Joyeuses fêtes!

 A lot of my clothes smell like fireplace now. And I love it!

Hi, hope all of you had a very merry Christmas and have made some excellent plans for the new year! I just got back to Montpellier. We were out in the country (no internet access-say it ain't so!), just a big, happy full home. I felt welcomed like one of the family, and that really meant a lot. I could go on for a while writing about the time we spent together, but I'm a little short on time! My mother has arrived from Alabama and she's slumbering away on my bed. Tomorrow we depart bright and early - 7:30 am - for Barcelona, for our whirlwind Mediterranean cruise!! I don't think I'll actually believe it until I see the boat. But 12 days, me and Mom, sailing the seas...I'll have more on that when I return. We're hoping to go to Paris afterward, before she goes back to the US!

I'd like to get back to a little more about the holidays here in France. Different, of course; much simpler, but no less warm. It's the combination of all the little things that have made this Christmas extra special: learning that huitres are a holiday tradition along with foie gras and the chapon and buche de Noel, singing along with the guitar and violinists in the family, watching crazy French cult classic films that I don't quite understand, but laughing anyway, and leaving our shoes under the tree for Father Christmas. Then there was the hour-long walk after the Christmas meal to work off some of our guilt from all those chocolate truffles...sin in a box, really. It's quite shameful. The meals were long, joined by wine, champagne, and exploding party favor chocolates that came with little bits of wisdom on pieces of paper inside:

I've spanned my fair share of southern-ish France this holiday season, from Montpellier to Toulouse, to the small village of Lectoure and the even tinier village of Plieux, to somewhere in the hills between:

Out for a walk. Was joined by the family pup :)

Playing Santa at midnight, Christmas Eve: "whose shoes are these again?"

I've even gone to Lyon and seen the entire city lit up at night in a December tradition that goes way back...though not at all in a way I'd expected!

And, finally, I found myself on a horse bare back Christmas day. This is the face I made for the camera:

Uh...let's try that again.

Much better!

So, I need some rest before our big trip tomorrow. Wishing all of you out there the best, until next time!

Fight, fight!

I forgot to mention! I got to watch just a bit of hockey this week. Actually, more than just a bit: international match! France vs. Italy, final score 3 to 1! The atmosphere was great, and they had little bits of entertainment between periods. Between the first two, a pipsqueak hockey match where there was quite a bit of falling down and tons of fan support when anybody scored. It was great seeing the hard-core hockey nuts give the little guys such enthusiastic cheers. Between the second and third, a few pre-teen age girls came out and did some figure skating. It was also very cute, and this got me in quite the wintry mood! I don't actively follow it, I'll admit, but I really love to watch ice hockey. (And no, there weren't actually any fights in this match. Pity- although there was a double power play against Italy, followed by an awesome score from France!)

Naughty boys in time out.

 2-1, second period. Go France!

 Ready, set, go! Also, after watching these referees I gotta say: they're good. Officiating and skating at crazy speeds in any direction. Mad props.

Does this ice rink look familiar? Perhaps, since it happens to appear in an earlier post of mine. =) Despite the chilliness of the weather recently, definitely a fun outing. Until next time, stay warm!

There's no place like home for the holidays

Here I am, after a little bit of a delay, guys. My apologies. I'm sitting here in my little room with my scarf and slippers, listening to a playlist of Christmas songs on youtube...and I find myself in possession of the weirdest mélange of emotions right now. On the plus side, I'm finished with my exams, and I'll soon be departing to fêter le Noël with my friend Lisa, whom some of you may know came to study for a year of high school in Alabama. She and her family live in the tiny village of Lectoure, about an hour north of Toulouse and located in the Pyrenees region. I'm so happy to be welcomed into her family for the holidays, and to have my mom coming to spend three weeks with me starting the 27th. Moreover, I'm just so glad to be here in general, but...

...at the same time, I'm constantly wavering between happy, sad, nostalgic, missing home, joyful, and so on. I've had to say goodbye possibly for good to more than one friend to whom I feel incredibly close, watched others go home to their own respective families for the holidays, and while listening to Sinatra 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,' I'm getting into one of those moods. It's hard to describe. Anybody who knows me well knows I'm so big into Christmas - connecting with friends and family, cooking, picking out the perfect gifts, the movies, the music...this is such a change from the years past that's it's a little disconcerting. Right now I look around my room and see the mountains of stuff left to me by semester students, no Christmas tree to be seen, and outdoors at the rain that's been falling all day.

But it'll be fine. I mean, look at me now. If I had imagined myself at this point five years ago, I never would have thought I'd be thousands of miles away from home for the holidays, living in France and navigating the amusement park ride that is my life right now. It's such a challenge and, watching the students who have finished their study abroad after one semester, I sometimes wonder if I should have done the same thing. Isn't one semester enough? Am I doing the right thing by staying here for an entire year?

Yes. (once more, with feeling!) YES. Maybe right now I've got a bit of the Christmas blues, but I maintain that I am not done with this place yet. Or it's not done with me. Montpellier really is quite the city. Yesterday one of my friends invited me to her and her copain's apartment in a small town outside the city, where we made crêpes together and sat around for hours. We even played a really silly racing game on Playstation 3. Little things, gestures, like this make me feel like staying here longer will be really worthwhile. It's most definitely not practical, but to be honest I think this is something I really needed. I've been practical and disciplined all my life. A little change is good. It gives you a chance to grow, and maybe even to change.

So, there wasn't really too much point to this post besides feeling sentimental. "I'll Be Home for Christmas" is playing now, so that's probably not helping much. Anyway, to those of you whom I won't get to say this to in person, I'm wishing you all a beautiful, happy Christmas from my little space here in France.

 Until next time!

99 bottles of beer on the wall!

I'm skipping around here, but I thought I'd divide my Germany trip (again, from mid-November, sorry!) into Mannheim vs. Heidelberg. I spent a little over two days in Mannheim and one in Heidelberg over the weekend. One of the highlights of Mannheim was not actually in the city, but a short train ride out into a small town nearby. Stephanie heard about a beer company located nearby that, for 8 euro, would take you on a guided tour followed by beer tasting. Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity to learn a little bit about this most favorite of German beverages. So, instead of going to church on Sunday (and joking at the distinctly non-religious reason behind it), we had ourselves an adventure. The trip involved choosing, after the train, either the bus or a 20-30 minute walk. This being a beautiful day, we opted for the walk and it was well worth it:

Sunday morning in south Germany!

Walking into our very first beer factory. 

 

We arrived for the tour of the day held in English, and the tour guide was adorable - it was his first tour in English, and he brought notes with him and we all laughed over how hard it must be to translate some of this vocabulary, and how girls don't usually come on these tours just on their own. I learned quite a bit, and watched a really amusing video about how they created their advertising campaign.

 Where the magic happens!

As you'll see in the next photo, the bottle design (and the design of the awesome souvenir glass we got to take home) is wavy. Apparently the beer is in such a happy mood that it wants to express that through the bottle, being all carefree and easygoing - that's Welde beer! Also, the caps have tabs! To make them easy for weaklings like me to open the bottle. Underneath the cap is ja, nein, or a question mark in the fashion of a Magic 8 ball. Ask it a question, and the beer responds. For the record, I tried a couple (see below!) and never got a no :)

 Happy beer! From left to right: energy beer (with coca cola), grapefruit, and lemongrass. Also an empty glass of draft.

 At the end of the tour (it was just the two of us), we went to something like a beer clubhouse where they said you could have three beers of your choice. But honestly, there were so few of us there (another group of friendly American businessmen and their German friend) that they didn't mind and we got to sample as much as we liked! No drunkenness, just sitting around, chatting, listening to music in the background (Village People, anyone?) and enjoying ourselves. I feel like this is how beer's supposed to be enjoyed!

Clubhouse. Classy! 

Until next time, don't drink and drive? :)

Wow! Three months!

Hello, I'll get back to the rest of my Germany trip later (Heidelburg!), but for the moment I felt like just doing a bit of writing. It's come to my attention that I'm a couple days over being here in France for not one, not two, but three months. And I'm not even halfway there! I've got to say, I've been learning a lot while I'm here: not just about the language, but about myself, about others, and life in general. I've also been picking up, more so than ever, on my personality quirks. Sometimes they disappoint me, but I think bit by bit I'll come to accept them and try to be a bit more secure. But these things take time, you know.

More interestingly, after several days of intermittent sprinkly rain, it's finally gorgeous here in town and the kind of day that makes you just happy to exist. I love these sorts of days, so I'm going to hammer down some interesting updates on life before I motivate myself to go for a jog. What have I done recently?

-Had the most spectacular Cameroonian meal, prepared by a friend's friend who happens to be a masterful cook. He made us salad, two types of chicken - one with an onion and vegetable sauce, and the other with a peanut sauce that made me want to die and go to heaven - fish in a delicious lemon sauce, rice to go with it all, Cameroon-style fried bananas, which are actually eaten as part of the meal and not dessert, chocolate covered bananas roasted in the oven, dessert tart, and some more I'm surely forgetting. I paced myself and still walked out feeling like Violet from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory. We had hours of good conversation and listened to blues and jazz music, trying to translate from English to French. Lots of fun!

-Went ice skating! Montpellier has this awesome ice skating arena with two joined areas; one is your standard rink for hockey and competitions, and the other reminded me of a disco roller rink on ice - it had hills (!!), turns, and bumpin' music that kept us entertained for hours. I felt accomplished when I re-learned how to switch from forward to backward without stopping, and managed to do so without seriously injuring myself. I did look like an infant giraffe from time to time, though. Amusing anecdote: as we were skating by, a guy nearby tried to do a cool turn and smile (flirting on ice?) at us but ended up falling on his behind. We giggled and kept going, feeling oh-so-fly ;)

 Faisant le patinage makes us happy!

Chillin'. :)

-Finished round one of exams! I feel like I've come out of this, despite some of it being quite difficult, fairly well. Have to continually remind myself that French standards of grading are different than American ones, and just do my best regardless. The only two exams I have next weeks are ones that you don't really study for (written expression, and oral comprehension), so I'm kinda lovin' it at the moment. Haven't heard back from Montpellier II about taking integrated biology courses, but fingers crossed! If there's a way, I'll find it.

-Saw snow in the south of France? Really, there were at least five flakes on one reeeeeeally cold weekend, when we went to Montpellier's big Christmas market that's up all month to wander around. We bought heated wine (vin chaud) and I munched on a crepe, and all of us were pretty excited despite the icy chill to see those wimpy little snowflakes. Thankfully, as I mentioned above, the weather's quite a bit milder now.

That's the highlights, for the most part! This weekend I'm going to Lyon with a friend for the Festival des  lumières, so I'm bringing my sweaters and tights for what is sure to be a chillin' weekend. Until next time!

To Deutschland ! Insane enough that the voyage gets its own post =P

Now, for the ultimate in lateness, I bring you  news of my trip to Allemagne...nearly a month ago! We had a Thursday off for holiday, so I skipped Friday, arranged to take an exam two days early, and packed my bags to visit a lovely friend and fellow University of Alabama student studying this semester in Mannheim. The trip was a mix between awesome and complete fiasco; I should have realized more of my funky luck was coming when my train Thursday night (supposed to depart at 11:20) ended up getting to the station nearly two hours later, finally departing at the grand hour of 1:30 a.m. Didn't bother me much since I had brought gummy bears, baguette/brie, and some tunes, but trouble was on the wind. Ended up missing all my correspondences, sadly, but this resulted in me having more time in one of my stopovers, Strasbourg! I only had a couple hours so not a true visit of the city, but I did get to explore, suitcase in hand, and see things like this:

 Fall colors, and just a bit of nip in the air!

 Now I know what these buildings are supposed to look like! I always tried in the Sims and it never worked...

The Rhine!

 La maison des tanneurs.

So, what happens next? I catch my next train and, thanks to the kind gentleman at the service desk, a list of the next train I'll have to take. They said since I already had a ticket they didn't need to give me a new one, even if it was late. I think I'm in the clear, hop off the train once we get into Germany and get ready for the next one. Fifteen minutes into the train ride the conductor comes around; I apologize for having no German and explain the situation in English.

I am commanded to leave the train at the next stop and told to find another one. According to her, this "wasn't the train I reserved." (No, really???) So, after being insistent didn't work and feeling the blood pressure rise, I decide that telling the woman she was an idiot probably wouldn't solve anything. So off I went, somewhere between A and B, thankful for my foresight to have brought enough food for a full day (since apparently I ended up needing it?)

So I find myself, once again, having to scramble around and sort all this out, namely, where am I, when's the next train, and how can I get on it for free. Long story short, it eventually worked out and I got myself (and all my affairs - why can't I be this responsible all the time?) to Mannheim around 15 hours after my initial departure time. (In case you were curious, this voyage was supposed to take around 10.) I even managed to pull out my sewing kit and fix a button on my jacket while munching on some gummies. How's that for resourceful?

More to come! Until next time, here's hoping for no further transportation debaucles :)

L'on y danse, tous en rond!

Sorry for being a bit slow with the updating and also having these updates be on the boring side, but I promise that I now have a barrage of photos to accompany the exciting voyages and stories I've accumulated! I'll do my best to get them up in the midst of exam time. My classes here are unusual; I have more of them, but they take up less time. However, this means that there are a crapton of tests looming on the horizon. On the plus, they're spread over these next two weeks, so there's still time to have fun!

This Saturday, my exchange group took a day trip to Provence, where we visited the ever famous Avignon and afterwards the farm and vineyard of the small town of Domaine de Donadille.

Avignon is known for being an ancient Roman city, though overshadowed by Nimes and Arles. However, it was lucky enough be the home of the pope in the 1300's. The Papal Palace (Palais des Papes) is a huge landmark there and quite a sight to see.

 Some of the very few old wall paintings that remain in the church. Time has certainly taken its toll. Apparently the palais was once covered in them!

 Central courtyard. The palais is full of grand archways and high, sloping ceilings like this:

Art exhibition in one of the chambers.

 

 Mouthless dog seated at the foot of its master!

 Wall of greatness.

It also has a very pretty old town, beautiful jardin overlooking the Rhone, and, of course, the ever famous Pont d'Avignon! (actually called the Pont Saint-Bénezet). It's the namesake of a famous little ditty that all French children learn (and maybe even French Canadian? - for some reason, I and the program coordinator were the only people who actually knew the song!). Didn't actually get a chance to go up on the bridge, which may have been for the best since you've got to pay and the day was incredibly cold and windy. Toes were numb or most of the day, but honestly, after refereeing soccer in similar temperatures with half the clothing, it really didn't bother me all too much. Apparently the Rhone has such strong currents that after many centures of having to rebuild this super old bridge due to flooding and currents destroying it, they eventually just gave up.

 Overlooking the Pont and the city of Avignon. The bridge stops halfway across. Convenient!

  At midday, took a much-needed break to enjoy conversation and a cup of chocolat. The dessert down there is bois mort - dead forest - two layers of dense chocolate mousse between two thin layers of soaked cake, then encased in hard dark chocolate and cocoa powder, with shavings on top! It was divine.

 The visit to the farm/vineyard was really nice as well, and I learned a lot about new French ideas of farming and sustainability, as well as the process that goes into making wine. I also learned about all the factors that make a wine cheap vs. expensive!

 Photo of the vineyard - evidently, it's wine season now, not grape season!

 

"This is my "Please, horsie, don't accidentally nibble on my fingers while I'm looking at the camera!" face

A bottle of one of their local rouge. We got to taste several varieties and pretend to be experts, attempting to guess the aromas found within. Much harder than it looks, though I did get one right! (I guessed raspberries)

Overall, a wonderful, well-spent day in spite of the cold. It's recently gotten a lot milder, so I think we're out of this dreadful cold snap. I came back from the farm with a bottle of wine and some of their apples...which are absolutely delicious and worth the weight on the way home! Until next time, more adventures to come!