Blog:

Whoa, so much has happened in the last three days it feels like I’ve already been here a couple of weeks. First of all, I love Montpellier—and my apartment is INCROYABLE! It’s straight out of Gigi. We enter the courtyard through big green doors and take the old stone stairwell up to the third level. We then go through a blue door that brings us back outside onto a little … walkway to our third door. Once we’re through that door the apartment to the left belongs to our very sweet, cute, landlord—Mme Marcou—and ours’ is to the right. Dad will be happy to know that there are four locks to get through before making it to our apartment. Our apartment is wallpapered in old prints and furnished with antiques. We have beautiful wardrobes with plenty of space for everything. The ceilings are really high, maybe sixteen feet. Mme Marcou gave us towels, sheets, comforters, dishes, an electronic teapot, fruit… she’s really sweet. I think she’ll let you stay here on our couch, mom, when you visit.

Anyway, let’s see, things we’ve done. Friday morning we met our program coordinators—four people on staff for bureaucratic purposes, and three Paul Valery students whose job is to invite us to parties and take us out. Sabrina, a masters student at Paul Valery, lead me around the city with six other students. It was raining, but it was my first sight of the city after the Dramamine wore off, so I thought it was beautiful. We had orientation at our student center and then a little break during which I perused a four story book store. After our break, they took us all out to a good French restaurant with very good food. I got to sit across from Francois, who’s not allowed to speak English to any of us, so I was really lucky to have the chance to use French, though I felt like I blundered through everything. Dinner was fabulous—it took two hours to eat, but it felt like forty minutes. After dinner they took us to a bar frequented by Americans (probably because the atmosphere is so homey and they show sports on the TVs) called the O’Carolins, which is two doors down from my apartment door. After, Francois took a small group of us to a bar called Rockstore so that we could dance. Unfortunately there were not a lot of people because the students are all on vacation, but we danced anyway, and the style and rhythm of dance was so different that I felt like Baby in Dirty Dancing—that awkward. Francois will teach us, he’s very good at this style of dance… I think it’s called… the Techdec? It’s the latest craze, Sabrina thinks it’s stupid. Oh, and Jimmy, our other French student worker is studying ball room dancing, so he was happy to hear that he could practice swing and salsa with me, I didn’t think I’d find anyone in France who knew swing.

Yesterday was move-in day at the apartment; we got settled, bought groceries, and went to meet friends. I went out to dinner with four brand new friends (the cheapest we could find—I’m trying to turn everyone on to my frugal ways, Europe is so expensive!), then we went to the O’Carolins to watch the Paris-Montpellier rugby match (Montpellier got slaughtered—33-6), and then to Sabrina and Francois’s favorite bar The Circus Bar. I had a fabulous time, it was the first time I really was able to carry on conversations and I felt like an hour at that bar improved the ease of my language tenfold.

Today we (roomie Rachel and friend Adriana) woke up and took the tram to find this little church group. It was in a small room and there were twenty two people. We got their while they were singing French Christmas carols about the visitors that came after Christ was born and then the pastor asked for bible verses, testimonies, prayer requests, and something else I didn’t understand. People would pick bible verses and we’d take turns reading (good practice for my pronunciation) then the person would tell why they were inspired by that bible verse in the last week and the pastor would elaborate on the verse. After we were done with this process and with prayer requests and prayers, we all sat down and the pastor and his wife (who are both from Michigan, but have lived here for eighteen years) fed everyone lunch. After we’d left, we looked at the time and we spent four and a half hours there—and we were a half an hour late! After church we checked out Adriana’s apartment and sat down at a table on La Place de la Comédie (which has the opera house, a carousal, the statue of the three graces, and a lot of activity) to have a shot of espresso. The nice thing about France is that you can take your time, I don’t feel like I have to buy things at every place I go to as long as someone else does, and buying a shot of espresso (though it was expensive at 1,30 E) gives you about two hours of people watching and relaxing at the café with friends. Now I’m cooking dinner for myself but then I’ll go out to dinner with my roommate and Adriana and have a glass of wine with them (it’s cheaper than water). I’m looking forward to an early bedtime tonight, and tomorrow I will do errands I couldn’t do today because everything was closed. And I’ll go to the student center for the wi-fi and post this blog J.

I’m a very lucky abroad student. Not only did I get a terrific apartment, the student strike and delayed semester at Paul Valery is really advantageous. We get three weeks of an intensive language course before classes begin and to supplement this course they’ve planned free fieldtrips to Provence and to another region in our province, and there are wine and cheese tasting excursions planned and French singing sessions. The group of Integrated students is actually very large, and I have met a lot of people I really like.