This weekend I went to the movies with my friend, Julie. We saw “Bergers” a film about a man from Quebec who moves to Provence to be a shepherd. He quickly learns that it is not the idyllic career that he once imagined it to be. The job is incredibly difficult as he learns to […]

Aix-en-Provence has a lot of humans. Humans walking about town, riding their bikes around, going to lunch, taking the bus. But there is a lot of wildlife. A mouse on the way to school. Pigeons cooing. Magpies peering around on a wire. Oftentimes, I can see or hear all of these elements from my sit-spot. […]

Today the air vaguely smells of crepes. Perhaps someone is making lunch on this cloudy afternoon. It’s a bit chilly here, but the birds are singing and in the distance, children sing and a seagull squawks. There are birds everywhere here, and they are surely the most audible, if not visible members of this community. […]

Underneath this gravel, the roots from this tree above me stretch down into the earth. Its leaves have not yet returned. In fact, some of the old ones from autumn and wither still flutter in the wind. I’ve had to move sit spots today, so I am sitting on a bench in the main garden […]

I could not help myself with this title, vent of course is the French word for wind. In the past couple of days, it has been quite breezy here in Aix despite a stretch of lovely, sunny days appearing a bit more frequently. Apparently, Aix tends to have 300 days of sunshine per year which […]

Today marks my 26th day here in Aix-en-Provence, and it’s almost difficult to believe. Time has been moving differently here and I often find myself consulting my calendar to know what day it is. Like the Aix-goers before me (namely the wonderful Caroline who was here last semester), I have found the wonderful front garden […]