Leaving home and going to a foreign country to set up camp for a couple months is a bit intimidating at first. I ended up sharing a studio apartment with someone I'd only met upon walking through the front door. I looked at the bleak, white halls, thinking how colorless and different it was from my home in the States. What I quickly learned, even after a month in Aix, however, that this very apartment was a blessing. This apartment is where I'll be living in FRANCE! What did I care that it was small I was going to be sharing a bedroom like it was freshman year all over again. The real exciting stuff happened outside of that building, out on the Cours Mirabeau, on place de l'Université where I would learn about Cézanne in the very town that he grew up in. Slowly but surely, my apartment in Aix has become a place to relax, somewhere to regroup after a weekend of travel, and oddly enough even a home away from home.
Aileen Curley is the Spring 2016 CEA MOJO Photographer in Aix en Provence, France. She is currently a sophomore at University of Pittsburgh.