Nice, Day 2 - Churros, chicken, crêpes...

So, with no hard feelings from being woken up from sleeptalking the night before, all of us enjoyed a nice sleep in then hopped in the car to enjoy some Carnaval festivities, but in our own way...it involved heading out of town to a real carnival (at least as I remember it!), midway games, bumper cars, goodie shacks and more!

Failed attempt at winning the claw. Just as rigged in France as in the US- maybe more!

Just in case I needed reminding that "Hey there, this is France!" Lots o' Nutella.

Faty and I enjoying some churros with chocolate...10 for 3 euros, oh the sugar high =D

So that was insanely fun, and also my first carnival/fair by the beach. Lots of kids running around, just generally enjoying themselves. Made up for the day being slightly cloudy.

Afterward, we took a stroll by the beach and stopped for a photo break on our way to a friend's for a dinner date. Very nice, and also where I learned of a very funny good luck superstition, which we participated in at the beach. What you do is grab your handy dandy water bottle and walk down to the water's edge (try not to fall in, the beach is pebbly, not sandy!). Count seven waves, then rush in for some water and rush out before your feet get all soaked. Repeat seven times, then sprinkle it in the corners of your home. Good fortune, protect against evil, all that.

We succeeded in filling our liter bottle maybe a fourth because the water kept falling out and it was slippery. Harder than it looks!

Uh...stood too close to the tide line while trying to get a photo. Water is wet.

 So, after this attempt, it was off to a friend's house for cooking and a night of socializing. On the menu was poulet rôti and gratin dauphinois...Chef Anthony handled everything, pretty much, while the rest of us ooh'ed and ahh'd at his handywork. He even brought along his chef hat and jacket from the car for photo op purposes!

Me out of frame, chickens and Chef Anthony in frame. As it should be. I am a poor poultry model.

So, to amuse ourselves after the preparations were done and the food in the oven, we amused ourselves with Mario Kart and Super Smash Brothers Wii! I am no longer any good at Mario Kart (the last time I played it was on the super nintendo, cut me some slack here ok?), but at SSB I totally represented with my favorite player - Kirby, the unintimidating pink puffball who's been my secret weapon for years. The night was a lovely one, spent in great company with some most excellent food. Well fed and jolly, we rolled ourselves home late in the evening and I repacked my bag, ready to bravely depart Monday morning on foot for the solo part of my vacation.

With nothing but the bag on my back and indications to head to the beachside, I hopped a bus to Vence - a pretty mountain town not too far away - and spent a relaxing day there. I'm going to skip over it in the storytelling here for time's sake but it's quite cute and is known for its delicious spring water. A good change of pace from the business of Nice.

Until next time, when I get my hike on!

1 girl, 1 week - First stop, Nice!

Alright, I'm finally getting around to actually posting about my vacation. I'll take it in installments; despite not traveling super extremely far, I experienced a LOT. Like I mentioned before, it was just me on this trip - unaccompanied, off on a whirlwind adventure (well, that's slightly dramatic...but you get the idea) with nothing but a backpack and my compulsory travel food - baguette, sandwich meat, cheese, and gummies.

Stop 1: Nice! I had arranged a couch surf for my first two days in the city with a wonderful couple - Anthony, a born-and-raised Niçoise who also happens to be a chef, and Fatima, originally from Panama but who has been in France for several years. They were so welcoming and it was a wonderful way to start the trip. First order of business was to hop in the car and take a driving tour, ending up in Monaco for a bit of a look (not too much there), and stopping off once or twice to look around!

The view from Beaulieu-sur-mer. Translated, Beautiful Place on the Sea. It's pretty "Nice," eh?

We had a good laugh together about the directness of the place names here. =) Anywho, next we dropped off Fatima at a friend's and Anthony and I took a stroll around the Vieille Ville of Nice, and it was cool to hear about it from his perspective...and very sweet when he showed me the little fast-order place where he always came when he was a kid, that serves your usual French stuff as well as excellent Niçoise specialties. We shared some socca, an almost crepe-like thing made of chick pea flour and egg, and cooked in a big pan. You eat in plain or sprinkled with black pepper, and it's savory and delicious! =D

Socca and vin. Served by Super Mario's French cousin? =D

An idea of the 'feel' of Vieille Nice. Also, check out the weird pink-haired statue to the right of the fountain...he's kinda creepy.

After temporarily satisfying our hunger, we did the tour and ran into the Saturday livres d'occasion market. Cheap books (drool!) old antique books (double drool!), posters, and everything in between. I was in heaven...and came home with an old anthology of French poetry and an Astérix and Obélix comic. I spotted an old copy of Jules Vernes' 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (in French), but alas...way out of my price range. *snif*

I am such a geek. All this makes me unreasonably happy.

Afterward, we stopped off at a cave des vins to search for a Portugese wine Anthony`s friend recommended - we bought it and I bought another bottle as a thank you - and then he let me wander around on my own for a bit while he ran off to do some grocery shopping. I enjoyed myself, listened to music, checked out the Carnaval festivities as they were drawing to a close for the evening. And as sunset came, all of us went back to the apartment for dinner and some TV. I'm really starting to enjoy French game shows, amusingly enough...I find them quite addictive, and I did watch my fair share before going to bed in the evenings - particularly in Corsica. I'm going to allow myself a little bit of chest-puffing pride here, and admit that I'm so so pleased with where my French is now. I spoke maybe five minutes of English the entire vacation, and it's amazing the conversations you can have and the people you can meet when you're comfortable enough in their language - and despite being recognized as an out-of-towner from the accent, people almost everywhere enjoy speaking to someone new and different - even if only for a few minutes  The more I improve my French, the more happy I get and the more I feel like I've finally found my place here...and, I'm a little scared to admit, the harder it will probably be to leave.

Massive carnaval float thing, last picture of the day :)

But enough of that, the night ended on a relaxed note with some hookah de fruits rouges, then bed. Apparently I talked in my sleep, saying "Je ne regarde pas trop la télé." I feel like such a terrible guest for sleep talking, but apparently I do so in French now without realizing it.

Until next time...don't watch too much TV!

Hey, it's March!

Hello, everyone! So I need to get back on track with blog writing, but it's going to take me until the end of the week to get started again - all of last week I was away on vacation (and ohhhhh what a vacation it was!), and this week the Fac des Sciences decides it's a good time to put all the mid-term exams. Hurray? So, I'm trucking along, trying to study study study and get life back to its normal flow! My first exam (Monday. Yes, Monday. I studied during my trip!) went fairly well, I think, which is all I can hope for attempting my first ever mid-term...in geology/paleontology...in French. Fingers crossed for a good note!

So, that's it for now. Promise I'll get all the fun trip details up later, for whomever wants them! For now, here's a teaser:

Mon aerolisador es plen d'anguilas*

Hello! Another post, same evening, because I realized that I haven't shared my experience with a trip that I've been anticipating for quite some time - Carcassonne! Within my region of France, the Languedoc-Roussillon, Carcassonne (and the Abbaye de Fontfroide, which we also visited on this trip with my exchange group) is an internationally famous French city, of which the old cité is completely fortified - surrounded by double walls which are still standing to this day. I suggest you go look it up to find better photos than the ones I have here; because as we all know, the best photo-ops of towns aren't generally seen on guided tours (though as usual I do enjoy learning with my touring!).

Entrance to the cité: with figurine of  Dame Carcas on the right, by legend whom the town is said to be named for.

In between the outer and inner walls.

Though updated and restored over the years, these walls have remained essentially the same since medieval times. They had all sorts of creative ways beyond these double fortifications - specialized windows to drop things on enemies, narrow windows that you could see out of but couldn't be penetrated by arrows, et cetera. No wonder this place managed as well as it did!

Entrance to the Chateau Troncavel...me and a couple friends got in for free! (student perks)

This bravely moat-guarded, also fortified (see the wooden structures, top right?) is not found at the exterior of the fortifications, which you might think just by looking at the pictures. No, it's in the cité itself, in town and yet another place to pull back and defend. Though it couldn't feasibly house an entire town's population, in the event that things really get bad (which they did, wait and see!), at least there was some last way to mess with the enemy again.

In the 1200's, Troncavel was vicomte (viscount in English?) of the city and the surrounding cities in the region. He tried bravely to defend his people from the catholic church's crusade against the cathars - a different christian group that he himself wasn't a part of, but were considered heretics. After attempted but failed diplomacies, rather than surrender and turn over the heretics, he and the people of his city decided to fight back. The nearby town of Béziers, which the crusaders (marching from Lyon) attacked first, was overtaken and the entire population slaughtered by the crusading knights. It eventually came down to a siege of the city of Carcassonne, the last holdout. Sadly, the crusaders cut off their water supply and eventually Troncavel and his people were forced to surrender. Though the townspeople were spared, they were forced to flee. Troncavel was taken prisoner and met his untimely end in a prison cell.

Peeking out from inside the castle.

(I got kind of bewildered when I approached the window and felt a cold breeze. As it turns out, this one petite segment of glass is missing from the window. Not sure why or how.)

For the last little bit of history, this part of southern France, the Languedoc-Roussillon region as I mentioned, is so called because of the language formerly spoken here - Occitan. (Langue d'Oc, makes sense right?) Back in old times, southern and northern France weren't the best of friends as they spoke the Langue d'oil and were generally a bunch of jerks. Although this region - including the modern Midi-Pyrenees region - was technically a part of the French kingdom, it wasn't really. Think the sentiments felt by American colonists towards the Brits and vice versa, pre-revolution, and you'll get an idea of how chummy these two areas were.

Even better, this place was just swarming with Cathars (the no-no aforementioned heretic religious sect), so this just couldn't be had. After Carcassonne fell, France took it and the region under its own rule. However, this place maintained its proud heritage - and its prevalency of the language - until fairly recently (20th century, people!), when the government imposition of the official French language started Occitan's decline (urh, I'm fuzzy on the dates - History with Marisa is never super detailed, sorry!). Once spoken by millions, its numbers have greatly dwindled although I know of movements to keep it alive and there are schools that offer it as a language. Look up the word vergonha if you'd care to know more - it's the Occitan term for this occurence.

Again inside the castle, overlooking a courtyard- because illustrated stories are just more fun.

Well, I'm starting to fall asleep here so that probably means I should get to bed. Sorry for less details of my actual trip and more of a history lesson, but I actually really enjoy some of it and felt like sharing. The rest of the day trip was nice, as was the abbey, and I hope to go back to Carcassonne with my bike and really check it out if I get a chance! I can tell there's definitely more I should see...

...although this view is definitely quite nice!

So, that's it for now! You won't see me for a bit - the first week-long spring vacation (called winter vacation here) is starting, and I'm leaving tomorrow to go chill at the Cote d'Azur for a bit then make my way down to Corsica. Until next time, hurray for the Mediterranean!


*In case you were wondering: "Mon aerolisador es plen d'anguilas" is Occitan for "My hovercraft is full of eels." Found on a website of Useful Occitan phrases. :)

So much time, so little to do! (no, that's not right...)

Apologies, friends, for my scarcity these past couple weeks! As per usual, life has been zipping by...and it's the crunch time of exams. Uni. Paul-Valéry (where I take my french courses) had all its exams this week, while the Fac des Sciences will have its the week we get back from vacation...busy, busy! However, since coming here I'll have to be honest: perfect grades are not my priority. (Can it be true?!) So, while I do study, I still won't miss fun or interesting things to do because I'm feeling continually aware of the finite nature of my time here. To give an idea of why I'm kinda behind on my homework, here's a detail of my weekly events:

-Salsa/merengue class on Monday, followed by a (admittedly kinda crappy) evening at the bar
-Soiréé Latina on Tuesday, after listening to the Lyon - Madrid match on an online french station thanks to my lack of TV here. Gotta follow these Champions League knockout games! (Barça, do not disappoint me again...) I've got a lot of pride staked on their next game in two weeks. A lot. I'm quite nervous.
-To the movie theater to see Black Swan on Wednesday. Nuttier than a can of peanuts, but I liked it! Highly recommended - and watching an English movie with French subtitles is quite interesting, even educational, on a side note.
-Thursday...Another movie, this time en version française. But it was shown at the cité universitaire so I technically "stayed in."
-Friday (i.e. today!), raclette night!! I was super stoked for this and though I have to catch a train at 7 AM (ahhhhh gonna be so tired), I haven't done this since I was a kid - back in Montréal - and there's no way I was turning down this invitation. Besides, it was a chance to see friends before skipping town for the week. For those who haven't heard of this, raclette is a type of swiss cheese, with only a very mild pungent-factor, that is eaten in a very particular type of meal (you call that "raclette" as well). It involved a grill apparatus and little metal boats in which you put the cheese to melt beneath the grill while you put your charcuterie (sliced meats, pretty much, like smoked sausage and bacon) on top to sizzle. You combine these with boiled potatoes on your plate and eat until you feel like you're gonna explode. That's generally what happens, because doing raclette stretches out for several hours and you start to forget how much you've eaten since you make a little bit at a time, all while enjoying your wine and conversation. And suddenly, you're starting to wonder why you got so full and how you're ever going to have room for that tarte aux pommes sitting there for dessert (hint: wait an hour. You'll find room). Until next time, if someone ever offers you raclette...

...don't say no!

This is NOT Montpellier. Don't be fooled. (I am endlessly amused by the signage here xD)

 Time for the obligatory weekly-ish update on life! Accompanied by pictures, even better! This semester is starting to be a bit quieter than the last - haven't gone out so much the past couple weeks, and though I definitely wasn't the going-out type back in Alabama I've got to say I'm getting a little stir crazy here...what, me? Miss Excellent Student, actually feeling antsy to go out and party? I appear to have changed some. Though maybe it's for the best that I haven't actually gone out late this weekend, what with the Valentine's themed events and that faint aroma of "shouldn't you be Not Alone right now? Can't you see the red hearts and flowers?" in the air.

Now, of course I haven't stayed in my room like a little hermit or anything. I did go out on Monday (only once this week? Egads!), then did the more low-key type of hanging a couple times this week with various friends. I took my bike into town and hit the last of the month-long winter markdowns that are a seriously big deal in France, finally finding a pair of skinny blue jeans that will fit my supremely bizarre proportions of big calves/behind and tiny waist without making me feel like I'll explode if I sit down. Also, a super hot - though classy - dress for six euros, cha-ching! Joined a couple friends for pizza and girl talk, which involved a lot of hilarity in interpreting various French insults and swear words and their equivalencies in English. Great fun, very educational, and very inappropriate. =)

Aside from that, classes are still classes - they're going, much as they do in the U.S., so I won't bore you with the details of that. Although I will share this awesome revelation, I'm finally to the point, after my five months here, where I feel at ease speaking in French with just about anyone - and English is really taking a back seat. Not one seat back, we're talking three or four rows back! C'est le progrès! I can listen to my phsyiologie animale teacher, comprehend (90%, anyway - there are certainly still times when a word/turn of phrase catches me off guard), process, and take notes in French at whiz kid speed while listening to what she's saying next! I'm surprising myself quite a bit here, and that makes me really happy and just a little bit proud. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not fluent and still lack a lot of miscellaneous vocabulary and have grammar faults out the wazoo when the conversation ventures to a high level - but it's progress! I'm marking this in particular by my salsa/merengue workshop that I've been in since the beginning of the first semester - when I arrived, I kinda just danced, smiled, and interjected a phrase or two here and there when I felt comfortable enough to. Now, I consider these ladies/gents friends and don't mind shooting off my usual goofball attempt at jokes and gestures, and the instructor has even invited some of the best students (whoo hoo, that includes me!) to perform a choreography - in front of people!- later in the spring. Hopefully that works out!

So, that's pretty much life at the moment. This is really a fabulous place, can't say it enough. As indicated by my first picture, I am also doing a lot of wandering outside of town, to the small towns/villages surrounding the town. They all have their own unique character, and the countryside here, while not obvious and filled with "OH HEY, LOOK AT ME!" mountains or beaches, is exceptionally lovely and can best be described as friendly. And now, thanks to me toting my camera in-hand on some of my bike/jog adventures, I can finally show you some of my faaaavorite spots!

Uh, probably not supposed to go down by the river this way, as there's no set path - but it's more fun this way!

One of the quieter points by the river - peace and quiet :)

One of my absolute favorite places to jog to. Farmland and forest on either side. 30 mins. out of town.

In the above picture, after a couple minutes this gravel path disappears and you're just jogging alongside and these fields. Maybe you'll run into somebody, maybe not...either way, it's always very serene and happens to meet up with the above river at some point!

The windmill of the happy little town of Clapiers. Took my bike to get here - definitely not Montpellier!

 

Clapiers centre (main street). Is it hoppin' or what?

On the Esplanade de Jaun Jaurés in Clapiers. Getting to be dusk, time to go home =)

 Esplanades - essentially the French word for a promenade, or boardwalk if it's on the coast perhaps? - exist everywhere, not just in France. Montpellier has one. Barcelona has one in its famous Las Ramblas. And, of course, this little town has its own version, dedicated to France's favorite Socialist revolutionary! Lightly gravel paved, lined with trees that must be gorgeous in fall/spring, with benches occasional occupied by various townsfolk or maybe even a game of boules going on or some kids goofing off with their parents nearby. It was pretty quiet when I took this picture, seeing as it's the end of the day on a Sunday, but on my first circuit through the town I liked it so much I decided to come back through one more time. Until next time, three cheers for small towns!

5 month anniversary, yahoo!

Lookie, everyone, today marks five months to the day that I've been in Montpellier! Yeah, I'm kind of surprised myself. Am I happy that I've stuck around for this long, or sad that this pretty much means I'm in the beginning of the closing stretch? In any event, I'm glad glad glad that I didn't have to leave at the end of the semester. I love this place, and the people I've met in it, way too much to go just yet. Granted, that will probably make it all the harder to leave when the time actually does come, but for the moment I'm going to try and continue to profiter fully from my time here. So, what did that entail this weekend?

Noooooo internet! The past four days, Montpellier has been blessed with absurdly gorgeous weather. We're talking the kind of sunshine and just-right warmth that makes you happy to be alive (well, I'm easily pleased!). Sorry, everyone back home who's shivering in their booties, but I've spent about 75% of my waking hours outdoors this weekend, pretending I'm a reptile needing to warm my blood. This is a good thing, because as mentioned before, nooooo internet!

Wait, if there's no internet how am I typing this blog post right now? Well, time and time again the kindness of strangers here continues to rock my socks. I get home from my jog/hike on Friday afternoon (again, profiting from this weather!) to find that I have no internet connection. Well, that's a bummer. I investigate and find out through a fellow exchange student that the internet is down in all the buildings. Being that this is France and internet tecchies probably want to enjoy their weekend as much as I do, nobody will even think of coming in to fix it until Monday. The only thing working is wireless, which only functions at the central lobby of the complex. Not a problem, right?

Actually, yes problem. Turns out you need a code/passkey to use this wireless. So, I inquire at the desk, and apparently you have to apply at the sécretariat to get it, and it takes a couple days. Again, it's the weekend, so sécretariat is not in. Awwww.

So, after fifteen minutes or so of moping with a friend, I casually lamented to the right person - a very nice French girl who, as it turns out, was leaving for the weekend and won't need her internet passcode - so I can use hers! So despite being completely in the dark connection-wise in my dorm, all hope is not lost!

And now here I am, chilling in the lobby typing to all of you. Thankfully, my weekend was surprisingly full! After my jog on Friday I cooked (breakfast for dinner! Crêpes nutella and sausage, yum!) and stayed in with a book, because I had to wake up at 7:15 the next morning for our first exchange group excursion of the semester: Carcassonne (!!), then the Abbaye de Fontfroide! A nicely spent day, including breaking away from the group with two friends to go explore a castle, but more to come on that later.

Today was the typical slow Sunday. Homework, cleaning with my balcony door wide open, then feeling like I had to do something significantly outdoors, I hopped my bike and skipped town, yo. I took my usual route out of the city, found the highway with its convenient pedestrian pathway, and rode to my heart's content. I ended up in an adorable village called Clapiers, one of the small towns located in the greater Montpellier area (in French, l'agglomération). It was a peaceful and rejuvenating if solitary day, though I feel it was very well spent. I guess the lack of internet was a blessing to give me the extra push to explore and really use this glorious weather to its maximum benefit. I'll be looking forward to getting back to class tomorrow, rejoining friends, and doing the obligatory Monday night get-together/sortie en ville. Maybe the internet will be fixed by then, but at the very least I've been reminded of how sadly addicted to the web-o-sphere we all are. 'Tis a shame, I suppose, but nobody's perfect.

Anyway, that's all for now. It's off to bed, and on to another week! Until next time, coucou de Montpellier!