The September picture on my calendar urges me to try and enjoy the ride- or at least it would be doing so if my name were Thelma. Well, calendar, I’ve taken your advice under consideration and have been doing just that for the last three weeks.
I’ve been here three weekends, and this is the first one that I’ve spent in Aix. Although I don’t want to miss the chance to jet off to Monaco for the weekend, I also want to make sure that I enjoy the ride here in Aix, and this weekend was the first chance that I had to do that.
This weekend, all of my friends were in Aix. Sunday was one of their birthdays so on Saturday night we threw him a surprise party at the Wohoo, a bar down the street from school whose drinks, we already knew from experience, are delish. We spent a week planning, assigning the food that everyone would bring and figuring out how to get him there. In the end, we had a feast and a really nice waiter who we were chatting with in Franglais all evening. There wasn’t anything fancy about the party, but it was really nice to make our own fun in Aix. We ate a surprising amount in just a couple of hours and then wandered around side streets where we had never been before. I’ve long suspected that my letter from Hogwarts got lost in the mail, but now I know it’s true. We wandered wherever our feet decided to take us and never got lost. Magic, right? Turns out, all roads lead back to the school. Wherever we went, we always ended up near IAU. The original plan was to go out for dinner, but we had all brought so much food to the party that we were stuffed. By 8:30 p.m. (I’ll never get used to military time) I was back in my room video chatting with one of my friends from college. Although it was an early evening (our host mother was out later than my housemate and me) it was really enjoyable.
Next weekend 4 out of the 7 of us are going to Paris. Since I was just there, Sara’s going there for Fall Break and Dan is studying there next semester, we opted not to go. Sara and I are planning to go back to a bakery we found on Friday that had the most delicious looking chocolate cake in the window, and enjoying the food along the ride. We might go to Cezanne’s Studio or do one of the other things that you have to do if you spend a semester in Aix. We’ll try a new restaurant for dinner and see what the town is like at night. Most of all, we’ll enjoy the ride in Aix without rushing through now to get to something better in the future, because this is the future that we’ve been looking forward to.