Hi everyone, I’m Kate, and I’m this year’s Current Affairs Editor! Taking a step away from obsessing over politics and the news, I’m going to write about one of my favourite cultural activities during my year abroad that was so central to the area where I lived! I spent my year abroad in Aix-en-Provence, in the south of France, which is right in the middle of one of the world’s most important rosé wine regions. So naturally, putting this to the test was an essential activity, all to enhance my cultural understanding of the area, in a purely academic pursuit. It turned out that wine tasting events were really accessible and affordable, despite the fact I’d never done anything like that before and quite frankly didn’t really like wine. However, I made it one of my two goals during my year abroad: to learn to like wine and also to learn a bit of French.

I attended several wine tasting events throughout the year, and there was a huge culture of simply meeting people for a glass of wine at any given time of the day. The wine tasting events were fantastic; they took place within the vineyards themselves and typically cost around 5 to 15 euros. For that price, we got to taste between 3 to 10 glasses of wine. Despite not particularly enjoying the wine itself (my biggest weakness according to many I met at these events), I loved learning about the production process and even just enjoying the vineyard setting in the countryside. I gradually learned to appreciate wine a bit more over the course of the year, and I must admit, I still prefer it a lot more when mixed with lemonade (making me the number one public enemy). However, the main thing I took from these experiences was witnessing how central wine is, to Provence’s culture, and spending time with French people of all ages who knew so much about it and felt so passionate about it. Meeting people in town to “prendre un verre” quickly became one of my favourite ways of socialising: sitting outside in a market square with a glass of wine (and Sprite, to my shame) felt much more special than having a pint of cider in a pub. This helped me connect with many more people there, both International and French students.

I’m sure this is something that happens across France, but with Aix being a particularly beautiful city with a large student population, it’s certainly one of my fondest memories of my year abroad. Some of the evenings spent in the many stunning squares or on the main street, Cours Mirabeau, were truly unforgettable. Aix is an expensive area, but this was a very accessible form of socialising for many people, with a glass costing about 3 euros only. I was really impressed to see a range of alcohol-free wines or soft drinks available too, making anyone feel welcome and able to enjoy themselves.

Obviously, there is so much more to this area than wine; the range of things to do here is really impressive. However, this is definitely one aspect I didn’t expect to enjoy as much as I did, and it really helped me immerse myself in French life, both culturally and in terms of using the language.

Kate O’Neill