Another European month has passed, and once again I'll try to summarize my experiences without reducing the events to a tourist's checklist.
Towards the end of October, my mom came to visit me in Aix. It was wonderful to see her and show her all around the city I've come to consider a home away from home. In fact, it was as if my real home had crossed the Atlantic and transposed itself over this newly familiar space. Only my dad, my brother, Clay, and my cutie bupbup puppy, Ursula, were missing.
My mom's visit was my first thorough exploration of Aixois cuisine. Every night we enjoyed different and always delicious dining experiences, from Chez Leo in Place des Cardeurs to the famed Les Deux Garçons where once upon a time, Paul Cezanne dined with Emile Zola.
We went to the beautiful seaside town of Cassis as well, where we ate lunch at Nino, a restaurant au bord de la mer that serves the best moules frites (mussels and fries) that I've ever tasted. Our trip to Cassis was a bit hectic, though, since the bus system closed down much earlier than we thought it would (definitely my fault since I'm supposed to be the local). As a result, we had to cancel our plan to hike the calanques, the magnificent cliffs that line the shore from Marseille to La Ciota, and walk what must have been at least 5 kilometers to the so-called "Cassis" train station.
Spending time with my mom in France showed me how far I've advanced in my knowledge of the French language. Since my mom's French is limited to "bonjour," "merci," "au revoir," and "je ne sais pas" (always perfectly pronounced I must say), I took care of all of the day-to-day interactions with servers, bus drivers, market vendors, etc. These conversations had become second nature, and I was often surprised that my mom hadn't understood such an exchange. "Oh, I just asked how much that costs," or "Oh sorry, I just explained that we're American." The most difficult test of my translation skills was the rendez-vous between my mom and my host mother. They had a grand old time getting to know each other while my linguistic competence was whittled down to a crude franglais by sheer confusion and continuous speech.
Towards the end of October, my mom came to visit me in Aix. It was wonderful to see her and show her all around the city I've come to consider a home away from home. In fact, it was as if my real home had crossed the Atlantic and transposed itself over this newly familiar space. Only my dad, my brother, Clay, and my cutie bupbup puppy, Ursula, were missing.
My mom's visit was my first thorough exploration of Aixois cuisine. Every night we enjoyed different and always delicious dining experiences, from Chez Leo in Place des Cardeurs to the famed Les Deux Garçons where once upon a time, Paul Cezanne dined with Emile Zola.
We went to the beautiful seaside town of Cassis as well, where we ate lunch at Nino, a restaurant au bord de la mer that serves the best moules frites (mussels and fries) that I've ever tasted. Our trip to Cassis was a bit hectic, though, since the bus system closed down much earlier than we thought it would (definitely my fault since I'm supposed to be the local). As a result, we had to cancel our plan to hike the calanques, the magnificent cliffs that line the shore from Marseille to La Ciota, and walk what must have been at least 5 kilometers to the so-called "Cassis" train station.
Spending time with my mom in France showed me how far I've advanced in my knowledge of the French language. Since my mom's French is limited to "bonjour," "merci," "au revoir," and "je ne sais pas" (always perfectly pronounced I must say), I took care of all of the day-to-day interactions with servers, bus drivers, market vendors, etc. These conversations had become second nature, and I was often surprised that my mom hadn't understood such an exchange. "Oh, I just asked how much that costs," or "Oh sorry, I just explained that we're American." The most difficult test of my translation skills was the rendez-vous between my mom and my host mother. They had a grand old time getting to know each other while my linguistic competence was whittled down to a crude franglais by sheer confusion and continuous speech.
After my mom's return to the US, which was very sad for both of us, fall break began. I spent the first half of the break in Barcelona with a large group of students from IAU and Aix-Marseille University. Barcelona is a crazy place. Promoters line the streets, pitching descriptions of their respective clubs that remind me of Bill Hader's character Stefan from SNL. But these Catalan promoters usually weren't acting, from what I could tell. For instance, at a club called Opium, my friends and I saw a man on stilts dressed as the Mad Hatter. Pretty awesome. Also awesome: skinny dipping in the Mediterranean at 4am, joining the crowd right outside of Camp Nou stadium after Barcelona wins El Classico, and Gaudi's architecture.
From Barcelona, three of my friends and I took a train to Madrid where we spent the rest of fall break. Madrid has a classier feel than Barcelona, but the nightlife is comparably wild. Kapital, Madrid's seven-story club, is a very impressive place, to say the least.
The museums Prado and Reina Sofia were outstanding. Reina Sofia's collection of Spanish surrealist art, in particular, captivated me and my friends for hours. We also had a great day at el parque del Retiro, a gorgeous and expansive park which we explored by bike. There's a pond in the middle of the park where one can feed not only ducks but also carp-sized fish that awkwardly wrestle over bits of bread (or whatever happens to hit the water's surface).
Since fall break, Aix has been getting colder and colder. I don't think any of us at IAU realized that the south of France gets any colder than southern California. At this point, it's about as cold as southern Canada. Consequently, Aix has become much quieter on weeknights. The bright side of the winter season here in Aix is the stunning network of holiday lights that run through the trees, hang across major streets, and adorn many of the city's fountains. Vendors of roasted chestnuts and hot wine have appeared in town as well.
IAU is changing too, but it's growing warmer instead of colder. Superficial acquaintances have become potentially life-long friendships, and hanging out in the IAU cave or The Wohoo (our school's favorite bar for happy hour) makes me feel as if I'm in a common room with my friends at Tufts (my home institution). I think I speak for the vast majority of IAU students here. We're starting to feel the approach of the shocking, sad separation that awaits us towards the end of December. I love my friends here, and it's horrible to think that most of us will be anywhere from 100 to 3,000 miles apart from each other in a matter of weeks.
Anyway, on the third Thursday of November, the whole of France celebrates the arrival of Beaujolais, a wine that comes from the region surrounding Lyon. As an American who doesn't know the first thing about wine, I had never heard of this quasi-holiday until I met my French friends Leo, Lucas, and Vincent at their favorite bar in Aix, Chez Mus. They ordered bottle after bottle of the wine, which they explained to be sub-par yet enjoyable due to tradition, and the bar served free cheese, meat, and bread all night. Best of all, instead of the usual American pop music, the bar played traditional French folk music. It was amazing to think that the same scenario was taking place in bars all over the country.
The weekend after the Beaujolais festival, I went to Paris with a few friends from IAU. We stayed in a very big, beautiful, and probably outrageously expensive apartment in Ternes, a five-minute walk from l'Arc de Triomphe. The apartment belongs to my friend Dan's Kentuckian family friend Maria and her French husband, Philippe. They were the most gracious of hosts, and they managed to tread the line between parental figures and co-generational buddies. Dan and I had several great conversation with Maria and Philippe, during one of which I learned of the terribly deep-rooted opposition to same-sex marriage among Catholic-raised French people who are otherwise quite modern and reasonable.
The nightlife in Paris was a bit of a letdown since the bars close at 2, the clubs are impossible for groups of imperfectly dressed American young men to enter, and the Parisians were generally cold towards us. However, the city of Paris itself, in all its ineffable beauty, made us forget all about the non-Spanishness of the Parisian party scene. I'm sure nobody reading this blog needs me to rattle off all of the names of the places we visited; most of them are in the table of contents of any French travel guide. The two places that I believe are worth mentioning are rue Mouffetard, a long, refreshingly non-bourgeois strip of restaurants, crêperies, ice cream parlors, and little stores near the Latin quarter, and le marché de Noël, the Christmas market along the champs-elysées. The lights and music are so enchanting that you might not even realize that you're walking past the same four types of kiosk over and over again (gift shop, kebabs etc, hot wine, slightly more upscale gift shop).
The most recent notable event was Thanksgiving. French people typically have no idea what Thanksgiving is, and it was very funny to try to explain it to them. For example: "Well, the pilgrims and the Native Americans had a feast together...and then, uh, a couple hundred years later Abraham Lincoln said there would be a national holiday called Thanksgiving...and so yeah now we have a big parade and watch football and most importantly we eat until we're pretty much comatose." "So do you write letters thanking the people who have done things for you?" "No...we just think about the stuff we like and maybe talk about it at the dinner table." "Oh. C'est bizarre."
It was hard to be away from home on Thanksgiving. IAU did a great job of organizing a Thanksgiving dinner that had all the essential dishes, but it didn't feel right not to be lounging around at home with my family all day. It was the first time I've felt really homesick since I've been here. But the homesickness passed, and now, as ready as I am to go home, I'm clinging to every precious moment of my time here. I'll try to find time to write another blog entry while I'm here, but I'll most likely be too busy absorbing the masterpiece that is Aix-en-Provence and the souls of these life-changing people I may never see again.
Here's my first French poem:
Pirouette
Les images de vos visages viennent en montage
hurlant, souriant, pleines d’une haine
amusante. Et moi, je vis, tournant, dans une
pirouette qui m’enveloppe dans un
sans-arrêt. Cette pirouette, ce que vous me faites,
la grande dette que je vous dois, vos belles lois,
les « au revoir » et tous ces soirs colorés
que j’aperçois chaque fois que vous me touchez –
Ah c’est toi, ta touche me réveille.
Le rêve se relève et je me sens libre
comme le moment où je quitte le monde
d’un livre et me souviens d’où je viens.
Mais je te ressens et dans les vagues qui
fuient ton paradis si près et si loin d’ici
je tourne encore. Le corps dedans moi,
mon espoir, ma foi, ma fierté sont tous
jetés ouverts par cette pirouette, la même
mais maintenant, étant éveillée, muette.
Tu m’as – ne me laisse pas parce que la fin de cette
pirouette serait une faiblesse, un vide, une blessure qui dure.
Les images de vos visages viennent en montage
hurlant, souriant, pleines d’une haine
amusante. Et moi, je vis, tournant, dans une
pirouette qui m’enveloppe dans un
sans-arrêt. Cette pirouette, ce que vous me faites,
la grande dette que je vous dois, vos belles lois,
les « au revoir » et tous ces soirs colorés
que j’aperçois chaque fois que vous me touchez –
Ah c’est toi, ta touche me réveille.
Le rêve se relève et je me sens libre
comme le moment où je quitte le monde
d’un livre et me souviens d’où je viens.
Mais je te ressens et dans les vagues qui
fuient ton paradis si près et si loin d’ici
je tourne encore. Le corps dedans moi,
mon espoir, ma foi, ma fierté sont tous
jetés ouverts par cette pirouette, la même
mais maintenant, étant éveillée, muette.
Tu m’as – ne me laisse pas parce que la fin de cette
pirouette serait une faiblesse, un vide, une blessure qui dure.