Au Revoir, Provence

I leave Aix-en-Provence, France, for Edinburgh, Scotland, on December 6. I’ll be staying with my friend who’s a student at the University of Edinburgh.

Ever since my decision to switch majors and pursue a degree in writing instead of one in art, I’ve debated whether or not to even finish this semester. The case for finishing is so that I won’t have wasted my money, and so that I won’t have to feel like a quitter, someone who just couldn’t hack it and gave up. The case against finishing was actually longer:

—due to health problems, I’m very behind, and the amount of effort I’d have to make to catch up in time is more than the aforementioned health problem will allow;

—I feel really uncomfortable around my art program director, and not too eager to subject myself to another of his “critiques”, especially after hurting myself to catch up;

—I’m fucking sick of art, and of crapping out on demanding things that my heart isn’t into, especially when demanded by people who don’t care about me anyway; and I have a lot more soul-satisfying things I could do with those three weeks of my life

Besides, I didn’t waste a cent. This has been totally worthwhile, whatever some “grade” says. And who cares if I’m a quitter? Who cares if I’m 27 and withdrawing from class, switching schools and majors again? Anyone who would judge me as “weak” or “a quitter” for that, given these circumstances, doesn’t know me at all. They sound more like Alan than any friend of mine. People like he and I do have “being hard on ourselves” in common; but the difference between him and I is that I can quit doing it. If this time in France has taught me anything at all, it is to stop drill-sergeanting myself, and start living soul-first. And my soul says quit.

After that, it was only a matter of my friend doing a little persuading, convincing me to change my Easyjet flight to Edinburgh to about two weeks earlier. He’ll be finishing his essays for his classes, and I will have some time to myself to reflect on things, with the added bonus of not actually having to be in France anymore. Because this place is driving me crazy.

Ten Most Beautiful Sights I’ve Seen

*Paris at night from the top of the Eiffel Tower
*The highest garden point of the Medieval hilltop city of Eze, hundreds of feet over the Cote d’Azur coastline
*Aix streets and alleys, yellow and blue in sun and shade, or shiny after rain
*The pale aqua Rhone River in Arles
*Van Gogh, Da Vinci, Odilon Redon, Rembrandt, and Art Nouveau furniture
*Stained glass inside Notre Dame, Paris
*The colored autumn leaves falling in the Alexanderplatz, East Berlin
*Sunrise over the Mediterranean from the top of a cliff
*Mont St Victoire at sunset, with clouds cresting up from behind it
*Landing in Nice, deep blue water on one side, and sunlit, snow-covered Alps on the other

Ten Worst Moments

*Missing a field trip to de Sade’s ancestral home, due to food poisoning from an American restaurant
*Realizing my first host mother had gone through my things
*Realizing my second host mother was attempting to financially scam me
*Having to kill about 100 spiders in my new studio apartment (became funny)
*Feeling excluded and looked down on within the Marchutz School
*Having an allergy that gave me a tickly-throat cough until I was almost sick
*Getting thrown out of a doctor’s office for insisting I needed more allergy medicine (became funny)
*Pulling a year’s worth of luggage up 200 steps to the hostel in Montmartre–sleep-deprived, starving, and with cramps
*Taking a shower in flickering strobe lights and pitch darkness, because my landlord paid the wrong power bill
*Getting my face grabbed and being told to shut the fuck up and paint

Ten Best Moments

*My first sight of Europe after years of waiting and a long flight: Cornwall at dawn from the air
*My friend and I sitting by the Seine at sunset, looking over at Notre Dame, drinking wine and talking about art
*Wandering through Paris at night, and almost being run down by a giant herd of about 10,000 rollerbladers
*Dancing around the living room of my French studio apartment, trashy ’80′s metal on my iPod
*Wandering through the damp forest trails north of Giverny, enjoying feeling healthy for a change
*Berlin. Just…all of it.
*Leaving a Friday art criticism seminar at Marchutz, and feeling like I could see everything deeper and better
*Sitting in the Cave (the basement of our school), blogging, drinking 89-cent champagne, and watching the “Family Guy” movie with my friends
*All the wandering, drinking, eating, discussions, and laughter with Tara
*Sitting in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower with Rance, eating and chatting, watching the sun set–when suddenly the Tower lit up and sparkled brilliantly

I Can’t Believe I Did This

*Saw a letter from Napoleon to Josephine, and the Berlin Wall
*Let a Frenchwoman know I thought her cooking was inedible (it was)
*Took a taxi to class when I was late for my own presentation
*Went topless with friends on a beach in Antibes (too bad about the perverts)
*Spent a lot of my time in Monte Carlo wandering around the Casino parking lot and garage, checking out the cars
*Cleaned a stranger’s vomit out of a friend’s sweater, in the ladies’ room of a Mafia-run 24-hour diner
*Encouraged a drunk friend to pee into an o.j. bottle during a field-trip bus ride (she almost did it)
*Slept in Paris’s Orly airport lounge, with cool Eleonore from Kazakhstan
*Made out with a random Swiss guy in the hallway of a Berlin hostel, until he picked me up and fell over and I hit my head
*Used a squat toilet while completely, hysterically wasted