This trip has been seamless since the first day, my French colocataire , Charlotte, who drives a
small red Peugot, of course - how French - was waiting for me in the arrivals
lounge with a smile that stretched from ear to ear and a never ending supply of
ice breakers and anecdotes for the short journey to our apartment. Ok, I admit
it, I didn’t get everything she was saying (understanding French whilst
appearing totally blasé is quite a
feat) but I nodded and smiled in the right places and that’s the basis
of a long and prosperous friendship, no?
Thirty minutes later, Charlotte flings open the door of our
apartment in Aix. “Welcome to France!” She grins, reaching for a bottle of
Bergerac’s finest vin rouge out of
the cupboard. I let out a sigh of relief. To my delight I see that my room is
even better than it looked on appartager.fr
and certainly a step up from my student house in Liverpool last year, in which
the living conditions were barely at a legal standard. My room has plenty of
space for activities and my window (clad with shutters!) leads out onto the
roof terrace, prime location for sitting with a copy of French Elle, sipping on
an espresso and other similarly pretentious things.
Our landlady, Mme Gaufrès (Mrs Waffles in English) is there
to meet us with an inventory the length of my leg which I have to pretend I
understand, sign and return in one hand and a petit camembert in the other.
Kidding, my mind just drifted to cheese related thoughts mid-sentence, really
not socially acceptable. I spend the rest of the afternoon taking generic snaps
of fountains in Aix – of which there are a lot – and then share a dinner in
town with Charlotte during which we discover our mutual love of food and
charming French waiters.
And so student life in Aix-en-Provence begins. The bad news
is French paperwork is endless and soul destroying, toilets are unisex and the
building is falling apart. (There are literally debris nets on every wall of
the faculté to stop unsuspecting students being flattened by falling chunks of cement.) The good news is that Erasmus students have very little contact hours, receive a pretty
generous grant and most of us just have to pass the year without worrying about
it contributing to our final grade. One of my teachers is a tiny yet
impressively muscly (she definitely does lift bro) femme du sud. She is typically Aixois: she oozes elegance and has
leathery golden skin from years of sun exposure beautifully contrasted by a
white linen ensemble, the unspoken dress code of Aix. One of my classmates succinctly
described her as a MILF. I refuse to elaborate.
Erasmus students, myself included, are comparable to sheep,
following the infamous “Organisator” to and from clubs with names like the Wohoo
– true, Aix isn’t renowned for its buzzing nightlife but Marseille, host to
music festival Marsatac, is just down the road. The “Organisator” prowls the
Erasmus page on Facebook and as intimidating and robotic as he may sound, I had
the good fortune of learning that he really has a heart of gold: on our first
meeting he declared his undying love for me “you make my heartbeat fast ma
belle let me take you to breakfast!”
The big question: will this year improve my French language?
It’s safe to say it can’t get much worse: since being here I have realised, a
little too late, that no one has said sacre
bleu since the early 20th century and that “je joue au foot avec mes copains” is both untrue and
unsophisticated.
So far, it’s like a holiday and I feel like I am about to
embark on one of the best adventures of my life: C’est la vie has never rang so true… I have a roof terrace, St Tropez
is a short ride away on the TGV and I can buy a wheel of brie the size of my
face for less than 2euro at the local fromagerie.
If everything continues to go perfectly, I will acquire an amour francais, a blue Vespa to take me to the fromagerie and back quicker than you can say Jacques' your uncle, utter
fluency in French and bo-bo (Bourgeois
bohème) status. However, there’s a
little voice in the back of my head saying that in reality, I will probably
finish this year with a mediocre level of franglais and a larger jean size
courtesy of fromage indulgence.
Either way, as Edith Piaf would have said: Je
ne regrette rien.
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