Life stateside.

Sorry, for those who read, that I haven't been around in a while. Immediately after returning (and by immediately, I mean less than 24 hours after hopping off the plane) to the South, I had soccer matches to referee. Then, afterward, a week-long tournament to keep me busy. And I'm glad for it, because having that instantaneous activity to occupy me probably helped quite a bit. I got to see friends I hadn't laid eyes on in a year while running my butt off chasing after a soccer ball. Loads of fun.

However, now that's over and I'm faced with an expanse of "summer vacation" laid out before me. Hopefully something that will help keep me somewhat entertained, and not depressed and listless with the sadness of feeling torn from this past year I've loved so much, is recounting all I've glossed over the past year! Namely, my vacations. I feel like I've been quite faithful with my blogging but not so much that I've missed out on the pleasures of life in Montpellier, so now comes the time to catch up. I can chat to you about Christmas markets, Bavarian food, crawling on the Great Pyramids at Giza, and the hilarious commentaries of Moroccan men, to give a few tidbits...

But I'll leave starting that to the next post. At the moment, I'll start a list. Perhaps one of many. I'm not sure. Let's start with the shortest one, things I've missed about the States, even if only marginally so.

Cheap/free laundry! Those who have followed from the beginning know that I almost religiously did my laundry by hand, for nearly ten months, because a single wash at the cheap student laundromat, besides having huge waits, cost the equivalent of 3.50 (give or take). Ouch. Also, yes, I know. I'm a cheapo.

Microwaves! Throw ovens into this list as well, because contrary to student residences in the U.S., French studios are equipped with stovetops, not microwaves. Clearly they are less afraid of their university students burning their buildings to the ground than American schools are. Granted, I loved having two burners (two?! oh no, but that's such a fire hazard!) in my dorm and lived happily with the myriad of things I could cook, but there were times that I really really wanted a quick munchie late at night and could neither run to the store for it nor pop it in the microwave. I was forced to cook, which in retrospect would probably help a lot of Americans manage their diets? This could be solved if living in France for an extended period of time, in which case I'd probably just buy one.

Having a gym! French universities are just that - universities. They are there to educate, not to disguise themselves as trendy, all-inclusive student resorts. Hence, no student "recreation center" or gym. Yes, they do exist, but me not being willing to buy a membership (which can cost), I had to get creative in my workouts. I will say, though, it was fun looking around and seeing what I could do to build up strength without all the fancy machinery. That being said, I'll surely be enjoying my last year of "free" gym membership while at the University of Alabama.

Soccer fields with grass. A bizarre thing to miss, and you get used to not having them around, but don't go to a city in France and expect to find yourself a nice green pitch within 15 kilometers. What you'll find instead is either dirt or asphalt; soon enough, you'll get used to it, and forget what it's like to have people sliding at you trying to snap your ankle in half with the underside of their cleats. :)

TV! Yes, I did miss having a television to watch, guilty as charged. No matter how busy you keep yourself (and believe me, I did!), there are going to be times when you want to just sit down and turn off your brain for a while in front of the tube. Eventually I adapted to the quiet, and I refrained from complaining about it for the most part, but the internet connection in my dorm was generally fairly terrible. Youtube or any video was typically out of the question except for those times when most people are out enjoying the day. I heard that 3 am speeds were pretty good, though...

So, that was about it, really. Maybe you can tell from the writing, but none of these things really detracted from my stay in France. I didn't miss my car, as me and my bike were two  peas in a pod, American food and restaurants were a long-distant memory, and I didn't really care if nobody around me spoke English or sucked up excessively to me in the name of customer service. I still can't bring myself to calculate sales tax or tip in anything to buy (it's been two weeks now; this could become a problem), I want to hear French when I listen in on others' conversations, and I'm constantly reminded about how darn far apart everything is around here.

But hey, I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually...though I'm not sure how long it will take my poor little heart to stop bleeding every time I walk through the bread department in Wal-Mart. Saaadddd...until next time!

Time to say goodbye...

Well, guys, this is it. I depart in one hour for the airport, to take my flight out of Montpellier and back home. I haven't been around much lately because, well, as you can imagine I've been trying to enjoy my last few days in Montpellier after coming back from England (which was great, by the way - will share eventually!) as much as possible. I got back the 8th and today, the 11th, was my departure, and I haven't slept more than four hours during any night since. In fact, I'm writing this at 6 o' clock in the morning after staying up all night,

....and that's where I stopped my post before realizing that I still had to mop my floor before leaving an hour and a half later. So, while this goodbye to Montpellier post isn't actually in Montpellier, per se, the sentiment remains. I'm now back in south Alabama, after a long trip and some entertaining soccer matches. But that's for another time.


My last few days in Montpellier, after arriving home from England, were incredibly full. See, I got back late afternoon of the 8th and, as you saw above, left early early on the 11th. So there was lots and lots to do in the meantime. That day I got back, I had pre-planned a last night of salsa dancing with my wonderful dance group friends, a couple hours after arriving home. Once the party started winding down near 3 am, me and a couple -other- great friends (who I also met through our common love for dance) grabbed a group together and went to a friend of theirs' apartment for late-night cards, music, and drinks. Ended up riding my dear bike home sometime around 5h30 and crawling into bed before setting my alarm for 9, given all the "business" I had to attend to the next day.


That business was: closing my bank account, arranging course credit transfer, meeting with my agent de menage for what needed to be cleaned and how in my studio before check out, and last-minute shopping for items I wanted to bring home. Closing my bank account felt more sad than I expected it to, like a big ripping away of a legitimate link to French life. Same with doing the état des lieux with the cleaning lady, as my room got progressively emptier and more plain. The shopping was...well, actually kind of fun, deciding what wonderful French goodies (read: FOOD) I wanted to bring home with me. I ended up with an amusing assortment, including a bottle of wine, two beers, saucisson sèche, several varieties of tea, chocolate, cookies, mayonnaise (French mayonnaise is better: trust me!!), kebab sauce, and perhaps one or two other things that pressured my already quite full suitcases. I also bought some pastries, but those were just for me! Guilty.

Then after that, I spent the following night-the 9th- in a similar state of non-sleep. More meeting up with various Montpellierain friends for our last goodbyes, continually reminding me with each meeting that this meeting or the other will be the last time I see this person for a long time. But I kept away the blues for the most part, focusing instead on enjoying myself. Had crêpes and cidre for dinner/dessert, then went for a walk through town with a friend to feel less guilty. Over these last few days I proceeded to randomly run into just about everybody I know, giving me a chance to say goodbye in person to people I hadn't otherwise thought! It was crazy, but just goes to show how on beautiful summer days/nights in Montpellier, everybody's out and about.

I wish I had my camera available to post pictures, but while enjoying the sunset over the top of the Corum (one of Montpellier's performance halls/opera houses that also happens to have great views of the centre of town), ran into some more friends! And though I had been planning on biking home to change, I ended up just staying out, once again, all night. At the Esplanade in the centre of town there was the coolest gathering going on of at least 30 people, with their own instruments, doing traditional French dance. These were mostly young people, awesomely, very welcome to people watching and even making clumsy attempts to participate, so throughout the night I/we tried our hands at some super entertaining circle/group dances, mazurkas, and waltzes. As the night went on, the people I was with shifted: the friends I was with before went home, and other friends out on the town joined in, and we ended up staying out yet again quite late (this time, only until 4 am!) Even better, I got to say goodbye to a friend going home for the summer that I hadn't expected to be able to. The atmosphere of the night was great, just a bunch of people outdoors playing music, dancing, and hanging out under the yellowish-orange lights that give a warm glow to everything. You could just taste the happiness.

My final day at Montpellier was spent in a similar fashion, up early once again as I had so much to do, and so little time! My wonderful Moroccan friend made me a delicious tajine lunch, I later on ate Nutella and banana gaufre (waffle - French street food) not caring the least bit about our waistlines with a girlfriend, took care of assorted business, and wished I didn't have to leave this awesome place for good. At the end of the day, I just sat and talked with two friends from the day previous about leaving. It was happy, but sad. I got home after 10 pm to attempt to clean, but got sidetracked by saying an extended goodbye to my wonderful Erasmus friends at Vert Bois. Altogether, the last couple days in Montpellier could not have passed more perfectly. I was worried beforehand that I wouldn't wrap up my time here well for whatever reason, but as it turns out I didn't need to. At the end, all that was left to do was go back to my studio at around midnight and, as you know, stay up all night finishing that stuff I'd been procrastinating.

I think that's all for now; I'm off with my mom soon to buy a new cell phone. I seem to have notoriously long-lived electronics; my current one that's about to retire I got in December of 2006. And it's still kicking. I'm gonna miss it, actually...

There will be a new post soon, for anybody still reading! So with that, until next time! bisous.

1 week? can it be....?

Tomorrow is June 4th. I leave Montpellier for good June 11th. It's official: J-7. The final countdown.

I don't really know what to think. I'm having a hard time accepting that this part of my life is so very near to being over. I'd prefer to spend my retrospective reflections for after I get home and continue to "entertain" you with what's actually happening here, but I will say one thing that could probably cover at least a bit of how calling this time a "study abroad experience" doesn't quite cut it. I've had to remind several of my Montpellierain friends that once I leave this summer, I won't be coming back at the end of it...for example, unprompted while several of us were out on the town one night, a friend asked if I was coming back in the fall. I responded negatively. Caught that flash of disappointment before the other nimbly returned to the conversation. You know what? That really sucks. Knowing that they care enough to miss me, and unlike other friends who are in the same study abroad boat, they'll still have each other when I'm gone, and their lives will move forward. I'll be the only one separated.

Whoof. Better stop before I go on too long. Besides, why talk about sad things when you can talk about...

...FLAMMEKUECHE! (gesundheit?)

No, I didn't just sneeze. Flammekueche, besides being more than a little tricky to spell and pronounce, is also a French dish. More specifically, it's Alsatian - from the Alsace region up near Germany - and is delicious! It's a thin stretched dough covered with white cheese, lardons, onions, crème fraîche, and perhaps things like mushrooms as well. And it's deeeeeelicious! Basically, a friend and I went out to a real sit-down restaurant just because we could. The weather the past couple days has been grey and on-and-off rainy, so it was an excellent day to spend an afternoon. Conversation, trying not to slip and slide on the wet ground while trying to find the restaurant, and....

Fondant au chocolat! (melty chocolat cake, sitting in a bath of crème anglaise with real whipped cream on the side!)

Okay, sorry for the torture. I'll stop now! I guess I decided that if I couldn't go out for a run in this weather, I might as well do even more damage to my referee training and go the whole hog without feeling a single ounce of guilt. (I won't mention how many times I've eaten kebab in the last week...nor crêpes/gaufres, for that matter...)

Besides that, I've been spending a lot of time just trying to enjoy the city and life as much as I can. When I'm not spending time with friends or training or cleaning (ok ok, or eating), I tend to take lots of long bike rides or walks to my favorite spots or on the never-ending discovery of new places in this crazy wonderful town.

The playing field specifically reserved for players of boules, the favorite game of old French men :) In the shadow of the aqueduct!

A typical apéro in a plaza in the old center, on the church steps. Wonderful meeting place!

Life, despite the ominous looming of my departure, is good. Tomorrow, I'm actually leaving Montpellier for a bit - I get to visit one of my best friends from elementary school, in England! She moved back after 6th grade, and we've kept in touch, and I feel super lucky to get the opportunity to see her again. You know this is important if you can tear me away from my town for any amount of time this close to when I'm going home!

I think it'll be great, and probably a little surprising to be surrounded by English again, and in the coolest of accents! Well, I think the French accent while speaking English definitely wins my heart for cuteness, but I'd love to see what people in Essex (where she lives - not too far from London!) think of my nowhere, generic North American Female accent. Who knows? Maybe one day I'll be able to imitate that French accent and fool people into thinking I'm French. I think I may make that a personal goal of mine, actually. Hmm...

Anyways, until next time, toodle-oo! It's off to England!

J-12

jour moins 12 - day minus twelve - Yes, I`ve finally reached the two week mark. I`ll have to think about that later - too much to do, people to see for my last few times, my favorite places in Montpellier, etc...all I can say is that while I`m looking forward to seeing friends and family back home, I want more time.

So how am I spending my last weeks in France?

Life is hard.

Last weekend, the weekend before my exams, I decided to throw a little caution to the wind and go on a canoe trip! We spent two days canoeing and a night of camping in the Gorges de l'Hérault, a stunning stretch of the river Hérault with cliffs, rapids, and beautiful scenery! Sure, I had to make up for it with a couple long, long nights of studying for my exams the next week, but I have to say: totally worth it!

Ready for liftoff!

It was very well spent, and I came back with aching arms (but feeling pretty buff all the same!). The time was passed between trying to help my newbie canoers navigate, especially the rapids, which were actually quite difficult for beginners, taking stops along the way to swim and sun, and getting into races/water wars. It was awesome, despite this one...uh...capsizing incident.

Yeah, life is really hard!

On the left - our noble steed.

But about those exams...victory! I studied really hard - hours, upon more hours - and it paid off! I went into those exams Wednesday and Thursday and showed them who's boss. They definitely weren't easy, but the studying paid off and I feel like I did really well.

In any case, now I'm free!! I've been out, to the beach, eating kebab and treating myself to pastries and such...watched the Barcelona final and was overjoyed to see them win!!

And now, it's time to go out and enjoy the beautiful weather! In between my training for Regionals, anyway. I'm getting quite tan here with all the time I'm spending outside! Until next time!

Photos!

Because I'm currently quite caught up studying, here are a couple photos (without much explanation) of random things in and around Montpellier, to show I'm still alive until I can get a real post up!

The Viaduc de Millau - Record-breaking bridge!

Place Albert Premier - a crowd is gathering on a lazy afternoon to listen to a reggae performance. I stop too.

Place de la Comédie, capoeira demonstration. If I have to be honest, I find it kind of silly...

My very first salade niçoise. Success!

My name, in Arabic, in the sand on the beaches of Rabat. Not from Montpellier, but more of a promise that I'll eventually describe my vacations in Italy and Morocco. Until next time!

The "final" countdown!

Alright! I'm in the home stretch. The exams at the French language institute went well, I'd say, and freedom is just around the corner! Except for those two beastly exams coming up, that is. (hence yet another slightly bad pun in the title). I have one on Wednesday and one Thursday, which wouldn't be so bad normally. After all, if I do nothing but study, I'd be pretty much guaranteed to get by without a problem - but is doing nothing but studying really how I want to spend some of my last few weeks here?

So, I'm trying to strike a balance. Squeezing studying in between errands, laundry, cooking, and so on. As previously stated, I'm constantly conscious of time running out despite my best attempts to slow it down, so I've been keeping pretty busy in spite of my desk space looking something like this!

Clockwise, from top left: geologic time chart, schema of lymphoid organs, physiology notebook, physiology packet, and geology notes underneath it all.

But that's slightly boring, so here's ore interesting stuff! This week has been a pretty fun one - on Monday, we had our last salsa/merengue course of the the semester (*sniff*), and I got a little sad when our instructor (and friend) talked about getting back together next year. A few of the girls I've met in this group have become such wonderful friends, and it definitely momentarily dampened my mood to think about there not being a next year for me- at least not here, anyway. But we danced, chatted, and here is most of us (with a few missing minus exams, and a couple camera-shy dudes =P):

Fiesta!

Of course, this isn't the last time we have/will see each other. On Wednesday, to celebrate the last of my French exams, I went out with Cécile to a salsa party/course, in which I had a partner who was about as coordinated as a rock but otherwise had lots of fun and ran into other friends that I hadn't seen since vacations, even though I had to wake up the next morning for...

hiking! Yahoo! A fellow exchange student from Alabama asked me if I had any information about hiking the Pic St Loup, the mountain just to the north of Montpellier. Given that I had recently finished that geology field day all over them there hills, I am actually surprisingly well informed on the geography and many of the small towns in the area - even better, I had a map! After asking if they'd mind one more person on their expedition (they didn't!), I went to the office of tourism to confirm my findings. As it turned out, the guy I talked to was an avid hiker and informed me of a place not too far off that he likes even better. It's the Ravin des Arcs (translated like it sounds, the Ravine of the Arches), a hike of equal distance, difficulty, and just as pictoresque as the Pic St Loup - with the added benefit of being pretty much deserted as so few people know about it, AND home to caves and natural swimming holes!!

Massive natural stone arch! Also right below, swimming hole filled with tons of little fishies :)

 The hike in total, minus our time spent frolicking and eating our lunches, was around 3 1/2 hours (I had a bizarre mix of scraps from my kitchen, making a tuna-mozzarella-tomato-cucumber-lettuce sammich, with a carrot and a peach on the side - not half bad!), and definitely was not a hike for the faint of heart...or small children. When they're talking ravine, they mean ravine! So to get to the point you saw above, you have to go up to the top of the ravine, then descend (steep!) to get down to the riverbed, then of course when you're done, continue back on up the other side. Half hike, half climb, all awesome! As it turns out this hike is part of one of France's many Grand Randonnées - great hikes - number 60, in fact! We were all careful, of course, wanting to get down to our happy little baignade in one piece. We had to remind ourselves to stop and look around every so often when we realized we'd been doing a lot of looking at our feet. Thankfully, though the trail could be treacherous, it was helpfully marked with what I called Mr. Rouge Blanche - a.k.a., our trail markers!

Bottom right - Yes! Top left! NO. It was like a nonstop game of Where's Waldo!

Something I also found kinda cool, when we hadn't seen our helpful red and white markers in a bit, I noticed a conspicuous pile of rocks on the ground with another, smaller pile to one side and got quite excited. Nerdy as it may be, I learned about cairns as trail markers from...yes, a computer game. Nobody else really knew what it was, and though we proceeded to start in the wrong direction (before quickly correcting ourselvses) beyond it, I was still quite excited to have some of that random knowledge I possess be applicable.

Not my picture, but that's an example!

Eventually we ran into a small group of hikers having lunch in the river - well, where it once was, anyway. Massive riverbed, completely dried out. It was quite incredible and a little bizarre to see, standing in the bottom of a river where if, there were water at that very moment, you'd have a severely reduced life expectancy.

Give you the idea. Note the black water line on the right side of the photo!

I believe that annual heavy rains (perhaps in fall) can fill it back up again, but we had fun crawling around, while noting that we felt like we should be in Jurassic Park or see a neanderthal around a corner. I got a little worried that there would be nothing left for us to swim in, as the other hikers told us something about there being nearly no water left...mildly apprehensive that I'd led our exposition to a swimless day, we continued on - and, though the first picture spoils it, hit paydirt!

Getting used to the chilly water before taking the plunge in the deeper water behind :)

Yes, found them ^^ Nestled at the bottom of the ravines, steep rock faces all around, with the sun hitting at just the right spot to make the cold water worth plunging into, with dozens of little fishies nibbling our toes (that was how, in the world of Marisa logic, we decided that the water was safe to swim in. Abundant aquatic life = passable!). Passed one heck of a fun afternoon, then dried off like lizards on the rocks above and took a short nap before continuing our hike and heading back into the little and terribly adorable town of St. Martin de Londres, where we hopped a regional bus home, pooped and pleased.

St. Martin's public water fountain

And wouldn't you know it, I was already booked to go out that night with the ladies for one of their birthday celebrations (couldn't miss that!), so I grabbed some munchies, water, and cleaned up for a night of fun. This time we went just a bit out of Montpellier to the town of Lattes (in the direction of the beach), where a lot of the BIG clubs are located. Coconuts is a reggaeton/zouk/hip hop ish club, and tafter being here more than once it hit me that I don't really know how to dance to American rap music anymore (did I ever?). Going home will be a bit deflating, I imagine.

Ok, well that's all for now! To continue with the outdoorsy theme, guess what I'm doing this weekend? A two-day canoe/camping trip!! I can't wait! Until next time, get out there and enjoy whatever weather you're having!

Bye bye vacations...hello, exams!

Hello! Anybody miss me? For any of you who follow, sorry for the extended absence! Got back from vacations Sunday of last week, spent the first couple days loafing around/recovering, then before I knew it, 'poof,' here comes exam time. Now, since I'm the motivated little one among the folks I know (I must enjoy pain), my exams are actually spread over a period of not one, not two, but three weeks, and that's if you exclude my physiology lab final the week before vacations. Here's the lowdown (some of which has already passed:

Week 1 (that was last week): Civilisation, Phonétique, Français des sciences, and Histoire de la langue française finals.
Week 2: Expression orale, compréhension orale, expression écrite, compréhension écrite, grammaire, and...wait no, I think that's it.
Week 3. (In freak out red because of the scariness): Histoire de la Terre, and Physiologie animale. The two monsters. They and their massive volumes of material are staring me in the face with that look schoolyard bullies get which might translate into words as "heh heh heh, we're gonna have some fun with you..." accompanied by menacingly rubbing their hands together or cracking their knuckles. You get the idea.

Okay, drama finished. I think if I apply myself, like I used to way back in the day when all my classes were science-based and therefore required intense studying, then I should do alright. It helps that it makes little difference whether I make an A plus, a B, C, or whatever unless my grad schools really care. And honestly, I think a geologic history of the earth and the physiology of the vertebrate/human system in a language you're still learning is enough to have them give me a little break, right?

Right. And now that I've had this experience - and really, despite the extra work it's given me, I'm intensely glad I did - I'd better be sure to keep an eye on any potential elitism that may emerge. I mean really, if I'm within earshot of anybody boo-hooing about how hard their political science course is (equivalently, insert just about any liberal arts course within reason here), or even about freshman bio, I'll...

...well, honestly, I'll probably not say anything, but walk away with a slightly smug, self-satisfied grin on my face. Let me elaborate - for starters, in addition to my car and good internet connection, I left multiple choice-type questions far behind in the good old US of A. If you come here for the hard sciences, don't get your hopes up. Instead, expect a few questions and a LOT of blank space. Not even a little blank space, either (though I did have to do some fossil species identification once)- no, on the exams I've seen there have mostly been the extended-answer type of question, which will involve not only being able to reproduce knowledge learned in the course but elaborate and expound upon it. And if you have a language handicap, what, you think you're special? The most you can get is to write something to the effect of how french is not your maternal language, and they'll be a little more forgiving on you for errors of grammar or expression (not of correctness - pity!). So though this has gotten easier as the semester has gone on, you may be able to imagine the fun I had. The flow chart goes something like this: understand what the professor is saying--> figure out what's important and write that down-->but don't forget to listen to and understand everything the professor is saying while you're writing-->develop your own bizarre french shorthand to speed up your writing and be able to keep up-->actually comprehend what the heck you wrote one week later-->study and research any terms or concepts you don't know (sometimes, no matter how good you are in the language, you'll just be out of luck here - though I will never again forget what the spleen is in French! The professor caught me dictionary hunting and stopped to ask if I needed help. I was slightly ashamed.)-->fully comprehend any and all processes and be able to reproduce them on exam day, in this language.

So, there you go. I have to say, I have definitely stretched my mind quite a bit while I've been here, and I can definitely feel good about where it's left me. I had a good laugh one day when I was reviewing "plaquettes" and couldn't remember what they were...in English. I actually had to look it up. I was slightly ashamed. (They're platelets, by the way!) And don't even get me started on the geology course; I doubt I could explain that to you properly in English since I've now only ever learned it in French.

I'm finished now. Sorry, I'd expect you would have preferred to hear about my vacations (which were absolutely astonishing and beyond anything I could have dreamed, for the record!), but all I gave you was this extended geek rant. Ah, well. Some things never change. If I don't have time to properly talk about my vacations soon, rest assured I will continue this blog when I come home at least for a month or two to recount all the stuff I didn't tell you about! (the rest of Barcelona, Germany, Paris, Lyon, Egypt, Sicily, Rome, Morocco, etc....) I will make one last note, before I go:

I have less than a month left in Montpellier. This thought almost continually torments me. Until next time, as I try to keep it together, here's a pretty picture!