As we finished our last week in Vauvenargues and Aix we are starting to realize that the term is coming to an end. A scary thought appeared in our minds and reality slapped us in the face: Even though we as a group are still going to talk, we are not going to see each other everyday.

After all most of us are graduating. It will be hard to imagine a time when we all didn’t live together, or even know each other, and we can only wish we had been friends sooner. I feel like after all of what our group has been through, we are even more connected and have learned to love each other through our ups and downs.

Everybody in this group is amazing, and I am glad I got the opportunity to spend time with them. It doesn’t matter if it was for a couple of weeks or during the whole two months, every minute was valuable and it is going to be hard to say goodbye. But as Dave says (from some poet): “It’s better to have loved and lost than never having known love at all” or something along those lines.

If somebody ever asks me what Euro was all about, I think I would talk about the last two weeks here - they summarized it pretty well. How do we start? All along the term Dave and Jen have been mentioning their friends here and there, especially talking about Tina, Monique, and Danielle.

Monique's house and garden

Monique showing us her rambling 30 plus year house project.

So, obviously, we were very excited when, he told us that we were going to meet them that week. Little did we know that Tina was on a business trip in Spain, Monique was feeling ill and that Danielle was so sick we couldn’t even go into her house. Even though it wasn’t possible to spend time with Dave and Jen's friends we still had a great time painting and having our last picnics.

No Tina, but we still found comfort at her vineyard.

Two Cézanne's, through a Guggenheim collection, finally coming back home for a visit after their creations in the 1890's.

The week was filled with promenades, a visit to Aix’s museum and topped with a day on the beach.

An ideal finals week. But finally... we finished our long term books!! After many hours of researching, paintingm, drawing, and writing we finally made our book covers and called it good.

Hand stitched, glued and bound, here we bring all of our learning together. 

And then it was time for Portugal!  Yay. I loved it so much. The sunny and warm weather, the food, the people and the music on the streets. I felt in my zone.

Walking around the streets we saw Jen mesmerized by the beautiful tile work made hundreds of years ago, and heard Dave going ham on how cool the sidewalks were.

We also saw many museums and enjoyed a playful but relaxing day on the beach.

H. Bosch, The Temptation of St. Anthony. 

Nonetheless my favorite part was dancing on the streets with our new friends from Argentina.

It was amazing, but at the same time strange; for we were all happy and relaxed, but it was the first trip we made with so little of our group and we could feel it. We missed them a lot, but we learned how not to be sad about it. And to be honest, I think we learnt that from Dave and the way in which he acted after we couldn’t see his friends. He sees them sometimes only two times a year, but nonetheless they still care for each other and they love each other.

So now, sitting on a couch and listening to French music that Chloe picked, in Vauvenargues in a house between Picasso’s chateau and Lafayette’s summer house, I don’t feel sad anymore about the ending of this term. Looking for graduation dresses and listening to Zina preparing her senior speech does not come with a melancholic feeling, but a grateful one instead.

Because I’ve learnt that even if you don’t speak with a friend everyday or see them as often as you wish, you’ll still love and care for each other. The ending of Euro doesn’t mean the the end of an era, but instead all of what we’ve learnt will always be with us, and the friends we made will always hold a special place in our hearts.

In any case, we are not leaving just yet, so in the meantime we will enjoy our evening in Vauvenargues with the delicious dinner Jennifer and Ingrid made for us.  

Au revoir - Andrea '19