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.