Some new friends and me at La Mont Saint-Victoire
I haven’t written yet about Early Arrival Week, though that was what I was up to all last week. Now I almost don’t know where to begin.
Well, let me first say that I highly recommend it to any future IAU-ers who are considering starting the program a week early. It’s only the fourth full day here for the majority of IAU students, and it’s been very clear what advantages Early Arrival gave the fourteen of us who participated. First and foremost, we are over our jetlag. I thank the high heavens that I don’t have to try to figure out course schedules, classroom locations, school supplies, and navigating a world in French, all while half-asleep because my body is still back on Pennsylvania time. Au contraire, we fourteen or so have had an excellent time being able to point newer people to the best places for lunch and to the classrooms they seek.
Well, let me first say that I highly recommend it to any future IAU-ers who are considering starting the program a week early. It’s only the fourth full day here for the majority of IAU students, and it’s been very clear what advantages Early Arrival gave the fourteen of us who participated. First and foremost, we are over our jetlag. I thank the high heavens that I don’t have to try to figure out course schedules, classroom locations, school supplies, and navigating a world in French, all while half-asleep because my body is still back on Pennsylvania time. Au contraire, we fourteen or so have had an excellent time being able to point newer people to the best places for lunch and to the classrooms they seek.
Margaux talks environmentalism with students after our picnic at la Mont
Not to mention the little adventures we have already had! With Margaux, our ever-enthusiastic guide, we visited the outdoor markets for which the Provençal region is famous; we bought fresh bread, cheese, and fruit (using our French and paying in Euros!), and had ourselves a picnic in Parc Rambot. We got a behind-the-scenes look at the making of bread and raisin pastries at une boulangerie (a bakery). We went to the Wohoo, a bar just down the street from school, for l’apéritif (before-dinner drinks) with some genuine French students from l’Institut d’Études Politiques, after they gave us a tour of their school (which is across the street from IAU). We took a cooking class in which we made and ate calamari and pasta, colored gray with the squid’s own ink (verdict: surprisingly tasty, but with an unpleasant rubbery texture). On Friday, we went for a brief hike around the base of la Mont Sainte-Victoire, the beautiful mountain that overlooks Aix, and the location of Picasso’s castle. And on Saturday, when most of IAU’s students were making their tired way into town after hours of travel, we were strolling around the nearby city of Marseilles, buying magical Marseilles soap (rumored to be a panacea!) and visiting Notre Dame de la Garde with the Dean of IAU, Dr. Leigh Smith.
Le Château de Picasso
But the best part of Early Arrival was the ample time it gave us to start getting to know each other and our teachers. Spending a solid week in the company of just thirteen other students, all of whom come from different backgrounds in different parts of the United States, but all of whom are new to living in France (well—except for one guy, who was here last semester, and who thus became our resident student expert on Aix) was like being back in summer camp. Everything about the environment was new, but we were exploring it together. And we began forming friendships we probably would not have if we hadn’t done Early Arrival; now that classes have begun, students are much more segregated by whether they are studying in the Marchutz School of Fine Arts, the French Honors Program, or the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, but when it was just fourteen of us, we all hung out together, regardless of which program we had selected. I’m hoping these friendships last throughout the semester and beyond, even though we may be taking different classes. Fortunately, it seems as though they will.
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Another video, this time a short clip of the view from Notre Dame de la Garde, in Marseilles! The video quality is a little bit worse, because I forgot to charge my camera battery, and it died, so I took this with my phone camera instead.
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Another video, this time a short clip of the view from Notre Dame de la Garde, in Marseilles! The video quality is a little bit worse, because I forgot to charge my camera battery, and it died, so I took this with my phone camera instead.