Zoo, I

The program assistants scheduled us a barbeque yesterday from six until eight, and being that I was done with classes at three, I had leisure time for a few hours. So Sam and I went to the zoo. We'd always been tempted by the Zoo Lunaret signs all over the place, and once even climbed up this massive hill to get there, but it had been closed. Yesterday, however, it was open. We were a bit wary just walking in at first, because there were no signs posted about price, but as we got farther and farther in it seemed more and more like there was no fee. Sweet!

One of the first signs we encountered I thought at first was an arrow pointing us to the trail, but upon reading found that it was Today's Fire Risk. Cheery. It put me at ease to see that it was 'weak'. After the deluge this weekend you could blowtorch a tree and nothing would happen.

Unlike most places in France, the zoo had toilets at random intervals throughout the park. However, like most places in France, they were out of order. All of them. I did love the shape and the color, though. Lots more exciting than a Porta-John.




Bawk! There was an entire ostrich pen that held about four or five. After watching them for about twenty minutes, I have decided that they are even dumber than I had previously imagined. One spent a considerable amount of time eating its own feces.

I took minutes and minutes of video, but there's no time to upload them at the present.

Zoo, II

This park was also miles and miles long, which was just craziness since I'd never seen it before. Sam and I accidentally took the 'botanical wildness' path which was about thirty minutes of pointless walking with no real animals but a lot of fun facts along the way. Did you know they claim to have squirrels in the zoo? I cannot believe it. The single squirrel I've set eyes on here was squished under the weight of a Peugeot.

So we turn a corner and - whee! Rhino! Right there! She was pretty close since her mud bath was about twenty feet from the guard rail. She flopped down unladylike into the muck and I'm pretty sure at one time she passed gas. After dousing halfway, she proceeded to spend minutes and minutes rubbing against a tree and some rocks. Fun life.

Lemur! During our botanical walk, Sam and I kept being tempted by signs that pointed to the lemurs without ever actually seeing the lemurs. Finally, near the exit, there it was - the Lemurarium! It's this gigantic enclosed space where you can walk around the outside parameters and see the lemurs (and some monkeys, I think) swinging from ropes, and then you go inside and get to see them eating or sleeping. It was very, very adorable. They also had a lizard and a turtle in one enclosure, and something that looked like a sick dingo in another.

Moving on, the barbecue was also quite enjoyable. The email told us to bring either a dessert or a beverage, so we stopped by the Monoprix and I picked up 1.5 liters of Pepsi Max (Pepsi Un obviously didn't go over well here). I felt kind of cheap, since it only cost $1.38 euro, but it turns out a lot of other people did the same thing. Oh, it was so good! I wish I'd taken a picture of the table. There was three different kinds of cheese, lots of bread, rice with some kind of vegetables, plenty of cookies, some macaroons, four entire bars of chocolate, sausages, burgers, and eventually this tasty, tasty lemon tart. It was like a gorge-fest.

Data Entry

My host family is going on vacation this weekend, which also means that it's a vacation of sorts for me, since now I can do my laundry, talk on the phone, and come downstairs in my pajamas. For now, here's some pictures.

Sam, Katy, and I found this sadistic wall on the way to the zoo awhile ago. I thought my eyes deceived me but no; that is broken bottle glass embedded in the top of the wall to deter n'er-do-wells from stealing the valuable building supplies from the other side.




You can never have too many cat pictures. Especially if the cat is minus an eye. I liked this one especially because it looks like Angel had just broken the pot and was staring at me in defiance. This is the more vocal of the two cats, and I am such a softie I just have to pet him whenever he looks at me and rrrrowls.

I did mostly data entry today at the library, which the librarian kept apologizing to me for since she said it was so dull but I actually enjoyed immensely. She usually gives me rapid instructions that I have to pay attention to closely in order to understand, so it was pretty relaxing to sit back and enter information about literary articles. Most of it was dullsville; lofty essays on Keatsian moral structures and the man versus beast paradox found in Caebee's later works. Oh, psst. I changed the keyboard structure to American so I could type faster (I hate the French keyboard with a passion; you have to hold down shift to get numbers and periods) and the libarian commented on how quickly I'd adapted. I accepted the compliment without mentioning my deviation. I'm a rascal.

Avignon Fountain

I had forgotten to add this awhile ago, so better late than never. This was another picture taken at Avignon (the Pope palace area) and it took a lot of old stone stair climbing to get to. Luckily it was a sunny day out (unlike today) so it wasn't bad at all. Actually, I'm lying about the weather today. I just hadn't opened my shutters yet. It's pretty nice out, and Angel's back on the chaise by the pool. I told Madame about how I thought that Angel was a girl, and she told me that for months they thought so as well, which is why they named him Angel. Apparently Angel is pretty light on his feet.

It's very weird to have most of my currency transactions in coins. I keep forgetting to put my change at the end of the day in a more accessible place, because instead of just like forty cents in my pockets it ends up being more like three dollars.

Also weird is the restriction on library materials. Back home, I'm accustomed to taking out mountains of books at a time, and at the library here students can take out two books + two magazines, and that's it.

Pregnant Kitty Picture

I don't even know what to do with myself today. On Monday, my first class isn't until 4:00 PM, so there's a lot of down time during the afternoon. Currently on the schedule is visiting Francoise's office to finish my MAXSA assignment, and then going to Building B on campus to drop off something for the library.

Speaking of MAXSA, it's the dumbest thing in the world. It stands for MAXimizing Study Abroad, it's worth one credit, and it's lackluster. The good thing about it is that the whole class consists of sending some anonymous guy a paragraph or two about a preassigned topic every three weeks. So the workload isn't killing me, it's just irritating to have to remember to do it. Last topic was 'name the methods that you'll use to really enrich your experience abroad' as well as 'how do you define yourself'? Lame.

I hurried up to take this picture today, and I know that you can't tell that the kitty has eyes, but she does. I still don't know her name. This is the pregnant one. I was bad this morning and let her inside, even though I'm not sure if I'm supposed to do that. She just looked so pathetic outside in the cold and wet that I caved.

Check out this madness. On Saturday when Dad and I were walking around the city, we heard this funky drum band that sounded a lot like the percussion group from Mt. Lebanon. We couldn't understand what these people were doing until they put on these bizarre arm things as well and paraded around on all fours on stilts. Amazing! This isn't a great shot, since my camera's batteries died soon after, but you get the idea.

Pet Problems

As bad as the weather was yesterday, it's even worse today, so no Mosson Flea Market for me, I'm afraid. The whole family except Elsa just went out to lunch at a friend's so that means internet galore.

Last night, it was so nasty out that both the cats and the dogs were allowed to sleep in the house. Angel, the pretty gray one, came right up to my room and was burrowing around in my blanket being cute. She then proceeded to explore around for awhile, sniffing at the desk, the chair, and then doing that stretchy thing with her claws on my rug. After that, she went into my closet to check out my suitcases.

I was talking to Travis on the phone at that point, and I hear a faint 'ptt. . . pttttttt'. I look over halfheartedly to see what she's doing and, ah! She's taking a huge, nasty dump on the floor of the closet! Crap! I shout some apology to Travis and hurry across the hall to get Elsa, because I sure as heck did not want to clean up that mess. Not my cat. Elsa didn't really want to do it either, so she inveigled her boyfriend Berenger into mopping up the disgusting mess. Eww. I left my windows open all night. I was telling Elsa what happened and she kept correcting me and I couldn't figure out why she would keep saying 'il'. . . then it hit me that Angel was a boy cat. Oh, wow! I also found out this morning that Luna is spelled 'Louna', and I still don't know what the black cat's name is.

Meal Enjoyment

I think my stomach is going to rupture. Seriously. Dad took me out to dinner tonight at a cute little restaurant called the Brasserie d'Eden, and it was marvelous. We chose the complete meal, and for the first course I had a salad with some kind of toasted fish on top, and Dad's had duck, and both were excellent. Then we ate our rolls. The main course for me was this kind of log thing that didn't look all too appetizing but tasted spectacular - it was pork rolled with mushrooms in sort of a cabbagey lining. There was also this softish quiche thing that was very good, au gratin potatoes, and broccoli. I didn't eat the carrots. Dad had the same thing except for his main plate was a practically-rare steak of sorts. Then, after this gustatory explosion, and about a half hour of waiting, we were brought a cheese plate with a soft cheese that was tasty, a hard cheese that was equally tasty, a blue cheese that I didn't like, along with a mini salad to eat it with. After that (!) Dad was too full to have a dessert and I should have behaved likewise but I ordered the creme brulee since I've never had it before, and I wish I hadn't been so full because it was excellent.

Of course, the weekend that Dad comes up it rains like a fool. We were pretty lucky during the day; it spat here and there but never actually heavy, but when we left the restaurant it was definitely there. Dad insisted that I take a cab home, and it was not some ordinary checkered taxi that picked me up but a bona fide Mercedes. My, what class! The driver was so nice, he talked to me the entire way there and actually stopped the meter at one point because the fare was getting to be so expensive. I tipped him three dollars for that but upon reflecting I may have accidentally tipped him thirteen. Oops.

The library internship went really well; she had me and this other assistant named Anna run to the Librarie Sauramps to pick up these books by James Sallis because he's coming sometime in October and it doesn't look good if we don't stock his books beforehand. Afterwards, she asked me if I knew Excel, in which I responded affirmatively. She then whipped out a barrage of French telling me how they have to adjust the size of this card to fit in people's wallets and could I create a row of 6x6 boxes and just print it out and measure it so that it fits?

Well, I was kind of lying about the Excel, since I had used it once in like eighth grade but then promptly forgot everything I'd learned. Plus, all of the commands and menu bars were in French, so that didn't really give me much help. I just dumbly looked at the monitor for awhile, and made x's in 1-6 and A-F and then tried to size it so it would fit in a wallet. I finally got the size right, and the director was like, "Alaina, well can you get boxes on there? We need boxes!" So I had no idea how to make borders around the boxes so that they'd show up when I printed it, and made a halfhearted attempt to just draw boxes which I quickly abandoned once I saw how lame they looked. It was at this point around 4:57 and I needed to get it done. I started choosing random menu icons and hoping they'd give me borders, but no; but for the grace of god I would have failed miserably if I hadn't found the 'border' tab at the last moment. The director seemed happy enough with it and I was just relieved not to have looked like a total moron.

Cats Cats Cats

I'm sure that everyone is glad to know that I found Dad without incident at the library, and that the evening went very well. My host mama provided so much food that it was like a banquet. For appetizers, there were two different kinds of bread with smoked salmon and caviar. Also available was a pate of sorts. Then, we had a huge plate of couscous with veal and mixed vegetables with some kind of sauce on top, with more bread. Then, we had a huge cheese plate with different kinds of goat cheese and some Roquefort. THEN, after I didn't believe that we could possibly eat anything else, she brought out a ton of really great fruit salad and an orange cake. THEN, she offered us tea. Oh man, I feel like I could burst.

Yesterday I was looking out my window and noticed fluffy Angel kitty on the chaise longue. I hurried up and got my camera, and then hustled into the garden to take a picture. Isn't she just the prettiest (except for Kitty, of course)

Exciting news in the cat world - the other kitty at the house, of whom I haven't posted any pictures, sorry, is going to have kittens in November! Oh, wow! Apparently she's had like, five other litters (Angel is the result of one of the latest ones) so this isn't some new thing.

I wheedled my way into a free American Library card today. I was hoping that I wouldn't have to pay for one, but didn't want to come right out and say 'please give me a freebie just because I work here' so I asked her where I could purchase a membership. She exclaimed "oh, no! I'll give you a card! Don't worry about it, seriously!". I'm glad that I hadn't been able to purchase one previously.

I'm typing this from Dad's super swank hotel room, at the Mercure (three stars!). Tomorrow we're going to sightsee around Montpellier, so I'll have to empty out the old camera card. Hopefully an interesting blog entry to come.

Pronunciation

I helped Nina with her English homework last night, and it was one of the most taxing exercises I have ever done. There was a conversation between Alan and Judy in her book about some dumb vacation, and I would read the sentence, mentally convert it into French, repeat it (in French) to Nina, who would repeat it back to me in English. Good god, we were both very frustrated and angry by the end of it.

Oh, god! Ha! The story was about Alan and how he went to several beaches on his vacation, except the French don't really like pronouncing 'ea' like 'eeee' and so when I gave her the sentence "Je suis allee avec ma famille aux plages differentes" she said "I went with my parents to different bitches". I could not stop laughing for a good minute and a half. I had to go ask for a kleenex.

Also funny; here, 50 cent is called 'fiff-it-ee cents'.

I was trying to show them a good fake French accent and I asked them if they'd ever seen the part in The Little Mermaid where Chef Louis is singing that song about les poissons. They got really confused because in the French version, Chef Louis sings (in French) with an Italian accent. Oh, wacky.

They are really huge fans of kebabs here, but they call them 'kay-bobs'.

Tomorrow's my first day at the library, and the head lady (who I learned has over 300 turtle figurines) told me that I would spend most of it in the Archive Attic with this other assistant, and I didn't really understand what we would be doing but it's obviously really boring because she said you'd fall asleep if you tried to do it by yourself.

I really need to get more pictures up of the house and the animals, but I never think about it until I'm away from the house. The bunny is scared of everything and won't let me pet it. Angel the cat (with one good eye) was on my bed the other night before I went to sleep and clawed happily into my arm for a long while; the fish are dull; Rexine (I found out the other dog's name) is almost as dull as the fish; and Luna has ADD.

Buttons

As you're all dying to know what happened with the time fiasco, of course, let me reassure you that I was very prompt and almost early. It was at 9:30, but we are in fact leaving this office at nine. So really I was only forty minutes early.

Madame had a dream last night that her daughter Nina was on the tram and covered in buttons. I didn't really understand the rest of it but she said something about taking her to the doctor.

This is what nightmares are made of for children and parents alike. No cushy foam padding here, nuh uh. This is sharp edges, awkward angles, and the smooth sound of pure concrete. No tires were harmed in the making of this playground.


Here's another forboding look at the old-school (hah, pun) University of Medicine. Nostradamus went here and was, consequently, kicked out because he had been an apothecary, a 13th century no-no. I hear tell that the museum at the School of Medicine still has the record of his expulsion.

?:30 in the AM

Although I'm still quite pleased about my internship placement, I am having some hesitations about what to do for tomorrow. I received an email today from Alexandra, who is in charge of everything regarding work. Here's how it went:

Chere Alaina,
je viens d'avoir la bibliotheque am?caine. Nous avons rendez vous demain mercredi 20 septembre ?h30 le matin.
Viens ?'IML ?h et nous irons ensemble.
Bonne journ?/FONT>
Alexandra

Now, I'm used to the characters in my emails from French people being all screwy, and most of the time I can guess at what they're trying to say. However, what bothers me here is that she is saying, essentially, is that she will accompany me to the American Library tomorrow, Wednesday, the 20th of September, at "?:30 in the morning". Uhh! What? Crap! What time could that be? Since there's only one question mark, I devine that it's either 7, 8, or 9:30 in the morning. If it's 7:30, well then I'll just miss my interview because there's no way that I can get down there that early. I'll play it safe and pretend that it's 8:30. But wait! Before, they warned everyone to get to the office a half hour early so that we'd make it to our interview on time. Is this the time to meet at the office, or the actual meeting? Because of this little nuance, I now have be at the IML office all the way in the middle of the city at 8:00 in the morning for an appointment that could very well be at 9:30. I'll be sure to bring a book.

Speaking of books, I'm still flying through them. I think it's because I feel so disobediant while reading them, like English is this forbidden voodoo language. I'm almost finished with Great Expectations, which I always got about halfway through before but could never read the whole enchilada.

Oh, yes. Classes. They went quite well today, despite the French Language course that lasted three hours. That was a tough one. I really like my Literature class, for no other reason except that I've already had to read most of the books and poems on the syllabus so I already have a distinct advantage. The teacher was a no-nonsense kind of prof so hopefully a lot of the students will drop it, since there were way too many in the class. We had to do a diction exercise in Grammar, which I've never done in my entire life. It consisted of her reading out this long, complicated passage while we frantically tried to write down exactly what she was saying. It didn't help that most French words have about six extraneous letters that aren't pronounced, but I think I did well.

I should be revered and admired by friends and relatives alike - last night at dinner, Madame pulled out a plate at dinner and set it in the middle of the table, to the delight of both girls. They wanted me to try some. I wish I had a picture. It was - I kid you not - raw slices of ham with cantelope. Oh! Lord! I was goaded into trying some, and while it wasn't horrible, it didn't taste like much more than raw meat on fruit. And they say peanut butter is repulsive.

Actual Classes

My heart is dancing merrily inside my chest - I am relieved of my internship duties with that horrible cross woman, Madame Marti. I went to the office this morning and pretty much begged Francoise to give me the library internship since Joe couldn't fit it into hIS schedule, and I just received an email that it's all been set up and I should go down to the internship office and get everything in order. Oh, I was so dreading having to work from 8:00 until 12:00 two days a week with that lady. Now I'm at the American Library of Montpellier, which (I hope) is infinitely better.

I waited for my class schedule today, and everything looks very nice. Here, I'll recount it:

Monday: nothing until 4:00 PM (woo!), which is French Language for two hours, then an hour lab.

Tuesday: 10:00 literature class with a woman named Pujol Martine. I'm pretty sure that "Pujol" is pronounced "poo-hole", which I cannot even type with a straight countenance. Then French Language again at 1:00, then another French Language at 3:00.

Wednesday: nothing until 12:30, which is - again - French Language. Afterwards is World of Work for my internship.

Thursday: this is my early day - 9:30. Sheesh. That's French Language. Good lord. Then, Culture and Patrimony at 1:30.

Friday: 12:30 French Language, and that's it.

What a wonderful schedule!

Classes, Part 2

Blogger was being a little snippy with me during the last post and wouldn't let me add any more pictures, so I have to separate my entries into volumes.

At the Monoprix where I shop I noticed that they had an entire wall devoted to foods from around the world, and wouldn't you know it, America had a section. They weren't kidding in the program guide when they said to bring things like pancake mix. It's foreign and pricey. Other things on the wall included popcorn, maple syrup, peanut butter (people here cannot believe that Americans eat so much peanut butter, and they found the combination of chocolate and PB very revolting), and baked beans in a can. I'll provide a better picture of the beans at a later date.

Translated, this poster says:
With us, comrade!
Divide the work!
Share the riches!
Onward and upward towards Socialism!

I felt like I was reading Animal Farm.

This was taken the other night at the Place de la Comedie, and I think it's one of the older buildings in Montpellier. It's called the Opera, and there's always a lot of hippies with guitars singing on the steps. It's pretty, no?

I took a video of Luna the dog before I left for classes, and it didn't really turn out that interestingly. It's 58 seconds of dull dog. She was more excited about gnawing at my ankle than being cute for me.

Classes

I was in a dazed sort of panic last night when I realized that I have not signed up for courses yet and also do not know any times or names of any classes that I should be attending. With that weighing on my mind, I decided to just get to the university at the regular time (9:00) and hope that I saw other Americans wandering around in the same fashion. I didn't. So I went to the Foreign Student Building and told the Welcome Desk lady, "Hi. I am registered for classes here but haven't chosen any courses. What should I do?" Helpfully, she told me that there was nothing for me to do today except return at 5:00 (17:00 she added) to schedule everything for tomorrow. Oh, excellent. I then had eight hours to fiddle around and do nothing. I took the tram to Francoise's and asked a mundane question, then decided I had nothing else to do but to come back here to my homestay. But, yay, free internet. I may take a nap. I changed the controls on Nina's laptop to English so I'm typing like a cheetah.

Some more photo news:

It's the Festival of Patrimoine this weekend past in France, which means that everyone gets really riled up about their heritage and cultural ancestry. Here, that includes performance art and grown men wearing tree make-up. I don't know what creeped me out so much about this guy; it wasn't just the face and the dress, but more of his embracing himself. I wonder how long he was out there for.

At fast-food restaurants here, things seem to be acceptably French if you add a 'le' in front of it. Want to frenchify 'wings'? Make it Le Wings. Dips? No problem. In the TV Guide snippet about "Closer" they made mention of a "stripteaseuse".

Hee. The name 'Alaina' doesn't exist here, and consequently no one can pronounce it. Most people put the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable, like alayNAAAH. No matter how many times I try to correct them it still sounds exactly the same. On the flip side, 'Cauchie' has never been mispronouced once, which is a beautiful and wondrous occurance.

This was last weekend before they took us to the Irish pub. Notice how no one but the American students seem to care that there is a girl dancing with fire in the middle of downtown.

Avignon

So I'm awkwardly pecking this out on Nina's (14 years old) laptop so I can't write forever. We went to Avignon today since it was Madame's birthday and her parents live there. After the feast, while I was ready to pass out on the table and nap for days, they wanted to take a brisk walk to aid the digestion. So as not to seem a party pooper, I went too. We walked to the center of the town which was completely walled in and walked up a half million flights of stairs but it was indeed a marvelous view.

This rather menacing photo is of the golden statue along with a grisly crucifixion. It was huge. This was what everyone flocks to see, I imagine.








Here we have a bridge. It's incomplete. Bizarre. I think Louis the Eighth did something like destroy three quarters of it, but I could be mistaken. You were allowed to go walk on it, but the line went on forever and I really didnt care enough to stand in the sun for another hour.

Everything is going well with the host family; I took a bath/shower last night (sitting down in the tub, but using the showerhead, weird) and it was great to finally use an actual towel and not just dry off using that nasty plane blanket.

Homestay

Oh man, I have so many pictures I'm going to be an uploading fiend for the next couple of days. Be patient.

So my homestay is like, the best possible option ever. Seriously. They are all very, very nice, and they have good food, and my room is great, and guess what. . . they have a pool. Check it out. This is not the most sunshiney picture ever since it was downpouring when I moved in, but this is the view from my window. Awesome, no?

And speaking of awesome, how cool is the bathroom? I'm going to have to make a conscious effort not to spend hours and hours taking a bath. They have two sinks so there's always room, and I only share the upstairs with the two girls (Nina and Elza) so it's rarely occupied.



This is a picture of the closet in my bedroom. I almost wept with joy when I saw how large it was and how much shelf space I had, since there was no way that all my clothes would have fit in a normal-sized closet.


Oh, check this craziness out. I heard that they were into Native Americanness here, but I couldn't believe that I would see real (or poser) indians in the south of France. They had this huge market thing today (that must be where everyone is on Saturday when nothing is open) with a lot of expensive, artisanal-y craft items for sale.

Okay, more pictures, if you insist. This is one of the dogs (I forget his name). That's really all I can say about him. He's around, I suppose. He likes to lay down.

This little kitty is named Angel, and she is the softest thing ever. Notice that she is minus a working eye as well, just like a Padiddle incarnate. It must be a French cat thing. I'm sure I'll be posting more pictures of her later. There's another cat but she's more elusive and I haven't had a chance to take a picture of her yet.

Essay

My French partner David and I had to do an exercise this morning where we created a story where we went into someone's house when they weren't home and described who lived there. I liked our tale enough to rewrite in (in English, you're welcome) here. Pardon the simplistic translation.

It was a large house in the country. It had three floors. It was yellow with a red door. There was a black convertable. There was a lot of family portraits. In the photos, there was a grandmother, a dog, an uncle, a young girl, and a father. In the house there were things for the dog, like toys, water, and food. There was also a pink bird, who had sang but did not sing anymore since it had been dead for three days. Grandmother had a cabinet in the kitchen for herself, with cereals, fruit such as raisins, and also rice.

In the bedroom of the young girl we found a diary with a lot of secrets. She had a clandestine affair - she was dating a boy who was 28 years old! Unfortunately, there was a love triangle. The uncle also loved the boyfriend.

In the office of the father we found the books from the office. Oh la la! He had embezzled much money! We found all of the money under the cereal of the grandmother.

We took the money for safekeeping and we left.

Sounds like an instant classic to me.

I bought a cream-filled beignet this morning, and it was the most delicious thing in the world. Literally, it was the first pastry I've had since I've got here. Mmm. I should have taken a picture of that too, but I ate it too fast. I had a pear for lunch even though I knew I was going to regret it, and I did. My digestion was unhappy.

We have our Civilization test tomorrow, and I'm not worried at all because the prof pretty much told us that it would consist of questions like "What did you think of Avignon?" and "What river flows under the Pont du Gard?" (answer: the Gard).

Carnage

We finally caught one of the fabled crappy weather days here in Montpellier. Thankfully, I wore my shorter pants so I wasn't as paranoid about hitting a puddle. I had my interview today and sadly it didn't go as well as I would have hoped. Various things went wrong, such as me being the only person in the entire program who needs to go through this complicated insurance process in case I break something or stab someone, which may be likely. Then, the head lady who I'm working for tells me to keep every morning open during the week in case she has to switch days each week. Um, I have things to do, like take classes. Also, she seemed to really boost up my Spanish prowess to the point of having me organize a group of Spanish students together and teach them French. We'll have to see how that works out.

Not only do we choose our classes tomorrow, it's also the day that I meet and move in with my host family, who is reportedly nice to the extreme. So that means I have to gather up all of the crap that magically made its way out of my suitcase and around the dorm room (thank god for small dorm rooms) and somehow smush it back in.

Oh, I had a very stressful and angry French interaction in the cafeteria today. I decided to mix it up and get a sandwich instead of the hot lunch, which always left me unfulfilled. So I stroll over to the buffet where all the sandwiches are being presented, and choose a very nice vegetable filled pita. However, when I put it on my tray to go pay, I get yelled at by this cafeteria worker who is madly gesturing. I have absolutely no idea what he's saying, and even after I tell him that I don't understand, he is still making signs like he wants me to put back the sandwich. Finally I just toss it back into the buffet and go ask one of the assistants, who tells me that the sandwiches there are SHOW sandwiches, and you can't really take them. What? Why would you put show sandwiches next to the other stuff that you can take at a buffet, like the yogurt and the fruit? So I got a panini and was too tense to enjoy it properly.

So there's this street called the "Rue de Bras de Fer" in the centre ville, and everyone was wondering why it was called "Iron-Arm Street" until we saw how the lights were held up. Cute. It's not the best picture in the world, though.


I've decided to have a dead animal post day. This little guy to the left is a result of the wild French drivers that run rampant all over the streets. Bizarrely enough, this was the only squirrel I've seen so far, alive or dead. Penn State this certainly is not.

This happy fellow washed up on the shore where we were staying. This lampray looked like he was posing for us. Luckily I got a picture when I did, because when we walked back some local urchins were doing silly things with it in the sand.


Oh, some shameless self-promotion: I got the highest score in the class on our Grammar test, with a 17/20. It may not sound high but they do things weirdly here - a 13 is like, an A. Professor Gomez even put two smiley faces on my paragraph where I did things exceptionally well.

Gustation

Wine tasting day! Woo! Professor Dekeister took the whole lot of us to the Wine House about nine kilometers away so that we could sample their wares. It was a good time - they had us in a gustatorium that had built-in sinks for spitting, although I cringed every time anyone leaned over to spit. To the left is the second one we tried, which had a nutty bouquet. I don't like tannins in general so red wines aren't my cup of tea, so to speak. The first one that we had was a very very nice white wine from one of the more western regions in the Languedoc area.

Weirdly, they had this gigantic pots all around the outside of the Wine House, so naturally Katy and I chose to peek out of one for a photo op. Joe took this picture, scared all the while that we would force him into the pot as well.

And this is just a random photo that I took about ten minutes ago while Katy was at the ATM, right before she was accosted by an elderly woman who first asked for a euro and then, when refused, asked for any money at all. They had an accordian going outside so it was great ambiance.

Even More

Ooh, pretty. This is the sunset out of Dorm C. It stays light here forever. Check out those neat swirly colors. I bet this is better weather than Penn State (hard to believe).

Me again. This is on the bus back from the Pont du Gard. That there is Joe, who is also an active Project Runway follower. He was lucky enough to get a homestay with a pool.



Arggh! You want to buy gasoline in France? Not if I burn you up first! Do you know why I have all these legs? So I can walk! Which is what you'll be doing a lot of, since you can't afford to pay $1.32 a liter! Fire!

Photo Frenzy

Looking back on the past few entries I realized that this blog is a lot more interesting with photo accompaniment. So I'll indulge.

This is Katy in disgust after we caught a whiff of Padiddle. I wished we had a guitar so we could serenade it with a chorus of Smelly Cat. He was like our personal Pepe le Pew. Oh, but look how happy and contented he was.




Here's an up close and personal look at Padiddle, who has a pathetic face. This photo is dedicated to Mom. I think I may have to adopt him.


Check out the groovy new tram lines! The regular boring ones are just blue with sparrows on them, so this is a psychedelic twist. It's like a moving hallucination.

Oh finally, a picture of me. I'm getting down with my vain self. This was at Fitzpatrick's, a traditional Irish bar. We were here for a good long while on Friday night. That's David behind me, although admittedly not the best picture in the world. Good lord, I'm a regular Busty Belle. No wonder I am the constant recipiant of attention from the menfolk.

More Pictures

Whenever I spend time at the Place de la Comedie and I have a camera, I always face the risk of being a hopeless tourist because I just click, click, click all the time.

Hee, hee. They have McDonald's here, but they also have a rival burger place (that is practically the same restaurant) called Quick. It's not quick; I've been there. They're slow. They're featuring the "Demoniak!" burger right now that has two patties of meat, two slices of cheese, and a layer of . . . ham. In the middle. It's weird looking and not appetizing at all. But here, they just love their ham. They can't get enough. So here they've tried to 'french up' the standard hot dog. And, they tried to make it cool.

Here's a street musician. There's usually three or four out, and they all have a good setup of an amp and usually some vocal backup (future career choice for Arienne, perhaps?) I heard one guy singing Harry Chapin awhile ago, and then another guy was playing the accordian. After that it was the Eurythmics. I'm too poor to be giving away my euros but they are fun to listen to.

I can't remember if I put this one up already, but too bad. This was very pretty. I always think canal = stinky = no fish, but this one at Nimes was quite beautiful. But it was really hot when we went last Sunday and I wish I enjoyed it with less sweat.



Ooh, check out this formidable picture! This was taken one of the first days that we were here, during the Montpellier by Night trip. This is one of the oldest buildings in the city; it's the University of Medicine that has been here since like, 1220. It's the second oldest school of medicine in either France or Europe, I can't remember. But it's crazy old. I haven't really been back to that sector of the city but there is a very nice, huge garden across the street that I would like to see (and take pictures of, obviously).

Dorm Space

I just got caught up on Stephy's blog and it shamed me into adding new photos. So here goes. (Click to enlarge the photos)

I'll start with another toilet photo, because I know that you can never have too many. This is the one on my foor in Dorm Building C - notice the lack of a toilet seat and toilet paper. It's not the most girl-friendly in the world. Also take note of the stained, nasty toilet brush adjacent to the bowl. Grossness. I usually try to time bathroom trips away from home.

Here's a cleaner photo. This was right when I got in. The chair kind of looks like it's talking to me. He'll be my new conversational buddy if I get too lonely. Other than that, I was just happy that I got sheets and a pillow. The room isn't the biggest in the world, but at least I don't have a roommate. Blood would be spilled.

I thought this was the neatest phone carrel ever, and planned to use it to call home and then I got really confused when I picked up the receiver and it had no buttons. Quoi?!? All of a sudden, someone started talking in French on the phone. It was an operater! A real one! Oh, crap. I wasn't ready for that in English, much less French, so I hung up really quickly and scurried away.

This is one of the feral kitties that roam around Vertbois begging for love and food. Oh, they're too cute, but they're also usually too grimy. Katy has taken to wiping them down with paper towels on her bed to get them cleaner, and it's starting to have an effect. This white one is the most desperate for attention, and he's also the most pathetic because there's something weird going on with his right eye, like he got into a fight or something. Katy calls him Padiddle. We had him up in her room last night and he squeezed in between my legs soaking wet to warm up and whoo man, did he stink. Good lord. It's like something died. I think a part of me died as well. We had the windows open and a little bottle of scent nearby, but it didn't have a chance.

This black and white one feigns like he's too good for you but as soon as everyone leaves and he has you to himself he's as friendly as Padiddle, although they're rivals in real life. He's a little cleaner, as well. He pretends not to like me during the day but every evening I hear "mrrrrowwl" underneath my window and I have to go lock my door and pet him for awhile.

There's two grey ones as well but they aren't the most amicable feral cats, so I leave them well enough alone.

Oh! Heresy! I was reading about my host family in this huge binder in the office, and it turns out that they don't have two cats, a dog, and a ferret. I can't believe it. I feel betrayed. Instead, they have two cats, two dogs, and a rabbit. Rabbit is nothing like ferret! Now I feel really dumb, because in the letter I sent to them I mentioned how I never touched a ferret before. They're going to be like, "quoi?!?!" I hope they don't think I have some weird ferret preoccupation.

And what the shiz is up with Facebook? I am hardly out of the country before it starts changing everything. Now it eats up more time then ever. I'm like, god I don't even care about - oooh, someone has a new favorite movie? Someone else left a Facebook group? Oh, scandal! New status reports, goody.

We have to pick our classes soon, which everyone else is freaking out about but which didn't really bother me since all I really need are some grammar and literature classes, all of which I can get just by taking the regular route. The perk is also that they're all in the same building, so I won't go wandering around campus on the first day with a dazed freshman look on my face.