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| PHOTO 1 | PHOTO 2 | PHOTO 3 | PHOTO 4 |
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| Students turn a café in Aix into a classroom, meeting place and temporary second home. | Under the plane trees of Place Richelme, conversation is practically part of the furniture. | A notebook, several cups of coffee and the beginning of a story worth sharing. | Sometimes two people, two pens and one café table are enough to begin a creative community. |
Share why you came to Aix, submit a guest post, or introduce your own blog to our welcoming French-learning community.
This Page Began With One Question: Why Are We All Here?
When I first created this page, I imagined it as a sort of cheerful roll call.
Who had come to Aix-en-Provence? Who was learning French? Who had fallen in love with France, followed a spouse, started a university course, retired early, accepted a temporary assignment or simply made one unusually persuasive decision after a glass of rosé?
I thought people might leave two or three sentences in the comments.
I did not yet understand that the interesting part would not be the answers themselves. It would be how different all those answers could be—and how quickly they could connect people who might otherwise have passed one another on the street.
Since moving to Aix, I have met people who came for a semester and people who came for the rest of their lives. I have met confident French speakers, determined beginners and several of us who can discuss the philosophical importance of la boulangerie but temporarily forget the verb avoir when the cashier asks a question.
We are students, retirees, writers, partners, travellers, accidental expats, deliberate immigrants and people who are still not quite sure which category applies.
What we share is not a single reason for being here.
What we share is the experience of becoming someone slightly different because we are here.
The Moment It Clicked for Me
I expected learning French to be mostly about vocabulary, grammar and surviving interactions involving unfamiliar cheese.
Those things matter.
But French began to feel real when it stopped being something I studied and became something I used to enter other people’s lives—even briefly.
A conversation outside a classroom. A neighbour explaining something twice without making me feel foolish. Someone sharing the name of a favourite village, restaurant, bus route or doctor. A new friend laughing with me instead of at me when I assembled a sentence with all the correct words in an entirely innovative order.
Aix has its fountains, markets and honey-coloured stone. It also has the sound of cups touching saucers on a café terrace, chairs scraping across pavement and conversations passing between French, English and cheerful Franglais.
That was the small revelation.
I had come thinking that language would help me understand France.
Instead, people began helping me understand the language.
I can now say:
Je suis venu pour le français, mais je suis resté pour les gens.
I came for the French, but I stayed for the people.
That may not describe everyone’s journey—but there is probably a sentence that does.
This page is where those sentences can begin.
Three Ways to Add a Voice to Étranger Things
1. Tell a Short Version in the Comments
A comment does not need to be an autobiography, a polished essay or the opening chapter of a future memoir.
A few lines are enough.
Readers might share:
Where they came from
What brought them to Aix, Provence or France
Why they are learning French
One thing that surprised them
One small victory
One misunderstanding that is funny now, even if it was not remotely funny at the time
A local tip that might help someone newly arrived
Imperfect English is welcome. Imperfect French is especially welcome.
This is a community of learners. We collect linguistic mistakes the way Aix collects fountains: publicly, abundantly and with surprising affection.
2. Write a Guest Post
Étranger Things is also open to guest blog posts from people with a useful, personal or entertaining story to tell.
A guest post might be about:
Moving to France
Studying French in Aix-en-Provence
Attending a French language school
Finding housing
Making friends as an adult
Navigating French administration
Discovering a village, event or day trip
Adjusting to life in Provence
Returning home after a semester abroad
Seeing Aix through the eyes of a visitor
A cultural misunderstanding that taught something valuable
A practical resource that could help another newcomer
Students, temporary residents and first-time visitors are particularly welcome. People who have lived somewhere for only a few weeks often notice details that longer-term residents have stopped seeing.
A post does not need to sound like Étranger Things. In fact, it should sound like its author.
I am happy to help with structure, light editing, headings and presentation while preserving the writer’s own voice. Original photographs can also be included when permission is provided.
To propose a guest post, leave a comment containing the words “guest post” and a link to a public blog, website or social profile through which contact can be made. For privacy, please do not place a personal telephone number or private email address directly in a public comment.
3. Share a Link to a Personal Blog
Already writing somewhere else?
Please add a link in the comments.
It might be a traditional blog, a Substack newsletter, a travel diary, a student journal, a photography site or a collection of essays about life in France—or life anywhere else.
Include one or two sentences explaining what the blog is about so readers know where the link will take them.
Relevant personal blogs are welcome. Automated promotions, unrelated commercial links and mysterious promises to earn €8,000 a week while working from a hammock will be escorted politely but firmly to the digital city limits.
Blogs by People I Have Met
One of the pleasures of this journey has been meeting people who are documenting their own lives, travels and discoveries.
Their stories are not the same as mine, which is precisely why they are worth reading.
Anna Francesca Celestino — Anna Goes to Italy?
Anna writes about transition, reinvention and the real-life experience of moving toward a long-held dream—even when the route refuses to follow the original plan.
Anna Goes to Italy? includes reflections from Aix-en-Provence as well as the larger emotional and practical journey of creating a new life abroad.
The question mark in the title feels particularly appropriate. International life has a habit of turning carefully drawn maps into suggestions.
Natalie Serber — read.write.eat.
Natalie Serber’s read.write.eat. brings together books, writing, food, travel and the ordinary moments that become much less ordinary when someone perceptive writes them down.
Her observations about France are warm, candid and funny, with room for pleasure, frustration, creativity and the occasional intimidating encounter involving cheese.
It is the sort of writing that feels like sitting across from someone at a café while the conversation moves happily from literature to lunch and back again.
This List Is Meant to Grow
These links are the beginning, not a closed circle.
Whenever I meet another writer, photographer, student or traveller with something thoughtful to share, I hope to add another doorway here.
A community blog should not be a microphone held by one person forever.
It should eventually become a table.
Preferably a slightly crowded café table with too many notebooks, several unfinished coffees and at least one person saying, “Wait—write that down.”
An Easy Template for Sharing a Story
Anyone unsure where to begin can copy this into a comment and fill in as much—or as little—as feels comfortable:
Name or nickname:
Where I’m from:
What brought me to Aix or France:
Why I’m learning French:
Something that surprised me:
One small victory:
One funny or memorable mistake:
A tip I would give a newcomer:
My blog or public profile, if I have one:
An alias is perfectly acceptable. There is no need to share private contact information.
French Prompts for Every Level
Writing even a few sentences in French can turn a comment into a tiny language exercise.
A1
Bonjour, je m’appelle ___. Je viens de ___. J’apprends le français parce que ___.
Hello, my name is ___. I come from ___. I am learning French because ___.
A2
Je suis à Aix depuis ___. J’aime ___. Une chose difficile pour moi est ___.
I have been in Aix for ___. I like ___. One difficult thing for me is ___.
B1
J’ai choisi de venir en France parce que ___. Depuis mon arrivée, j’ai découvert que ___.
I chose to come to France because ___. Since arriving, I have discovered that ___.
B2
Avant de venir, je pensais que ___. Mon expérience m’a appris que ___.
Before coming, I thought ___. My experience taught me that ___.
Advanced
Describe a belief about France, French culture or language learning that changed after a real encounter.
The most interesting stories often live in the space between what was expected and what actually happened.
A Few Gentle House Rules
This should remain a kind and useful corner of the internet.
Please:
Respect different accents, backgrounds and language levels.
Criticise systems or experiences without attacking entire groups of people.
Share personal experience honestly, while recognising that another person’s experience may differ.
Link only to relevant, safe and genuinely personal work.
Avoid publishing private telephone numbers, home addresses or personal email addresses.
Ask permission before telling a story that identifies someone else.
Nobody needs flawless French, a dramatic relocation story or professional writing credentials to belong here.
Curiosity is enough.
Kindness helps.
A willingness to laugh at oneself is practically a residency requirement.
Your Turn
What brought you to France—or made France important to you from afar?
Are you learning French for love, family, work, study, citizenship, travel, personal reinvention or the sheer satisfaction of finally understanding what everyone at the next café table is discussing?
Leave a short introduction below, propose a guest post, or add a link to a blog that tells more of your story.
And for those who already write about Aix, Provence, France, language learning or life between cultures: please introduce your work in the comments.
Someone reading may recognise part of their own journey in yours.
That is how a collection of strangers begins to feel like a community.
Alors, on papote ?
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