La Bonne Vie

Bonjour à tous! I'm here to continue lovely Mary Martin's blog from her year in France, so as a tribute to my favorite singing redhead, I welcome you to the blog of my adventures in the south of France!

Well, it's finally here. After months and months of anticipation, I have made it to Montpellier, France! I'm alive and doing well, except for a slight mishap of a jar of almond butter breaking in my backpack. Gro-dy.

My journey started Thursday night with Johnny T taking me to Terminal E where I met J Ro to send me off. I flew my bff Icelandair, consistently providing me the cheapest airfaire to Europe, complete with with a riveting layover in Iceland! Did you know that 60% of the population lives in the city of Reykjavic? Thank you, Icelandair.

I arrived in Paris very sleep deprived, where I met a fellow assistant whom I'll be living with in Montpellier. We rushed to the trains to pick up our tickets so we could wait for 4 hours until our train arrived. We met 2 other assistants in the waiting area coincidentally, and they soon got taken away from me by lurking French workers handing out surveys on their new ice cream product. Clearly I couldn't participate because of my lactose allergy, so I volunteered to sit and watch the luggage while everyone else downed spoonfuls of ice cream and got 10 euros. In the words of Barney Stinson, awesome.

Later on our train arrived, and Lisa and I were able to further French disdain for Americans by dragging on our massive quantities of luggage through the narrow train cars. I certainly managed to knock out at least a few French people with my giant LL Bean backpack. Fortunately some strong men were very willing to help me and took care of my luggage. Being a young, cute, small girl continues to serve me well. I spent the train ride watching the beautiful countryside of France pass me by, watching The office and 30 Rock on my iPod, juxtaposed with the hustle and bustle of French conversation that I creepily tried to listen to in order to see what I could pick up. For the second half of the ride, the cutest French baby and her mother sat across me and I think I crossed a line in staring.

We arrived in Montpellier finally at 22h (10:00 for you Americans out there) and took a taxi to hostel #1, L'Hôtel Stars Montpellier Sud. It was adorable,

yet in the morning Lisa and I were off to hostel #2, Hôtel Majestic, in the center of the city. This hostel was full Friday night, and as it in such a prime location and extremely cheap, we decided we would stay here Saturday and Sunday. It's even more adorable, situated in a remote side street.

Montpellier is an absolute dream living situation. The weather is perfect. There are palm trees, open air markets, cafés, shopping, wire balconies, everything I have been fantasizing about since my last ventures in Europe. I cannot believe this is my home for the next 7 months! We spent the day wandering the city, eating, buying phones (where I had my first epic fail French conversation and felt like an ignorant American), searching for apartments, and of course lounging. What a life, non?

My French is already improving rapidly which I am super pumped about. I'm picking up phrases and words and practicing speaking whenever possible. Occasionally people respond in English, knowing full well my dire attempts to pretend I'm French, others look confused, clearly not understanding a word I say, others give me the benefit of the doubt and respond in French and then we actually converse! One of the guys in the hostel said he was impressed with my French as an American! Point for me!

One thing I really have to work is French words for food. I was at dinner tonight and was frantically looking up things in my pocket dictionary, finding such delicacies as rabbit stew and lamb skewers. Not knowing about gluten/dairy infiltration, I decided on Spanich paella which I know to be a Spanish rice dish. As it came closer I saw giant shrimp on my plate, complete with eyes, antennae, claws, wings, whatever. I don't like to consider myself a picky eater but anything that looks like it does as when it is living, I freak the crap out. Plus I hate shrimp. And scallops. And mussels. And other chewy sea creatures. All of which were in Spanish paella. The rice was quite delicious, but sadly les fruits de mer (seafood) took over. Now I know for the future!

Anyways, I've been rambling for a while, I just want to keep everyone updated! I certainly will not keep up with this often or make these as long once things start picking up, but I figure I'll give it a go.