#goodbyesarenotfun | madd about provence

This might be one of the more difficult posts to write because it’s all about this past week and how things are starting to wind down and come to a close here in Aix. It’s not a simple thing – to live here and adjust your life to being abroad and now suddenly be expected to just fly home the day after finals end.

Last Friday, Evelyne invited over our neighbors from upstairs for a little dinner party. I thought they were just coming over for dinner, but no this was a real dinner party. Complete with a table cloth, 3.5 hours of not moving from my chair, multiple bottles of wine, and so much conversation all in French. She made aloutttes sans tete, which is some sort of stuffed meatball things with a delicious sauce served over pasta. They were talking about what the meat was and I didn’t full catch exactly what it was and I’m not sure I want to understand what it was cause I heard something about turkey feet in there… (In the future, there will be post that I’ve been adding to all along that talks about my foodie experience here in Europe!) Then there was something hilarious at dinner about a plate, and everyone laughed at that for a few hours. Once 11:30 pm rolled around, the neighbors realized that I was nearly falling asleep at the table and we all cleaned up and moved our tiny circle table back to the kitchen where it normally sits. What a night!

Sunday morning I ran a 10k through Aix with one another one of my friends here in Aix. What a pleasure it was to run a race through my city. It wasn’t as large as the one in Paris, but it had just as much meaning to me. Nothing beats a little runner’s high on the Cours Mirabeau! And that evening one of my friends had us over to her house to spend some time chatting before the craziness of the end started. She has a beautiful balcony from her apartment, where we stood in awe of the sunset.

Classes ended officially, but before finals began, we had the final exhibition at Marchutz. It was one of the best nights I’ve had in Aix. Basically, our professors hung up what they thought to be our best work inside the studio. Then the students set up a “salon de refusee” and we displayed the artwork that we all loved the most in easels outside the studio in the garden. Once everything was all set up, crowds of people arrived to have a little snack, a glass of wine, and a look at what we have been working on all semester. There were students and professors and administrators, I was surprised at how quickly it got crowded! Then things started to die down a little bit, and the only people that were left were the Marchutz students, our two professors, and a few close friends of Marchutz students. At this point in the night as per tradition, pizzas was ordered and the music was turned up a little bit. We all ended up hanging out in the studio dancing and enjoying one last night together. The entire night we danced to Django Reinhardt, our professor’s favorite dancing music. I LOVE it, and if you don’t know his music you should definitely check it out – he’s a jazz guitarist. I’ll always think of that night when I hear this music, which is now a regular go to choice for me.

Today, I took my art history final and felt great about it. Then my friend Amelia and I made a spur of the moment decision to go see Gatsby le Magnifique this afternoon. It was so spur of the moment that we really did sit down for Gatsby le Magnifique, and when we realized Toby Maguire was speaking the fastest french that I’ve ever seen an American speak (sans subtitles), we got a refund for our money and ran to the theatre next door to see the VO (version original) which just happened to start about 15 minutes later.

Now I have two more finals left on Friday, a dinner date with Evelyne tomorrow, and a significant amount of packing to do before Will arrives on Saturday. Thanfkfully, I don’t leave Aix directly following my finals, instead Will and I will spend five days exploring and enjoying Aix to the fullest. Then we’ll stop in Paris for two days to make a day trip to Giverny, the garden where Monet painted. Will will head back to the states and I’ll be off to Germany to visit my dear friends there before I fly home. I expect the next few weeks to be a little bit busy soaking up the last little bit of provence before I leave. I’ll be sure to eat a pain au chocolat in honor of each of you, and you’ll be sure to hear from me as soon as I land back on American soil.