La Fille Seule

I've asked Veronique, one of the other two girls living in the apartment (not including the ever-elusive Mme. Godin...and the cat...) the difference between the French verbs "retourner" and "revenir." It appears that the former means to go back and the latter means to come back. There's an element of turning around in retourner that isn't included in revenir. Either way, Mom has now retourner-ed to les EEUU, and I am alone in Aix. The plus side is, I can't get any aloner than this; classes haven't started yet, and I haven't made any French friends to speak of, with the dubious exception of the cat. Another plus side is, of course, that I don't mind being alone at all.

And now a brief digression to introduce the cast of characters I have so far encountered. First, there's Mme's niece, Marie, who is approximately my age, but chic and French. She picked me up at the hotel, which was very alarming, as I didn't realize for a few minutes that she wasn't Mme Godin herself. Marie took me to the apartment, where I was introduced to Veronique, a friendly student (with "exciting hair", it appears) from somewhere island-ish/Africa (??) who is studying French and African languages, and who seems very willing to speak French to me and who will tolerate my gaffes. Marie also introduced me to the Cat, whose name may be Lisse, but who I shall be calling Malicious, as that is how she was introduced. Marie indicated, in broken English still better than my French, that the cat "appears that it wants to be...hugged?...and then *clawing motion* griffes." Malicious has already staked out the area of loft bed immediately above the ladder required to get to said loft bed, and seems wary of rapid movements, but tolerant of my presence. Getting into bed tonight may be tricky.

Other people I have yet to meet include the third tenant, Morgan, and Mme, who I think I am supposed to call Isabelle. She could not meet me tonight because she is either (a) at a 50th birthday party for a friend, or (b) at a wedding shower, either (i) for herself, or (ii) for a friend. I am not sure...but I have a feeling that you might be getting this type of option-truth more often. Anyway, she seems to be very nice, generous, easy-going, etc. from what I see of the apartment and from what I understand Veronique to say.

In the meantime, here are some initial impressions of Aix-en-Provence. I sometimes don't remember to realize that a lot of people think that France is one big Paris, but the Aix conversation has me thinking twice (person: what's up? me: I'm going to Aix this summer! person: Where? What? X? me: Aix. Aix-en-Provence. It's in southern France. person: Oh, neato. Have fun in Paris! me: ...)

• Aix has a lot of candy shops. Also, boutiques, cafes, little restaurants, fountains, and squares. It seems a medium-sized city. Everyone I've asked says there aren't any dangerous areas, which is good. Obviously.
• A lot of the street signs are written in both French and Italian. We're not too far from the Italian border, so this makes sense, but it does make me wish I knew a bit more Italian and a bit less Spanish. I'm making people think I'm speaking in tongues with this French-Italian-English-Spanish-Nonsense mumbo-jumbo. Yeah I just said mumbo-jumbo.
• The history here runs deep. Just across the street from the apartment is a plaque saying that in the foyer of that apartment, the Gestapo gunned down several members of the Resistance, and I haven't seen much on WW1, but if 100 men from Collioure were killed in that war (as compared, according to the small monument in that seaside town, to 2 in Vietnam and 4 in WW2), imagine the effect it must have had on a town the size of Aix. In addition, there's much older history, from the convoluted medieval town's layout, to the Roman wall encircling parts of the town, to the cathedrals built on top of churches built on top of ancient roads.
  
• There's also some art, and various museums, where (I believe) Cezanne features prominently, and where several pretty portraits of 18th century nobles in addition to some studies by David can be found.
• The culture is a bit more laid back than elsewhere in France - people are a bit more relaxed (or at least, forgiving about my language errors, thank goodness), you have to work really hard to get the check and pay at a restaurant, there's less general language snobbery, less adroitness with English, more rat-looking dogs, more people kissing each other's cheeks, including men (yes, man-on-man cheek kissing action), lots of markets, etc...
• There are various subcultures, as indicated by restaurants, primarily: some Greek restaurants, some Armenian restaurants, some African restaurants, some Egyptian restaurants, some Italian restaurants (where they served me 40-proof alcohol...uhhhHH), and I hear there is a Jewish district, although I haven't seen any Jewish restaurants.
  
• There are a lot of beautiful young French men...and a lot of frightening old ones. What happens?
  
• Other misc. things: people leave restaurants to talk on cell phones (!); gas (diesel) is flipping expensive - even compared to the good old US of A, and everyone drives a small car, a bike, or walks; every kid and his mother (well not his mother, that's just a saying) owns a scooter; the French love Michael Jackson, Madonna, 80's music, and that one song by Justin Timberlake.

Well...this entry has gone on long enough. I'm off to try to learn some verb tenses and to figure out how much I should be tipping in restaurants.