After three days of glowering skies and I awoke this morning (a fair bit later than I had intended) to the sound of the rain :)
It is stil raining now, I'm sitting at my desk in my wee room looking north over the rooftops and, as I've finished classes for the day, I feel that it's time for a bit of an update.
I suppose it must logically always be such that when you have a lot to do then you automatically have less time to talk about it, in any case this is the excuse with which I beg you pardon for not being a better correspondent.
So, are you ready for a long one?
A few adventures:
- Assassins: Shortly after my arrival in Montpellier I was conscripted as an"assassin" with a group of Montpellier couchsurfers. The rules of this amazing game are numerous and complicated, but to give you an idea: each of the 21 players was given 2 targets along with name, address, place of work/study and, at midnight on 25th September, we were let loose across the city to neutralise our targets with water. Once killed you're out of the game, but you're not allowed to tell anyone this, paranoia is the key. Once you kill your target you get contracted to a new operation. I killed my first target at 0300 on Sept 26th, needless to say I felt pretty pleased with myself, until the afternoon of the 30th that is, when a cunning assassin with a water pistol came knocking at my door... and then the 1st Oct when I was caught defenceless outside the university restaurant with a syringe... and then the 3rd Oct when I was calmly admiring the landscape in Ardèche... did I mention that you're only supposed to be "killed" once?
- Cycle to the beach: Last wednesday I made the most of my day off and hired a vélomag* from the city and cycled down to the beach with my friend Ed, he has a lovely super light road bike with dropped handlebars so I was considerable outmatched, but it took us only 25 mins to cycle there where we met some others and had a well deserved swim. Man the Med is salty!
*vélomag are the bikes which belong to the city's transport authority, they are hilarious affairs with über high handle bars, heavy frames and totally internalised break, gear and chain systems, you can hire them from various locations around town for 1 euro (4 hours) or 2 euros (for the day) and if you have an annual tram pass you can pick them up all over the place by swiping your card. Its a pretty good system, it would be even better if they had more than 3 gears and the breaks worked!
- Crémiellère de Georgina et Mireilla: My two lovely catalan friends celebrated their flat warming last Friday. Tortilla, wine, music, dancing...
- Weekend at Ardèche: On Saturday morning I set off with 5 other couchsurfers in an expedition to the Ardèche. 4 of us went in the car with 2 others hitching, we passed by Nimes and (further north) an 11th century fortress before reaching the gorges of Ardèche. Driving along the edges of the gorge was pretty epic, especially the following day when we had all 6 of us + bags in Pauline's wee car. We found a place to park and a VERY steep path ...interjection: ooh lightening!... which took us down to the bottom of the ravine and the river, it was like that part in Lord of the Rings where they're canoeing down the gorge, just spectacular. We swam in the river ...ooh more lightening, it's proper storming out there!... and later we sat on the beach with some wine and some very fine dark chocolate as we watched the moonrise, I genuinely can't make it sound ideal enough, the stuff of dreams. We camped overnight in a wee campsite next to the river (we had to stay in the official campsite because the park rangers saw us and we'd have been fined if they found us wild camping) making meals with what each person had brought and generally sharing multicultural banter (we were: me (Sco), Pauline (Fr), Andrei (US), Trinn (Est), Viola (Chin), Dali (Tun)). On the Sunday we struck camp and ...thunder thunder... made our way (6 in the car!) upriver to this place called Pont d'Arc (I think) which is this incredible natural bridge formed out of the stone, I swam here too but the other's were too fear't of the cold, arg my good ol' north sea training had me in good stead, it was balmy.
- Hitch-hiking home: So on the way back from Ardèche it was my turn to hitchhike, Pauling dropped me and Triin at the nearest village and we thumbed a lift home. It was pretty exciting, only my second time hitchhiking so I was a bit nervous but Triin has done a lot of hitching so I was in good company. We made it back in 3 hitches, it took us 2.5 hours, only half an hour longer than the guys in the car! woop, that's the south of France for you.
- Cooking: This week has been a very good week for food, during the weekend away we feasted, somehow meals materialised out of the bits and bobs which everyone had brought along. Sunday night we cooked chez Viola, Monday I ate at Sabina's (a German friend who also lives at Boutonnet) along with Emma (UK), Julia (Pol), and Julliet (Fr) - so much brioche! On Tuesday Triin and Georgina (Sp) came to mine for dinner, more brioche, tea and banter. Then yesterday I went to a student bible study group where the lovely pastors wife fed us all (including birthday cake, for me! because we missed my birthday before, yum yum) she is so lovely.
- Haircuts: On Tuesday after tea Triin cut my hair for me, she'd never cut hair before so it was pretty fun, she did a pretty awesome job too, although once she'd stopped being nervous she got so into it that I feared she might just keep snipping until I had no hair left. Also on the topic of haircuts, Andrei asked me if I'd cut his hair for him, apparently I'll be paid in cheesecake, needless to say I said I would.
- Cité U: Welcome to all the fun and games of university halls. On Monday the internet was down; on Tuesday the fuses blew and the electricity was down for 16 hours (fun for all the French cheese in the fridge); today the water was off for 2 hours (at least they warned us in advance) and just now the fuses have blown again, yey! ...I've just been off to the lodge to tell them, apparently I've got to talk to my neighbours and find out who is bingeing on electrical appliances, or else they'll come and confiscate everything in our rooms that isn't authorised, so that's my fun task for this evening, woop! ...arg, so the japanese girl in the next room speaks neither French nor English... more fun!
Signs of acclimatisation...?
- I no longer carry my map with me everywhere I go, and sometimes I even leave my dictionary at home!
- I now tend to look the correct way when I cross the road. LEFT first, then right.
- The guy who works at the reception for halls thought I was Belgian (coming from a French person this was not a necessarily a compliment, but it does mean that I sounded not-British for the whole of about 5 mins!).
- I sometimes I catch myself speaking to myself in French :/
- I took comprehensive notes in class today for the first time, whoopee!
You know you're in the south of France when:
- You're sitting outside Grand café de l'esplanade, Esplanade Charles de Gaulle, with an ice-cream and a coffee (strong, black, sucré). You could swear the serveur actually is Asterix. There is a fountain. On the boulevard three musicians play (a cello, a violin, and, yes, an accordion).
- It's week 3 of the semester and the syndicats étudiants are warming up their loudhailers, the first student demonstration was on Tuesday: "il faut augmenter la pression!" apparently.
- There are vines planted on the middle of the round-a-bouts.
Simple things please small minds:
- A mural of the sun in terracotta, on the whitewashed wall of a house, the colour had bled down the wall with the rain. Underneath it read ensoleillé "sunlit".
- Uli taught me how to say 'hard core' in French: dur à cuire - literally, "hard to cook". Those of you who know me well will know how important an addition to my vocabulary this is!
- Buying a book from the second hand book shop for 1 euro, 'Le Saint au carnival du Rio' and reading it on the tram on the way home.
- On the wall of the girls toilets in the music dept: tomber 7 fois, se reveiller 8 "fall down 7 times, get up 8".
Incidentally, the power is back :)
And finally, few new words for the keen learners:
atelier - workshop
cannelle - cinnamon
foi - faith
parsemé - sprinkled (adj.)
loup - wolf
impôt - tax
froncer les sourcils - to frown
comportement - behaviour
I'm sure that's more than enough for now :) hope you got this far!
lots of love x
over.
