Jenni Ajderian

Images from the Cité du Livre website Festival de Bande Dessinée, Cité du Livre, Aix-en-Provence For some reason I've never been here before. For some reason it's taken this bibliophile seven months to figure out that there is a place in Aix-en-Provence devoted to literature, a place whose name in Google Translate produces variations on the theme of Book City, Book Estate and Book Ghetto. The books, they are huge. We have discussed before how I feel about books. Books which I recently blabbered about in a vlog are here reproduced in thirty-foot-high concrete form and act as a simple external wall to the Book Ghetto. They are huge. I felt a few tears when I first saw them. Hidden unjustly away behind the gare routière , the Cité du Livre played host this month to a graphic novel festival whose speakers ranged from authors to graffiti artists, and whose slightly shabby walls were transformed into booths full of first drafts, coloured panels and authors' not...

(originally published by EdinburghExchanges blog)           Freshly-rested and a little over-stuffed after Christmas, we're all back in Aix to knuckle down and try to pass an exam or two. I'm sure I'll get round to writing about them soon, when I'm not actually doing them, and when my hesitant daily excursions into the outside world stop providing me with such interesting things to see.      One of I'm sure many unannounced public art installations, Joséph Donten's simply-named 'Arbres Cours Mirabeau' certainly brightens up the street now the twinkly lights of Noël are gone. It's as if the trees have become incredibly tall, incredibly chic French fashionistas declaring that Polkadot is, very much, in. Though with my anglo-eyes I can't help being reminded of Pudsey Bear.      With January comes sales, and if you add to that a love of Franglais and sensationalism in shop-fronts, you get something like this. A phenomeno...

(originally published by EdinburghExchanges  blog)      Monaco is a city built on pure money that became a principality thanks to tourism, and which over the years has bred the richest, most densely-packed population in the world. It is kind of ironic, I think, that we got to go there for free.      Our oft-neglectful Student Housing association threw the free bus tour of the teeny weeny country at the end of term, deciding that a bunch of students would love to see the Old Town of the world's smallest country, as well as a stuffy perfumery on the way home. From start to finish we were complaining that they were treating us like children. We trailed a couple of tourguides up to the changing of the guards, round a cathedral and up to Prince Albert's Nautical Museum, all of us grumbling all the way round until we saw the fish.           We liked the fish.      It was at about this point that we took off ou...

     Buddy-Comedy-Road-Movie-with-added-cathartic-death is perhaps an underpopulated genre of film. Between drunken stumblings and snap decisions to drive to Corsica, your three lead males from different corners of life have to calm down every now and then just enough to remember your lead female, tragically deceased. Don't worry, this isn't a spoiler- you'll find out as much from AlloCine 's page on the film. Point is, you might not get much more from the film itself.      Bitter and sweet are put very, very close together in this coming-of-age-slash-putting-feet-on-the-ground tale  of three friends united by their love, platonic or not, of Charlie (Mélanie Thierry), the vibrant sister-mother-lover of every Frenchman's dreams, with whose funeral the film opens. So our three musketeers Elie, Boris and Maxime (Nicolas Duvauchelle, François-Xavier Demaison, Pierre Niney) then decide to leap into a car and take the holiday they'd always planned with th...

Sur le pont d'Avignon, on y chante on y danse...      But only if you pay to. The bridge stretches only about a fifth of the length it used to, not even reaching the island-peninsula in the middle of the river Rhône which used to house gambling dens and all kinds of sinful endeavours. According to my ever-trusty guidebook, the original song was " Sous le pont d'Avignon "- not on, but under , describing the impatient dance of those awaiting tourists with light heads and heavy pockets.      Not quite so heavy-pocketed, we got into Avignon on one of the windiest days I've experienced in France. Our guide explained that here we're out of the shelter offered to Aix by the nearby mountains, so there will of course be more wind than we're used to (actually, because of his accent, I at first thought he said that Aix was protected from wine ( le vin ) as opposed to wind ( le vent )).      The bridge is an impressive affair, even in its slightl...

     In the 50s, having a job as a secretary may have been considered modern, or even empowering, but mostly, as Rose Pamphyle (Déborah Francois) says in her job interview, it's the chance to work for an important man. Seen in this light, the rise and fall of a Speed-Typing champion is just as much to do with a woman's personal victory as it is to do with her boss' encouragement and coaching, as well as the freedom he allows her to have.      In the film, and in life, the Speed-Typing Championship probably stemmed from a cigar-fuelled "I bet my secretary types faster than yours" argument, and the exclusively female competitors inhabit a space somewhere between real sportsman(woman?)ship and simply being allowed to play. The rocky ground of post-war sexual power-play is tested with bright colours and the happy clack-clack of a typewriter, and leads us somewhere a little more patronising than first-time director Regis Roinsard may have been hoping for. ...

     There's an advent tradition here in Provence that was entirely unknown to me until a few days ago when I picked up a leaflet in town about Saint Barbe and Le Blé de l'Espérance . Today, the 4th of December, is Saint Barbe's day, and many Provencial people will have bought wheat seeds from street vendors to plant in her honour.      Sainte Barbe was around in Lebanon in the 3rd century, and according to various highly respected sources accessible via Google, was either locked in a tower to keep her away from troublesome leanings towards Christianity, or locked herself in there to get out of marrying some Prince. Either way, she managed to sneak a priest in, who gave her a good baptising, saved her soul, and really annoyed her dad.      You know how it goes with these saints: once they've sworn their faith aloud, they get a get-out-of-death-free pass, though sometimes this isn't such a blessing. Every time they re-swear their faith, God...

     It's quite appropriate that the above quote comes from none other than Desiderius Erasmus, the eponymous hero of the European exchange scheme I'm currently on.      The Book Market is in Aix only one day a month, and this was the first time I managed to make it to Place de l'Hotel de Ville at the right time. The square is full of outdoor seating for cafés still in use even in December, and on Tuesdays hosts a flower market. I think I'd prefer a romantic present from this selection though.      These French translations of Shakespearian plays are a real favourite- the tomes themselves are huge and way out of my budget, even with money from Desiderius' representatives, but they look beautiful. The translated titles alone are worth a look and a giggle. The two comedies pictured here are 'Love's Labours Lost' and 'Much Ado About Nothing'      The market itself is as typically French as you might expect- if ...

     A marriage rife with Bovarysme and ennui, this 1920s power-struggle follows the marriage of young Thérèse (Audrey Tatou), who sees only one route to life until her best friend shows her otherwise.      What is most interesting is that this girl, who crashes onto screen on a bike, kills rabbits and pidgeons for the family, takes a lover and is then imprisonned by her powerful parents, is not the protagonist. These are the actions of Anne (Anaïs Demoustier), the childhood friend of Thérèse, whose story, far more dramatic and classically cinematic, is told through letters and painful pleas for help. The two women are both destined for powerful marriages arranged to monopolise the ownership of riverside pine forests, and Thérèse, the elder, goes through hers first. As she does, Anne's story of forbidden love begins, and Thérèse sees that her path was not the only one available.      In some respects, this is a story we've heard before. U...

     There's a kind of irony in seeing a French-made film shot in New York. The city, like Paris, brings with it certain stereotypes and traditions of film-making, which will always creep into any director's vision, regardless of nationality. There will be a dramatic city-skyline shot, an inspiring panorama of downtown, a nice view of the Brooklyn Bridge. People like New York. People fantasise about New York. Even the French. New York is a kind of brand that can be put on a film to draw in an audience, but once we're there, we need a storyline to keep us there. This is when directors Géaldine Nakache and Hervé Mimran stopped trying.      Three French guys go to surprise-visit their two French girl mates in the Big Apple. And. That's about it. They make friends, they explore, they buy those annoying I Heart NY tshirts and they shout "Obama!" a lot. Between flash-in-the-pan arguments and on-the-spot personality changes we see the panoramas and the skyline sh...

     Aix is a tricky city to drive in. The trademark French winding cobbled streets and semi-pedestrianised alleyways which turn into markets three days a week can't be an easy thing to steer a ton of metal down, even on a lazy wednesday. So it's not surprising that there are a lot of bikers here- and before they all go into hibernation for winter (which, oddly, has not happened yet. It's mid-November) I thought I'd give them a little showcase       As well as the beautiful tourers and big macho bikes are the little girly scooters that whizz around Europe whatever country you happen to pick. If anything these seem more appropriate here for inner-city driving, as usually bikers (scooterers?) are going at near-walking pace to weave in and out of pedestrians and nip in front of the white vans and lorries which still seem to manage to negotiate Aix's streets.      But what's really got me interested are these little things- at about ...

     Goscinny & Underzo’s bandes dessinés are beloved by the French, and quite a few English people too. Trying to figure out how our copies of Asterix and Cleopatra and Astérix et Cléopatre corresponded with one another was the first time I really wanted to learn French. For those who have never read them before, it’s all about a tribe of Gauls who are the last stand against the Roman Empire, and spend their days hunting wild boars and occasionally chugging down some of Getafix’s magic potion so they can beat up their surrounding legionnaires with super-human strength and some very satisfying comic onomatopoeia. Oh, and they go on adventures around the world with their little white dog, meeting various different cultures, making jokes and sorting out people’s problems, so it’s kind of like Tintin, only, you know, good.      The studio may have been jumping on the Anglomania bandwagon following this summer’s Jubilee and the Olympics, but for a group...

     I’ve written before about how eager students are for anything that is free. Food, clothes and branded pens can be the carrot on the string of any advertiser or local business looking for a new batch of regular customers, and, it would seem, l’Opéra de Marseille is just one such business.      It was clear from the start that last Friday night’s Concert Offert Aux Etudiants was no normal night at the opera. Hipster glasses and ripped jeans took up seats usually reserved for suits and ballgowns as l’orchestre philharmonique de Marseille drew out the first few notes, but even before that the musicians seemed far more relaxed than I’d ever expected. A few were already in their seats before I was, tuning and reading over parts or just chatting away. During the performance a whole string of them made corrections in their music while not playing, then passed the pen on to the next person once they were done. At the back, a surly tuba player sat with arms ...

     I sat on the edge of the wall and held my arms out so I could no longer see it under me. Though I'm well aware that Mont Ste Victoire has been solidly standing for a thousand times longer than I will ever live, and the wall was probably put there a hundred years before I was born, I could feel them both move under me.      In the 1870s a troupe of church-goers did the same two-and-a-half hour hike I had just done, but with ten feet of metal on their backs. The cross now erected on the peak of Mont St Victoire is visible from miles away, has now rusted and charred in a hundred and fifty years of weathering, and makes a simple, omnipresent statement: we were here.      It's easy to see why people build churches on high points. The walk up took us sixteen Erasmus students from sea-level to over a kilometre in the air, and each rest-stop was punctuated with sounds of awe and breathless, admiration-filled statements. In our last half hour...

(originally published by Edinburgh Exchanges blog)      Well, they DID warn you, before you came to France, that the bureaucracy would be a nightmare. You thought they were just comptes de fée, but it turns out they're all true. Slaying all the demons and finding all the magic keys you need to get what you want to get done done can leave you with both sore muscles and damaged pride. I write with tales of experience from both myself and fellow Erasmus students.      Our first tale is of the Erasmus student who wanted to exercise. Moving to France means moving into closer proximity to more boulangeries than you can shake an enchanted baguette at, and to counteract the  mille feuilles  and  pain au chocolat aux amandes , a gym membership might be necessary. But, hark! what is that on the horizon? Our brave Erasmus hero steels hisself- it's the demon of  bureaucratie .      "Kraaak!" (this is the noise the bureaucracy mo...

     Well, perhaps not strictly free, I'm yet to ask the owners' permission...      I've mentioned before the abundance of weird and wonderful fruit growing around Aix- while at home we're surrounded by blackberries and maybe the occasional sloe, the South of France's climate and soil mean the local flora are just about as strange and foreign as the University system.           First up is the humble fig. These are a long way off being ripe, but I always check them anyway on my way into Uni. The tree is in someone's garden but hangs over onto the road quite a bit, and, as my good friend Steph pointed out, for some reason smells like coconut. Both this and all the chestnut trees around make me a little nostalgic of my days as a Wwoofeuse near Alès.      I think these are walnuts, although I don't have my Kernel Identification badge so my quick Google search will have to suffice for now. The...

     I'll admit it, I spent most of my day in Marseille on the beach, so I don't have a proper feel for the city yet. Ask a local and they'll tell you France's third city is dirty, dangerous and full of rude people, though I'm sure the Marseillais would say much the same about Aix. The rivalry between the two sister cities puts me in mind of that between Bristol and Bath, or Edinburgh and Glasgow- the smaller city pulling tourists in with its looks, the bigger with its personality.      Still, Marseille does make the effort. Making one's way out of the la Gare St Charles, the first view of the city is nothing but stunning, and the city's success as a port has made for some breathtaking architecture through years of development and eventual rebuilding after the second world war.      And so to the beach, where we spent several hours lying on tiny pebbles and getting a little bit sunburnt. Two metro trains and a bus took us out to the co...

     How very new and exciting, I'm trying to do a vlog alongside this more textual effort!      I'll keep linking back and forth between here and there, but just so you know there is now a YouTube playlist with my name on it which I promise to fill with weekly updates and bits of language. For anyone who has time to watch (hi, mum & dad), but particularly people who may be considering the rich world of Erasmus themselves.

     So here we are in Aix-en-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, one of the most popular tourist destinations in France. People come here for the ample sunlight, proximity to the beach and, in part, for the food, so I thought it right to look at some of the local delicacies.        First stop is the Sunday market next to the Palais de Justice en centre-ville, where I think much of my student loan might end up going this year. Sundried tomatoes are a nice pretentious snack anywhere in the world, but the French (and the Italians, I think) don't seem to drown them in oil like we do back home. These dried tomatoes are fine for putting in salads or eating with some equally pretentious hummus, as well as just munching while walking around the rest of the market. The taste is like sundried tomatoes you may have had before, but even more tangy and naked of all that oil.    I didn't go for these in the end, but it's an odd little way to sell garl...