I'm sitting in a cafe between my house and the centre ville on a street I walk up every day. I've been feeling pretty well-integrated into Montpellier this week: I spent Halloween here, went to the doctor, played pub quiz, babysat, went to a dance/play, and got my hair cut... as they say, it's all part of the adventure. But, first things first: there were several mornings a few weeks ago when the sunrise was truly incredible. I took pictures, of course, but they barely capture the reality. Always the problem, isn't it?
. . .
A few weekends ago, I met a friend from UNC in Barcelona, and the next weekend I went to Nîmes with some friends from the UNC program.
In Barcelona, I met up with my friend Amanda, who I danced with at UNC. She speaks only a little Spanish and I speak practically none, which made for an adventure any time we were interacting with non-anglophones. We had a very non-touristy weekend, which was great. I'm so over being a Tourist and going to all the Museums and Important Sights. Friday afternoon we just wandered around the part of the city where our hostel was...we stopped and ate at a little cafe and then walked (like 5 km!) in a big circle. Saturday we went to this really cool market and we got lunch there and then wandered around more and had a picnic in between a church and a playground in a neighborhood near the market. There was so much incredible fresh fruit there...we had several fresh fruit juices for just a euro each!!
So tasty. Then we went and looked and the port and the beach, and then went on a free Gaudi tour (Gaudi was a modernist/Art Nouveau architect) which was really interesting.
Waiting for the tour.
This is one of the buildings we saw - La Pedrera - which was commissioned as a home for a wealthy couple at the very beginning of the 20th century.
This:
is a really terrible picture of the incredible Temple Expiatori de Sagrada Familia, also designed by Gaudi. (Go here for what it actually looks like) Construction started about 80 years ago and it's still not finished...wow. It's supposed to look like this when it's finished.
After that we went to see a light/music show at some fountains and then had dinner at a Mexican place (we both had been missing it) and then found a local bar and (accidentally) got HUGE but inexpensive gelato things:
and we stayed there and talked for so long that our waiter (who was adorable) brought us free delicious (super thick!) hot chocolate, which he said was a specialty of North Carolina or something (he was really excited when we told him we were from there)...I think maybe he thought it was in the north of the US?
Sunday morning I wandered around more and got breakfast at a boulangerie-like place ... I wanted to do more things but I didn't have time before my bus left (that's what the guy at the reception desk at the hostel told me), so I just wandered around a lot until I had to be at the bus station. It was great to see the city, but the best part was hanging out with my friend. She graduated from UNC this spring, and it was so nice to be able to spend some time with her.
. . .
The next weekend, I went with some friends to Nîmes. I was disappointed because, due to weird, very French (i.e. unhelpful) bus schedules, we weren't able to go see the Pont du Gard (go here), but we did see some other cool things.
This is the Maison Carrée ("Squared House"...), which was an old Roman temple. I was pretty excited about it, because I took an archaeology class last fall and learned all about Roman temples (and had never seen one for myself)... It ended up being a lot smaller than I expected, which is fine, but there was no information or anything: just a 3D movie theater that took up the entirety of the temple interior. whatever, though, it was still cool.
We also went to the Roman arena, which is apparently one of the best-preserved arenas around. They do matador/bull stuff there now.
This cat was following us around and when I sat down, he just climbed on my lap and curled up. It was pretty adorable.
Us! me, Ali, Kathleen, and Kelsey.
After walking all over (it's a small city), we found a market and bought lots of good food for a picnic (peach and pear yogurt mmm, bread, brie, goat cheese, and lots of fresh fruit)...and went to the Jardin de la Fontaine, which was such a great park.
It was beautifully decorated with lots of sculptures and balustrades like most French parks (in addition to a Roman temple to Diana), but it also had REAL green things. French parks tend to be paved with trees, but this was almost like Duke Gardens in Durham.
. . .
This past weekend was Halloween, which was not at all the same here, even though some people besides us dressed up. In the afternoon, we all went over to the program director's house for lunch. It was a potluck, so I made chocolate mousse, which I learned ("learned") how to make while I was in La Rochelle for vacation. It ended up being harder than I remembered, so the mousse was more dense and less mousse-y, but it was still good.
Remember the ugly face contests? Well, we did that after we ate...always endlessly amusing. Here's the best one:
Maddie, Ali, Bonnie, and I. As Bonnie put it, "I think we really nailed it on this one" ....yeah.
Some of my friends came over that night to get in costume, which was fun. It was hard to find costumes given our purposefully neutral wardrobes, but we managed to come up with some things...
Bonnie was a pirate, Jillian didn't dress up, I was a secretary, and Ali was a doll. We didn't do anything particular, but it was interesting to spend Halloween somewhere else besides Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. I have to say, though...I prefer Franklin St.
. . .
So! This week, finally. Saturday was Halloween, and Sunday and Monday my kind-of-cold got worse, so I missed part of my class on Monday and went to the doctor. French doctor's offices are quite different....they're 3/4 officey-office, 1/4 what we think of as a doctor's office (a bed thing, sink, tongue compressors, etc). Weird. He didn't tell me anything about what I was sick with but prescribed me several different medicines that are all probably OTC in the US. I did my best to remember how many of each to take, and how many different times during the day...I'm better now, at any rate. Tuesday and Thursday evenings, Ali, Kathleen, Bonnie and I went to two different pub quizzes at some English pubs...we aren't very good, but it's fun to try. Also (this is for you, Dad, and other beer lovers!), Ali and I tried the 'banana bread beer' at one of the pubs...not bad, but not as banana-bready as I was hoping. I asked the bartender how they make it and she had no idea, but apparently the process involves bananas. Want to try it, Dad?!
Wednesday night I babysat for the second time here...a guy in my building knocked on our door a few weeks ago and asked if I could babysit (or "watch" really, since his son is 8 and very articulate). It's great! He's a really sweet kid. Last night, some of us had to go to a theater/dance performance for a theater class we're taking. It was thought provoking, because they talked about it decidedly as a play and not dance, which made for interesting reflection on the line between theater and dance.
This afternoon, Ali, Kathleen, and I went to get our haircut at a random haircutting school we found. It was a hilarious experience...I can't describe it otherwise. Ridiculous? Unreal? My person washed my hair twice and did NOT use conditioner (mistakkeeee), and then spent forever brushing it out. We had quite a time figuring out what I wanted in French, and then she spent a while brushing all of my hair into a ponytail literally on my forehead. I looked either like my face was on backwards, or like a unicorn. She used some tactic to cut all the layers at once, but from underneath (i.e. all I could see), it looked like she was cutting 7 inches of [all of] my hair off, which was NOT what we discussed. She finished trimming it and it looked funny because it was really straight (I asked her to cut it to accentuate the curls, since my hair is now curly?!). She started blowing it dry to make it curly........I wish I could recreate this scene. She was scrunching my hair up and blowing it dry in her fist, which made it curly, and it got to the point where it looked good.....but she kept going. By the time she was done, I AM NOT KIDDING, it looked like this:
un.real. I thought about telling her to stop when it looked good, but she was so adamantly continuing that I wanted to see what the finished product would be. It was incredibly funny. I kept looking in the mirror and trying to keep from laughing (I didn't want to hurt her feelings)...but it was virtually impossible, especially when I would make eye contact with Kathleen, who was getting her hair cut nearby. My hair has since calmed down some, and I'm going to wash it and see how it dries naturally....I think it'll actually be okay if I don't dry it like I'm a runway model, like she did. I'll post pictures as soon as it looks normal. (ha!)
I have to go eat dinner now...I'm starving and I think the cafe is closing soon. Bisous!
. . .
* ahha I'm not even going to say it
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