I've been studying the language for ten years now. However, I and my fellow AUCP members have been blatantly breaking our language contract and have been speaking English pretty frequently together, which is strictly verboten per program rules. Oops. I feel guilty every time I do it, if that means anything. I think we all want to improve our French, though, so the frog-tongue shall be reinstated as of tomorrow.

More specific posts coming your way. Just wanted to get a post of there for my legions of readers who were undoubtedly wracked with grief over the lack of news :) À bientôt!

à la forêt des cèdres

Yesterday I went on my first hike with MJC Prévert, an organization here in Aix that offers classes in everything from painting to improv comedy and leads hikes in different areas throughout the region of Provence every Tuesday and Thursday. This works out perfectly for me and a few of my friends in the AUCP program, since none of us have classes on Tuesdays and this means we can get out of the city and explore our surroundings a bit. It's not too expensive, either. And with MJC Prévert, a self-proclaimed "maison des jeunes et de la culture," we figured we would meet some fellow students.

Turns out these randonnés — hikes/walks. Hard to translate, since it's suuuuch a French thing — are catered more toward the retired set. Abby, Kiely and I were the youngest ones there by decades. We also stood out because all three of us were wearing some type of athletic short while all the French retraités were in pants. French people are not, how you say, into ze working out, so as ubiquitous as the Nike running shorts might be in the U.S., it's the complete opposite here. As soon as our fellow ramblers saw us, they squinted through their prescription spectacles, tightened their hand-knitted sweaters around their waists, and clapped their arthritic hands together with glee. "Oh, nous avons des petites américaines avec nous!"

Ok, they weren't really that old.

We went to the Luberon and drove up, up, up the mountain until we were at the very top where the limestone was covered in cedar trees. It was a national forest that spanned all along the valley (I think) and we hiked along cliffs and past caves, all the while gawking at the view of the valley spread out before us. The hike was scheduled to last about three hours, and after two we stopped for a snack break. We had been told to bring water and an "en-cas," a snack, with us. I had bought a few packages of crackers filled with dried fruit and I shared them with Kiely and Abby. A snack, quoi! The French had a different idea of what constituted a snack, though, and we soon learned this as eagerly generous French woman after eagerly generous French woman came by the boulder where the three of us had decided to perch, extending tupperware containers of homemade treats.

First there were smoked almonds. Then there was coconut cake (it was a man's birthday, and after taking a slice we went and on lui a fait la bise, we kissed him once on each cheek). Then there were figs from someone's garden. Then there were dried figs stuffed with almonds. Then there was cake again. Then there was biscotti. Then there was cake AGAIN. And then there was coffee.

I drew the line after the biscotti. Kiely had to eat two pieces of my cake — since it was basically impossible to refuse to take any — I wasn't sure if she would make it back to the bus alive. Abby dissolved into hysterical laughter, probably brought on by sugar overdose, upon seeing the swarms of people descending upon us, brandishing their spécialités personelles. I tried to keep straight face and politely refused any coffee, certain that it would be the last straw. And nobody likes a projectile vomiter.

We rambled back to the bus and drove the hour back to Aix. Kiely was hungry, naturally, upon arrival, so we went to the best pizza stand in town, Pizza Capri, and bought slices. We sat on a bench in the sun along the Cours Mirabeau, lazily watching people stroll by and enjoying the tired feeling in our legs.

I'm looking forward to next week!

les petites choses

Earlier this evening, while I was calmly eating my tomatoes drizzled with olive oil, my host mother told me that I seemed sad, and went on to lecture me about how la vie est belle and you have to enjoy every moment and nothing is so bad that it isn't fixable and you need to savor the little things and so on.

Out of nowhere, just like that. I think it was because I wasn't eating with enough appetite and gusto. Pff. The French!

Despite the fact that I knew what she was saying was uncalled for and not true, it still got to me a little bit. Was I sad? If I was giving that impression, it must mean something. I did have a weird day — Sundays in Europe are kind of surreal, since absolutely everything is closed — and I spent most of it in a daze that was most likely brought on by two consecutive nights of getting back to the apartment after 2 a.m. I thought it was just one odd day, but was it more than that?

After mulling it over, I realized that not only did this woman meet me a mere week ago and therefore didn't know much about my personality or character, but that, by nature, I am a calm, pensive, somewhat reserved person — traits that can easily be mistaken for sadness. My host mother, Nadia, absolutely adores talking and debating and conversing — a national quality, I've noticed — and a lot of the time I don't really have anything to say in response to her grand pronouncements on Sarkozy's politics at exactly what age adolescent boys might question their sexuality. I'm aware of the fact that she loves the sound of her own voice. Bitchy of me to say that, I know, but it's true. A lot of French people seem to enjoy putting their opinions out there but don't really care about what anyone says back. In my time spent in France, I had perfected the combined head-nod and neutral-yet-sympathetic "hmm." Works every time.

As far as la vie est belle, profitens-en! speech that Nadia gave me, it felt a bit ridiculous to be on the receiving end of it, since I was the one who had travelled across the Atlantic to spend four months in a foreign country and culture, speaking a language different from my own and making an entirely new set of friends and connections. As far as the little things go, I'm not doing too bad either. Here are little things that have given me a warm, fuzzy feeling in this past week I have spent in Aix:

1) The plane trees. They line le cours Mirabeau, they shade cafés, they dapple sun-colored buildings with shade from their fluttering leaves. Every square looks like an impressionist painting.

2) The stand by the Palais de Justice that sells candy for just five centimes per piece. You can individually choose each on from at least 50 different types and for a mere euro you have a delicious, portable treat.

3) The feeling of savagely spitting out dirty words. Putain bordel de merde! Va te faire enculer, grosse salope!

4) Drinking a Strongbow cider outside by fountain lined with candles.

5) Finding a tiny restaurant called Les Deux Soeurs, run by two Spanish sisters who do everything themselves, and eating some of the most delicious tapas.

6) Buying peaches with friends at the Tuesday morning market in la Place des Prêcheurs, and eating them for lunch in the garden of the school, juice dribbling down our chins and onto the ground.

7) Randomly discovering that I know the world for "chestnut."

8) Going to a 24-hour patîsserie at 2 in the morning and getting a still-warm Nutella cookie.

9) Finding a gorgeous autumn-colored dress at Zara and — yep — it fits perfectly.

10) Finding myself a) in France, b) in an Irish pub, and c) surrounded by French sailors yelling and singing along to "Sweet Home Alabama."

I've only been here for eight days. Tomorrow I start my classes — one of which I get to take at the Sciences Po university, since my French level qualified as high enough — on Tuesday my friends and I are going on a three-hour hike through a cedar forest in the Luberon valley. My language partner, Guillaume, wants to take me to the beach during the week. And I'll get to go to my friend Emily's house. And these are just things I have planned right now. Who knows what else will happen?

Sad, my ass.

away i go

Bags are packed and sitting quietly by the door. Owlie and Losh (stuffed owl and huskie, of course) ready to go into my backpack. Host family address and phone number written on a post-it. I have all my favorite dresses, books, photos of my most-loved people, my journal, iPod, a French dictionary, and my Frye engineer boots. I'd say I'm as ready as I'm going to be. Cue the Alexi Murdoch, and away I go...

"so sweet! so...guuuuuuud!"

The first time I went to Aix-en-Provence was the summer when I was 19. My family, minus my older brother, had rented a house right on the outskirts of the city. That sounds sketchy, I know, but all it meant was that we were located up on a hill with a something like a two-mile walk into the heart of Aix, with its plane tree-lines avenues and outdoor cafés. We would wander into the city when we wanted and when we got tired make the somewhat arduous hike back with the knowledge that when we did we could open the wooden shutters of the house to the evening sounds of children and chirping bugs and collapse on the outdoor terrace to a meal of bread (bought on the way home from the boulangerie conveniently located along the way) and ridiculously smelly cheese and wine. Such a cliché...but delicious.

During the two or so weeks that we spent in our hillside house, we got to know Aix fairly well. We found a pizzeria that had capers the size of my fist on their veggie pizzas, and went back there for dinner at least five times. We drank pression pêche after pression pêche, the perfect summer drink which is made by adding peach-flavored syrup to whatever beer is on tap (my French friends in Normandie actually introduced me to that, so it might sound sickeningly sweet but it lives up to French standards, at least). I, for one, got to know the local shopping pretty well.

We also explored outside of the city, taking a day trip to Arles and taking a bus tour through the Luberon valley, known for its idyllic hilltop villages, vineyards, lavender fields, and Peter Mayle. No one likes blatantly standing out as a tourist — an impostor —but, admittedly, there are times where you have to just suck it up and get on the damn bus (put on the damn headphones, follow the damn umbrella, etc). Such was the situation with the bus tour through the Luberon, which turned out to be amazing. I felt like we were inside a Provence calendar, and each page that was turned just had another, even more breathtaking scene. I'd seen photos of Provence before — every good Francophile has spent hours gazing at them longingly — but I still didn't believe that a place could be so incredibly gorgeous. I'm glad I was wrong.

It also helped that our tour guide was the epitome of the handsome, charming young Frenchman (he wasn't wearing a scarf, alas, but it was summer so I shall forgive him). His name was Thibaut, and he had an adorable accent, swishy hair, and effortless, casual style. He probably would have been smoking a cigarette if it weren't for the fact that he had to make a good impression on the Americans he was leading around.

At one point on the tour, he was describing the cherries that you could find in Provence. They were in season and apparently there was an exceptionally tasty batch that year. Thibaut delicately pursed his lips and closed his eyes so as to imagine the sheer cherrygasm that was eating une cerise provencale. "Zey are so sweet," he sighed, opening his eyes and gesturing vaguely. "So....guuuuuuud.

Naturally, this became the catchphrase for the rest of the trip.

Images of the late-afternoon sun shining off Thibaut's naturally highlighted chestnut locks have since faded from my mind, but the one of Aix and of all of Provence have stuck. And lucky me...one week from Friday, I get to go back to that very same city and be a part of the local scene for four months with the American University Center of Provence. I'll be studying language and literature and culture and I'm even taking a drawing class, which means I get to go out into the countryside and sketch my little heart out à la Cézanne, the most well-known (former) artist-in-residence. We have language partners, French university students, with whom we meet up twice a week for an hour of English conversation and an hour of French. We do a few hours of community service every week, and we choose a club or organization of Aix that we would like to join. Essentially, AUCP is not Little America. I'll be there with other Americans, but it's a linguistically-based program, and they don't want you hopping on a train every weekend and going off to explore the rest of Europe — they want you to know Aix and be a part of it.

This has its pros and cons, naturally, and we'll see how it goes. I, however, am sure it will be sweeter than a cherry and guuuuuuuud-er than the peachiest of pressions.