At the beginning of week two, friends and acquaintances told me their plans for the weekend and I felt panicked. I had next to no plans for the weekend. Was I doing something wrong? How could it be that it was only week two and I was already wasting time? After a conversation with a good friend here who found herself in the same position, we decided that we were being silly. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being content with staying in the city you are studying abroad in for weekends. After all, the reason you chose the program in the first place is because you wanted to be in that particular city, right? We laughed at our moment of stress and made plans for Friday, our first day of no class and no travel plans.
The extraordinary can be found in the ordinary if you give in to unplanning every once in a while.
We started Friday by getting lost on purpose. We met up in an area between our host’s apartments and started walking in a random direction. The intended result was to walk around the streets of Aix, snap some pictures, and then head back over to the area we know (around the university) for lunch. However, as things tend to happen while wandering, we stumbled upon an unexpected, yet much better plan. For naming purposes, I’ll call it the “unplanned plan”. We did take some great pictures, as planned, but we ended up running into The Jean Planque Collection, housed in a building owned by Musée Granet.
We didn’t know much about Jean Planque, but we figured he must have been pretty cool if he had a whole collection of art, so we went in. (Bonus: it’s totally free for students!) We were absolutely delighted with the results. In attendance were many pieces by Pablo Picasso, Hans Berger, and Jean Dubuffet, to name a few. We marveled at the collection for a couple hours and then decided to pop into the vintage shop across the street. Given our shopaholic tendencies, we both picked up something there: a hat for me, a top for her. We would have undoubtedly done more damage to our credit cards had our rumbling stomachs not called us to pursue lunch.
The unplanned plan continued its course as we stumbled upon a small restaurant, La Moda. Here, we encountered yet another first… ordering at a French restaurant in French. We were quite amused with our awkwardness in this situation, but our waiter was not. With the polite tolerance that French often must give to Americans, he served us meals that made the embarrassing encounter worth it. I had the “beef carpaccio pesto and capers” accompanied by a glass of “Château Paradis” because, well, this is France.
Lunch lasted for nearly 2 hours, in typical Provencal fashion. By the time the check was given, sunset had commenced. The unplanned plan clearly was not done with us, because with night came an unexpected chill that had not been present during the sunny day, and we immediately regretted our choice in outfits. We laughed at our mistake as we ran into a store to buy something to keep us warm. Donning new jackets, we decided dessert in the form of macarons was in order. We were appalled that we had been in France for two weeks and had yet to enjoy a real French macaron. What better place to get macarons in Aix than at Béchard? The patisserie’s reputation is Aix-cellent (ha, ha) and came highly recommended by our program coordinators and by my host mom. So, we sat on the steps overlooking the Cours Mirabeau and enjoyed our pair of macarons au citron, silently studying the brief glimpses of the lives of passers-by.
During the course of the next few days, I made plans for future weekend travel with friends. But, after a perfectly fun day of “no travel”, I had decided that I would no longer let myself be bothered with a planner that is not as crammed as everyone else’s. The extraordinary can be found in the ordinary if you give in to unplanning every once in a while.
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