Hello from Aix en Provence! I have been having a fantastic semester, loving my classes, and meeting awesome people from around the US in the IAU abroad program. This weekend, I had the fantastic opportunity to go to the Calanques in Marseille and hike, swim, and meet new students with IAU. A Calanque is a specific type of geological formation made of limestone, that acts as a step walled inlet in the Mediterranean sea.
We started the trip quite early: at 8:30 we got on the first bus, and after a metro ride, we got off the last bus around 11am. The entrance to the national park is on a college campus called Luminy, which I found super interesting! Can you imagine being on a campus within walking distance of such an incredible park, with spanning cliffs and crystal clear water? While I was walking, I wondered how many students went to the Calanques to clear their mind when faced with a tough assignment. The sun was nice and warm, but the wind was pretty harsh. This combination made the hiking experience perfect. Not too hot, and not too cold. Luckily, we walked quite fast and never went into the shade so as to stay warm. The ground was so slippery, and my new friend showed me how to walk so I wouldn't fall. She’s from Colorado, and she loves rock climbing, so I trusted everything she told me. I really enjoyed listening to her talk about her excursions with her hiking club back home. We went down the rocks to swim and have a picnic, and the water was so dazzlingly blue. The wind was still strong, but we had resolved to swim no matter how cold it was, so my friends and I prepared to go in the water.
And how cold it was! It was the type of cold that inflicts genuine pain, so I had to do take some deep breaths and lock in my mental toughness before fully going under the water. After a few minutes, I swam a little ways out with my friends and was able to see the rocks and the sea from a new perspective. And I don’t mean that metaphorically – I literally mean that being in the water allowed me to see the world differently: the rocks were further away, the sea was all around me, and I felt like a part of something bigger, like a grain of sand on the great beach of Provence. After getting out, we were all proud of ourselves for having persevered against the cold, and, exhausted, we returned to Aix around 4pm. It was such a beautiful day. I’m glad I went, and I ended my day feeling like I knew myself a little better than I had before we left that morning.
A key lesson that I learned from my time at the Calanques is that sometimes when you’re striving for growth, you have to accept the discomfort that comes along with it. I was resistant to swimming in such cold water, but once I embraced the cold and carried on, I felt so much stronger than I did before.
Ammara Elsevier
Fall 2024
IAU - Aix-en-Provence, France
Columbian College of Arts & Sciences
Psychological & Brain Sciences and French Language, Literature & Culture Double Major