Where the business happens

The joy of life here is in the details. I check in with the view above frequently and it often lures me outside.

​There are the ongoing things; the cavity in the sidewalk where a puddle forms,  allowing me to see how much it's raining. There are the restauranteurs who receive deliveries and put out furniture, the high strung woman at the fifties diner vibe called Betty's Resto, who takes her buggy to the market daily, her impatient actions seeming more American than French.  Often I see a woman with bleached blonde very short hair who works hard on her daily outfits, yet always seems sad in a solitary way. And the lady with the German Shepherd who washes away her dog's pee, which always lands right in the gutter. But I haven't seen the tall and slender man who sometimes wears a black patent leather unitard for a long time.  By far my favorite was a woman and man of mid thirties who met up in front of the cafe below my window. Eschewing the traditional kiss on each cheek, the man, with a big smile on his face, held his right hand in the air and bowed an iota. Her hand met his, he pirouetted her around, she following gracefully, then curtsied. They then sat down and began talking, which happens quite a bit here, the French really are good at it. 

Finally, the rain has gone.the gelato shop has opened, the fish market is back every day and the Chinese tourists are evident on the Cours Mirabeau. The first blush of spring when the grass is so absurdly bright green has come and gone, now it's at the awkward tufty phase, with all the delicious wild flowers popping out their heads. I haven't seen a poppy yet, but there have been irises, orchids, daisies and daisies and daisies, and my favorite this week, wild grape hyacinths. When I hiked up Mt. Ste. Victoire, there were yellow daffodils with heads smaller than a dime. The rosemary, which is everywhere, is ablaze in light purple/periwinkle and little thyme tufts have started blooming dark purple flowers with dark red leaves. There's never any need to buy thyme, rosemary or bay leaves here.

The perfect flower for making a flower crown. Or a daisy chain!

But the big story right now in Aix has received national attention, and more importantly, provided some good viewing out my window. After going down some serious research rabbit holes, I can tell you that there is a Corsican mafia, and that they control many of the businesses in Corsica, from a protection perspective, and that they have expanded to the south of France. At apéro last Friday, I heard conflicting stories about how involved they were, some saying they ran many of the restaurants in Aix to launder drug money, and that you could tell which because there was never anyone in them or they were renovated every year. Furthermore, I was told that it was the Corsican mafia who were responsible for the fire at Les Deux Garçons in 2019, resulting after the owners refused to pay protection money. But then there were others saying other things, so who knows. Les Deux Garçons is wicked famous, Zola and Cezanne, who both hailed from here, used to hang there, as did MFK Fisher and many others. Because it's a historic building, once it burned down, it was required that one of the few historic artisans in the country renovate it, and so it continues, slowly, and will one day re-open and hopefully be just as charming with as many bad-natured waiters, for which they were apparently known.

Anyway, back to the drama here. So, there is the Corsican mafia, and in Marseille there is the North African mafia who control the drugs, Marseille being a main point of entry for Europe. They are responsible for most of the violence you hear about (in a part of Marseille that neither your nor I would ever go to, but Nat did because she took an Uber from the airport and put my street address in for the destination, neglecting to put Aix, and so was taken to that address in Marseille, which wasn't the most savory, especially late at night. She lived to tell the story and her mother aged many years). Well apparently the head honcho of the Corsican mafia and the head honcho of the North African mafia were in the same high security prison and got to networking and bonded, creating a perfect union. So, we've got that going for us,

One of the trials is about two North African brothers whom, after they killed someone, cut the poor sod up into small pieces and put him in the back of a car. As one of the brothers had already escaped from prison once, thanks to a bribed prison guard who also let him know where a certain inmate was located, and who is, ahem, no longer with us, security was tantamount. And the French are a belt and suspenders people.

So, every morning around 7am, I begin to hear walkie talkies and French men sounding authoritative, and when I look, see a few outside the window, holding pedestrians, bikes, scooters and trucks up. We'll then hear a siren in the distance and before you know it, anywhere between 2 and 6 motorcycles with blue lights flashing will come down tiny little Rue Pierre et Marie Curie and then something will follow them. Sometimes it's 6 black vans, sometimes it's a Mercedes sedan, often it's a slew of Gendarmerie cars, and this morning, it was this really scary looking matte black tank-like thing that I'm guessing held the prisoners. This repeats three or four times before 8am every morning, resulting in many many men who appear to be alarmingly casually holding their Remington 870s while talking sports scores to their colleagues (yes, I heard them). There are choppers circling above for a lot of the day and news cameras asking us for opinions, and apparently even the magistrates are searched and screened when they enter the building.  You can read more about it here and hopefully won't go on as deep as dive as I did. ​

Police Nationale at Place du Verdun. Not exactly vigilant, but boy do they look cute in their uniforms.

There have also been municipal elections over the past week. There were I believe 7 candidates, and each of them had a poster put up on the side of town hall, with their party. After the first round, some were eliminated, their poster was removed. The incumbent, Sophie Jossains, a right of center candidate,  received 47% of the vote in the second round, and won. She is the daughter of the former mayor, who was apparently busted for accepting bribes. When sent to prison, the felonious mayor put her daughter Sophie in her stead, and there she has remained. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but I'll say that from my perspective as a visitor/resident, it seems the daughter  does a very good job. There are many many things that go on here, with a large population living and an even larger one visiting. Everything works smoothly, trash is picked up twice a day, everything's clean and orderly pretty much always. There are always areas being improved and there seems to be a fair amount of support for people with those who one might think would be marginalized.

Mt. Ste. Victoire

So, instead of thinking about the world's many different flavors of crazy, we take off every Tuesday with a large pack of dogs and a picnic. Last week, for the first time I had the opportunity to climb up Mt. Ste. Victoire, which always seems to be lurking around, being a bit of a bully with its bigness and greyness. Apparently Cezanne painted it more than 90 times. I can see why, it's hard to miss. It takes about two hours to climb, and there were about 15 of us, stopping half way up because it was hot . We didn't want to carry all our layers, so took them off and hid them behind a bush. Almost at the top is a little chapel, which, when you've just experienced the steepness and not so easy rocks that need to be climbed over to get there, is a miracle. I couldn't stop wondering how everything had been brought up there. Later, someone told me the rock was blown out to make bricks. 

Lunch outside the chapel

Others climbed up to the cross, which was another 20 minutes, but by then, I had tripped up the hill and banged both my knees, concerned that I wouldn't be able to get down without someone carrying me or a chopper coming.  Fortunately it wasn't so bad,  made my way down slowly and even did some sliding on my butt. Forgot about my layers, but one of the kind people brought them down for me. All's well that ends well, but I keep seeing that cross at the top and it's challenging me, I need to get there. 

Today we climbed up into the hills above Marseille where Marcel Pagnol, the creator of Jeanne de Florette and Manon of the Spring was from. We had a view of the whole city and the islands out in the harbor. There  were many of us and we straggled along, chatting, having lunch, taking photographs and agreeing that it was the best way to spend a Tuesday.

No, this wasn't in Basel, rather in front of a tall not empty ashtray and two anemic bushes that were camouflaging a ratty two star hotel, I suppose Aix' version of nature, though we did go on a multi-hour hike but I forgot to take a photo then. Isn't she just the best? That she pulled up a stool to wash dishes in the kitchen, asking Why wouldn't I? made me love her even more

Ank is not one to miss a call at an agreed upon time, but minutes after having done so, she left a voicemail apologizing, explaining that she was about to go into surgery to fix her broken right arm. Apparently her broken pelvis would have to heal on its own, but she'd get a cast for the breaks on her left arm and hand. The horse did not need surgery.

Fast forward a few weeks and there I was on the TGV, this time with a window seat! going too fast to take photographs, through Avignon, Lyon, Dijon almost all the way to Strasbourg. The hilly fields were a vibrant green, blooms of fruit trees looking like pastel fireworks, scenic livestock peppering the hills with a medieval church sprinkled in every now and then. After arriving in the beautiful Basel SBB train station, I picked up the 15 tram to Brudholz and walked a few minutes with my much too heavy and noisy wheelie.  

The old part of Basel is dear and earnest. ​It is clean, picturesque, has many independent stores and lots of outdoorsy people with messy hair and bike clips, which made me feel right at home. Not a lot of pretense. At the train station on my way back, I saw young couples heading off for the weekend, dressed in rain gear and plastic covered big packs and babies. Good for them! And much better than the man I saw here in France who was mountain biking down a steep and rocky hill with a really small baby strapped in. 

The sublime hills of Basel, and my sublime friend, walking 10,000 steps!!

I'm not sure how many bones Ank broke, but it was not a few.  Over our five days together, I watched her good humored determination to get the better of her situation, working hard to do painful exercises, laughing at her inability to do certain things, gracefully overcoming what can not be much fun. While she was reliant on a wheelchair, crutch, cast and sling when I arrived, by the time I left, she needed none of them and had walked 10,000 steps, as well as taken the 15 from Brudholz downtown to a posh bar for Friday night cocktails. 

We were exhausted every night from being busy all day doing I don't know what. Don't ask me to explain, maybe it can be addressed with a quantum physics framework. OK, Here are some random things we did. Drove to France to buy Swiss Vacherin (best cheese I've had in a long time, try some soon) and a puzzle. Had coffee and a marron cake at an adorable café. Went to the equivalent of Home Depot to buy the felt things you put under chairs. Went to the hospital where Ank had been treated, and downtown for various errands and enjoyments. We also did puzzles, starting with a gateway 500 piecer and graduating quickly, like the addicts we were, to a 1500 piecer. We worked well as a team, having roles that matched our personalities; me searching for shells on a Sanibel beach, and Ank project managing, finalizing and making it look good. We'd get these freaky glimpses into our future, hopefully not for many years. But I'll tell you, I know one person I'll be happy to be feeble with, someone who will teach me to grow old gracefully. 

Giacometti, lots of evidence of him. Maeght, Ste. Paul

​I may be functionally incapable when in a new place, of following through on an original intention, distracted and pulled away as I do tend to get, but it often results in a nice surprise. But not always. Meaning to get on the bus to head back to the airport where I would switch to a train that would take me to the station at Nice Ville, I was lured by a  hill I knew to be Ste. Paul-de-Vence not so far away, and being a bit peckish, was easily diverted. But after choosing a panini to order off the menu at an outdoor cafe and being barked at that paninis couldn't be ordered at the table and couldn't be eaten there (and this is March, imagine how acerbic he'll be in August!), I got a bad taste in my mouth which only got worse as I realized SP-d-V was yet another hilltop village with no soul, filled with restaurants and stores selling home goods. It made me think that maybe I shouldn't have been so appalled when in Tuscany, my sulky at the time 13- year old daughter whined "How many hills with churches are we going to go to?". Or as a lifetime Stockbridge resident said about his town, "I can't even buy a. hammer here." Aix is as far as I'm willing to go down that road.
​

This is the vibe in Nice, classic old places next to newer apartment buildings. It somehow works.

The brocante was interesting, as much for the populace as anything for sale, though there were many beautiful travel posters from the sixties I could have easily bought. There were a bunch of old and even older men who one could tell spent significant time there, engaging vendors who knew that nothing would come out of the transaction and had work to do. Others browsing, funny that it was almost all men, reminded me of a certain place in the US where spares, or second sons of families with many things to inherit, go to live their lives of financial ease and ennui, peppered with a mental or emotional challenge. I'm thinking specifically about a guy I saw at the brocante who had orange pants on, a wool olive green vest and white pressed shirt that my first husband, who certainly fits into that category, would have worn, hand made leather shoes, hair almost to his shoulders that had been colored from dark brown to an orangy color, flipped into a situation that had hairpins and reminded me of Guillermo Vilas in the 1970s. He had a small, brown poodle that he attended aggressively.

Daffodils, the international herald of spring, Cimiez Gardens, Nice

Did you know that in Nice you can have lunch at a restaurant actually on the beach? A nice man in a white and blue striped T shirt brought me sardines, a little roll of French butter, some toasted baguette for the sardines, but dear to my heart, a brown bag of fresh baguette as well. Ordering a side green salad, I for some reason pictured one similar to what Pizzeria Uno might serve, in a brown bowl made to look like wood, with watery iceberg, pink tomatoes and white zinfandel dressing. What came was a ceramic bowl of the most recently picked greens, pungent olive oil and little else. The whole situation was heavenly, so I sat there on that beach thinking how incredibly lucky I was to be having the day I was having. 

Boardwalk life

On my last day, I walked down to the other end of the boardwalk and found the port, where French is not spoken and apparently all ex-pats live,. I also discovered the tourist nexus, a few alleys with ice cream shops and Lordy knows what else. It was a cluster. But right down on the harbor, I fell upon a grizzled man cutting up sea urchins, or orsins as they're called here. I have a memory of my father buying them for us when I was a child in Cassis, and while I've enjoyed them as uni in Japanese food, I'd not tried them out of the shell since way back. This man gave me 12, pointed to a curb with a low table, and there I sat with a small plastic spoon, scooping out their deliciousness. Would order them again in a heartbeat.

Tastu lunch

True to form, I had moments when convinced that I should move to Nice, there was much more going on, it's more of a city but not quite as overwhelming as Marseille. And we all know I love a beach and a palm tree. But as always, despite it having been a great few days, as soon as I got off the bus and was back in Aix, my heart was happy.