A group of us out for an all-night downtown street party Aix. If you’re energetic enough to stay out late, this city reveals its international side in its student nightlife; French is mixed in with English, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, German, and various Eastern European languages. In spite of the melting pot, we American women always [...]
I used to have these fantasies of Fréd and I falling in love and living in Paris in a tiny apartment in the quartier latin. We would survive off of cigarettes and coffee and sex. I would take classes at the Sorbonne, and he would write stories and novels. We would walk along the Seine [...]
Bridget’s host family has one of those beautiful provençal country houses that you see on the covers of Peter Mayle books. From Agnès’ apartment, it’s a 45-minute uphill walk to get to it, which is one of the reasons I love to visit. On the way I pass Cézanne’s old painting studio, and once I [...]
Pauline, Roger, Clémence, Praline—le chien—and I pile into the car and off we go on a road trip to see the Mont Saint-Michel, one of the most-recognized and most-visited tourist spots in all of France. The Mont is an abbey on an island just half a mile or so off of the coastline. When the [...]
I am the youngest one in the French language program in Chambéry, but was immediately placed in the highest level of classes upon my arrival. After the first month, the lessons begin to repeat themselves. My attention wanes. In February another young student arrives, a Swiss boy named Laurent. We get along in class and [...]
A mere two months after I return from Chambéry, back to France I go. Still somewhat emotionally scarred from my self-imposed exile, I’m initially nervous to go back when I feel like I just escaped. But, as I already knew, each region of France proves to be drastically different from the others. Savoie was cold [...]
My regular spot in Bernay is Brin d’Zinc, a bar that Clémence and her friends seem to have been going to since they were in collège, the French version of middle school. Smoking indoors is still legal, and the yellow interior is full of French teenagers lighting up over their beers. I am immediately a [...]
Bridget is a neuroscience major at a college in Maine. She hasn’t taken a French class since high school before coming to spend these four months in Aix—naturally, her French is a bit rusty at first. But she is open and friendly, and communicates with a completely adorable mixture of lots of hand gestures, anglicized [...]
