My last week in Aix

You may wonder what I've been doing with my last full week in Aix. Well, Monday I had class. Yesterday I closed my bank account and told the renter's insurance company when I'm leaving France. I also swam in a pool—two of the students here students live with a French woman who has a pool in her yard. Today I met with my Histoire de religion professor and got my grade for the class: 14, or the equivalent of an "A" at Michigan.

Because French painter Paul Cezanne spent almost all his life in Aix, the locals love everything related to him. Today I finally gave in to the pressure and learned all about Paul Cezanne. With some other students, I followed the so-called "footsteps of Cezanne", a self-guided walking tour. Little bronze plaques in the sidewalks guide you all over town, and a free map explains the various landmarks.

Frankly, many of the "landmarks" are uninteresting. For example, number 17 is the church where Cezanne's mother's funeral was held. Number 18, however, is an art museum from the late 19th century. Cezanne visited and said "I found it all terrible." All in all, the map counts 36 points, but we probably only saw 20 or so. One of the ones we missed is Cezanne's tomb, which supposedly has a fantastic view of his beloved Mont Sainte Victoire. But the cemetery is on the far side of Aix and it was incredibly warm today, so we skipped it.

Finally we headed to the north of Aix—in fact, towards the Oppidum d'Entremont—to Cezanne's workshop. In 1901, Cezanne bought 7000 square meters (some 75,000 square feet) of land on the Lauves hill. Among the olive trees, canal, and fig trees, he built a house that would serve as his workshop until Cezanne's death in 1906. Inside isn't huge and you can't take pictures, but it's the workshop where Cezanne painted Mont Sainte Victoire and his Les Baigneuses paintings. They still have the skulls, bowls, and statues he painted in his still lifes, as well as Cezanne's clothes and other belongings.

All in all, it was a really interesting day, although we ended up doing a serious amount of walking on an 86ºF day. Tomorrow I have my very last class here in France, then next Tuesday morning I leave for the U.S.!