I am still young, but not too young

I had an awesome weekend and I’m paying for it now. I have a weird pounding headache and my skin hurts too – it sounds like a fever but I’m not hot and I’m not fever sick. There were times in my life when I didn’t sleep much for days at a time because I was too busy, but its been a long while and my body has forgotten all about it.

Friday kicked off with a trip to the Pertuis Marché. The market is always a fascinating experience. In fact, the picture of the fish I posted over the weekend was taken at the fish monger’s stand right outside my door. Indeed, I step out of my doors on Friday morning and get slapped by the scent of mountains of dead fish, crustaceans, shrimp, shark and eel. The smell hangs out all day long, long after the Marché has closed and disappeared for the week. I bought fruits and vegetables as usual, and admired all the other delicious things. The sun was shining.

That evening, Jen and I walked up one of our favorite streets to Andrew’s house for dinner. He invited the two of us, plus another assistant with whom he works. Neither Jen nor I had met Elise yet. She is from Nottingham and lives in Aix. She teaches at one lycée in Pertuis and one in Aix. She is getting funding from her government and her university to live in France; therefore could justify forking over the money to live in Aix. We all had a good time and I made it home before it got too late to watch episode #2 of the fifth season of The Wire.

Saturday proved to be another sunny but cold day. Jen and I decided to take a walk through the old Pertuis cemetery. The place is enormous. I guess all the people who have died in this area for the last three hundred years must be buried there. Some of the tombs had a mysterious sign posted that seemed to warn that the site would soon be vacated unless claimed at the mayor’s office. Jen and I puzzled over the sign for a long time. Do the French have to pay rent on their cemetery space? Eternal rent? And if you don’t pay, do your family members get kicked out? I fully intend to find out what the sign means, and when I do I will be sure to let you know. The sun began to set (at about 3:30!!!) at the tail end of our walk.

That evening, while I was considering whether to make mushroom risotto or beet salad, I got a text from one of my assistant friends, Annette, who lives near Avignon. I haven’t seen her in months. She said that she was headed to Aix that night to go to a DJ night hosted by another assistant, Amy. Should be a blast, she wrote. Under any ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t hesitate to go to a thing like this. Dancing is Aix, who can beat that? But, the last bus from Pertuis to Aix is at 8 pm and the last bus from Aix to Pertuis is also at 8 pm. That means that if we ever want to go out in Aix for the evening, we either have to drive in with a friend with a car, or we stay the night in some capacity. Its not too appealing to plan on staying up all night to catch the first bus back in the morning. Especially on Sundays when the first bus is at 9 am. I talked to Jen about it and we decided that we weren’t up for sleeping on the curb until 9 am, even though the party was supposed to last most of the night. Mushroom risotto it is, I thought.

Just at that moment, I got a call on my cell from my friend Nico. He is one of my better friends here, and one of the two guys I befriended at the Laundromat. He asked if I would like to go into Aix that night to have a drink with him and his friend Danny. Wow, what a happy coincidence! I asked Nico if he would like to check out the DJ night, and he thought that sounded pretty cool. Later that evening, he, Jen and I set out in our going-out clothes. It felt like it had been a while since I’d had any reason to put on a dress or wear a little make-up, so I was excited and felt pretty good about myself.

Aix is always a buzz with young people. We arrived at about 11 pm and the city was illuminated with white and blue Christmas lights, attractive people crowding the sidewalks. We found the little venue, and were greeted by an older looking American dude smoking a cigarette. He asked if we were assistants. We asked him if he would mind speaking French because our friend Nico doesn’t speak English. I guess all the assistants in the region heard about Amy’s DJ night. There were Americans, Brits, Italians, Scots, Austrians, Spanish, French, and a lot of other people from other places who were all socializing and dancing. Danny joined us, which was cool, and Nico ran into his childhood next door neighbor from Pertuis within 10 minutes of being in the place. It’s a small world. Jen and I danced for hours and hours. I felt a little like I was back in Montreal. Amy’s music was the same music that I used to hear where I used to dance in Montreal – Arcade Fire, the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, and Belle and Sebastian. It made me happy.

I even befriended a guy from Rome who is an assistant in Orange right now. He invited me to visit him in Rome once he heads home. I befriended an Austrian girl too. I have to say that the smartest thing one can do while living in Europe is to make friends with people in other exotic and romantic locations. That way, when its time to travel, you have friends to visit and extra cool guides to show you around.

We literally did dance all night long. Nico, Jen and I got back to Pertuis at about 7 am. Luckily, the sun doesn’t rise until about 7:30, so I could convince myself I was going to sleep in the dead of night. I can’t even imagine what my French sounded like at 7 am…. I’ll have to ask Nico.

I had a date Sunday morning with a teacher friend from Camus Elementary and her family. We met at the fountain in the square next to my house at 1 pm. I felt like someone had hit me on the head with a bat and then ordered me to speak French, but I would never give up the opportunity to hang out with a French family. Catherine, her husband Jean-Luc and their sixteen year old son Benoist decided to drive me in the direction of St. Remy, west, to Les Baux de Provence.

The word “baux” is the plural of “baille’’ which means contract. The place itself is a medieval chateau at the top of an impressive peak in the Alpilles (or little Alps). The place is named for contracts because of the relationship the Seigneur had with his subjects. The chateau was carved right into the side of a cliff, and looks almost organic despite the ramparts and catapults. Below the chateau is a little village where the humble folk used to live. We waked around the ruins of the castle for hours, and looked out for miles across the countryside. Le Mistral (the famous povencal wind which blows for either 3, 6 or 9 days at a time) was blowing like a beast and I thought my face skin would crack and fall off before the end of the day.

I could imagine how the medieval weapons could be useful in a place like this – we were the highest point all the way to the ocean - the edge of the Mediterranean was visible in the distance. I could see Arles too, and then the Alpilles in the other direction. There were gunshots somewhere below us, its hunting season, and the cracks made the experience even more vivid.

After the tour of Les Baux, we walked down the hill to the Cathedral des Image. According to Catherine, there was a Van Gogh Exhibit until January, which made me very excited. I’ve loved Van Gogh since the 7th grade when I chose to do a project on him in French class. What we beheld when we entered the Cathedral will be hard to describe here, because I was absolutely speechless at the time.


The space is not actually a Cathedral, but was once a rock quarry, back in the days of Les Baux and into the 19th century. It is an enormous cavern in the side of a mountain. In the 70’s some magical group of ambitious French people decided to turn it into an art space. The vast space is now a finished stone cave, with large halls separated by giant four sided pillars. Ever inch of wall space displays images of Van Gogh’s works by means of some high tech projectors. Can you imagine seeing his bedroom and chair three stories tall, or a field of provencal poppies stretching across three different walls in front of you?

The series of paintings change and merge and metamorphose every few seconds. If you take five steps in any direction, your whole field of vision changes. The angle and the size of the images are different (though always enormous). Meanwhile, people are standing and moving all around. The cavern is in semi-darkness, illuminated only by the paintings themselves. The people were nothing but dark shadows against Van Gogh’s images. Kids were running and playing and interacting with the images too. There were a couple of walls with mounds of stones in front, and the kids were climbing the stones and instantly became a part of whichever painting happened to be playing behind them. They were moving and the paintings were moving. A still life with wobbly arms extending from a tea kettle. A said face of Van Gogh's neighbor with legs sticking out of the nose. Also, music was playing the whole time. It was mostly instrumental music that I recognized from movies like Nightmare Before Christmas, The Virgin Suicides, Fantasia.

Try and go back to a regular old museum after that! The kids were having a blast. The adults were utterly captivated. We were looking at Provence in Provence through Van Gogh’s eyes. I was in heaven.

I was as cold as a petrified log in the middle of an icy tundra by the end of the day. We drove back towards Pertuis, Cadenet actually, and had dinner at their house. Their house is large by French standards and sits right across the street from the old town church. Everything is lit these days for Christmas. Catherine lent me a fleece sweater to warm me up and then gave me some wine. I was feeling better in no time. We ate lamb and vegetables, and then salad, and then bread and cheese, and then little French cakes. I ate a roasted chestnut cake and a chocolate and hazelnut cake. Then I had a piece of of chocolate with truffle shavings on top. They drove me home at about 10 pm and I could hardly lift my head by this time.

You can see how I might fall sick. But what a wonderful weekend. I’m going to post some pics to illustrate some of what I'm talking about. It will be hard to do justice to either the Chateau or the Cathedral, but something is better than nothing I guess.