First off, I would like to wish Aix and I a happy one month anniversary! On September 7 I landed in Marseille Provence Airport, and it’s been bliss ever since.
How did I celebrate? With a jam-packed Saturday. Before I even left the house I had already had enough excitement for the rest of the day, but I had a full day planned. Sara and I, being the only ones left in Aix, spent the day together. Here are some of the highlights.
I woke up several times between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. (when I decided I was losing the battle for sleep and got out of bed) in a panic, afraid that I had overslept and missed 10:00. At 9:55, I was parked in front of my computer, refreshing the FNAC ticket page every 15 seconds. The tickets I was waiting to buy sold out in 1 minute, but my dedication scored Sara and me 2 tickets to the Paris premiere of Catching Fire in November!! Yes, I’m sure the movie will be great, but we’re really hoping to bank some face time with Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth.
We met at 1:00 for lunch and, after discussing where to go, inevitably ended up at Crêpes à GoGo, everybody’s favorite crêperie. To get there, you go down the stairs that lead to the subway and follow the smell of fresh crêpes. Crêpes à GoGo is a little stand in the wall that you reach before actually getting to the subway. There was, as there always is around 1:00, a line, but we waited to get our crêpes, mine sucrée (sweet) and hers salée (savory). I got crème de marron (cream of chestnuts), almonds and chantilly. I wasn’t sure what chantilly was, but it turns out to be whipped cream so that was fantastic.
We ate our lunch in the place behind the tourism office. When we were done, we entered the tourism office to see a photo exhibit called “C... comme Aix.” The photos in the exhibit were taken of events and buildings around Aix. We liked them so much we even discussed their deeper meaning- outside of class? Somebody give that guy a medal.
At night we went to the final concert of the Festival de la Chanson Française, a week-long annual concert series that brings smaller artists to Aix to perform. The show began with Elo Trio, a last-minute addition that turned out to be really great. The lead singer had an amazing voice, and I could even understand a lot of the lyrics. The main act, Axel Bauer, seemed to have a following, if the odd mosh pit of middle aged adults singing and dancing along to his songs was any indication. We were getting into his music too, despite having never heard it before. We took the shuttle home at 11:00, and parted ways 10 hours after we met.
Overall, it was a great day, but here’s the bad news. I walked around Aix for 7 hours and I didn’t get lost. Confused a few times, but never lost. So maybe not getting lost last weekend wasn’t an indication of my magical capacity. As one of my teachers informed us on Wednesday, it’s impossible to get lost in Aix. I haven’t given up hope though. One day those of us whose letters were lost in the mail will be welcomed home to Hogwarts, as I was welcomed to Aix one month ago.