Fin

The train back to Montpellier was supposed to be an easy 6 hour ride, but instead it (inexplicably) took 8 and a half hours. All on the train were enraged, which I found surprising because I would think that the French are used to inconveniences that aren't explained or justified at this point. I decided to nap to make time go faster.

About 6 hours into the trip, we woke up to find that everyone around us had calmed down. Carson and I were confused by the sudden change of tone, but it all started to make since when we noticed that everyone else on the train had free meal boxes. After realizing I missed out on free food, I became very sad, for the French never give away free or complimentary items. Luckily, Carson was not as discouraged and went out on a recon mission, and a few awkward interactions later came back with two food boxes. Mission accomplished.

When we finally arrived in Montpellier, I was bombarded with ALL the nostalgia. Tears were welling up as I took what would be my last tram ride (a moment that was ruined by all the angry glares from the people I was accidentally smacking with my ridiculously large backpack and purse) and on the walk from the tram to my house I started feeling a bit nervous. I was afraid it might be weird coming back after a month, but it was as if I had never left. For several hours I recounted my trip to my host family and reminisced over what were the most significant and remarkable 5 months of my life. That night my host dad made paella-- my favorite recipe of his-- and Carson showed them all the pictures of our travels. It was a truly perfect bookend to the trip. 

We went to bed extremely early because our flight to Paris left at 6:30am. Naturally, I wanted the taxi to pick us up at 3:30 because it was beaten into me at a young age that I need to be at the airport 1230948 hours before hand (a habit that generally results in twiddling my thumbs for two hours and wishing I had slept in later). My host parents found this ridiculous and forced me to get a taxi at 4:30. I hesitantly conceded.

All went well at the airport, and in Paris as I was on round three of taking stuff out of my severely overweight suitcase that was somehow overlooked in the Montpellier airport, we serendipitously ran into Katie (a good friend from the program) and her boyfriend Cameron. We realized we were all sitting on the same 4 person row for our flight back to the States. Not sure how that worked out but I will not question the luck gods.

Frandz

On the flight we watched a bunch of movies and shared our respective travel stories. The 6 hours flew by too fast, and in the Charlotte airport we all had to reluctantly accept that it was finally over. 

Being back in the USA was not as surreal as I imagined it would be, and I pretty much immediately fell back into my normal routine. I'd like to give my parents and grandparents my version of the medal of honor, for without them this experience could not have happened. 

Since I'm not terribly romantic or poetic or sentimental, it's very difficult for me to find a good way to conclude my time abroad or express how much it meant to me. So instead, I'll just list some things that will always make me smile:

1. Roche Mazet and the Panema

2. Les Arceaux at night

3. My Swiss student and his eggs

4. Carol's calm demeanor and her "Oh dears"

5. Karlson

6. Boulange and his sweaters

7. Urban Soup

8. Poppies

9. Anything that ever happened over sprang braike

10. Les bandes de punks avec leurs chiens

So.. bye France. It is likely that I'll be back next year. 

The return to France

I met up with Carson in Paris on the afternoon of the 22nd. Since we were only in Paris for a night, I chose a place that was close to the train station we would be departing from the next day. Or at least, that's what I wanted to do. I quickly realized that it was very difficult to find a hostel that didn't have terrible reviews online (not that I'm picky, but the number of complaints about rats in these places was terrifying) and was also less than 40 euros. I ultimately found one in Montmartre for a decent price that more than likely didn't have an infestation of any kind.

When I got to France, I was overwhelmed with happiness. After staring blankly at Hungarian, Czech, and Greek, languages that all look as if they were formed by aliens who decided to play scrabble but instead of making words just wanting to win the most points, being able to read signs made me feel very competent. Carson was already at the hostel when I arrived, and we immediately went out to find some Fischer (our favorite cheap beer) and sit outside because it was a super pretty day. Later on we went to a lesser known park with an awesome view of the city that Carson knew about and took the metro to the Seine for one last look. Overall, a great way to spend less than 24 hours in Paris.

The next morning we caught our train to Mont St Michel. I wanted to go there for my final destination because I wanted to 1. end in France 2. no longer be in a city 3. stay at this awesome bed and breakfast that I found online. In fact, my choice was almost entirely based on the incredible marketing of this bed and breakfast (it's called Au Bon Accueil and I suggest it to anyone and everyone). They picked us up at the train station and took us to the castle that day after giving us a brief history lesson about the area. When we got there, we decided to get all the workings for a picnic before going up to the castle, however it immediately started pouring down rain because the weather in Brittany is unpredictable and changes drastically about every ten minutes. We improvised and just had our picnic in a Brioche Doree (small cafe chain kind of like Panera).

After leaving a remarkable amount of crumbs in the restaurant, we managed to get a ticket for the castle tour by pretending to be french students (i.e. said nothing and handed the man at the booth our french student ids). The tour was great and we ran into some very friendly people wearing NC State hats who referred to where we were as Mount Sheh-mell.

The castle was cool, but we mostly just harassed
this seagull for an hour 

That night we walked up the road to perhaps the only restaurant within walking distance because our hosts insisted it had the best galettes in France. This is seemed like a bit of an exaggeration, given that we were in the middle of nowhere Brittany and France is a big place, but when the food came out their claims proved to be true. I'm going to stop there because I could probably write a novella centered around this galette.

I will never know a higher love

Since we were the last people in the restaurant, one of the two chef/owners offered to drive us back to our hostel. We promised we would be back before we left.

On the following day we rented bikes from the hotel so that we could ride to the next town. Of course, my back wheel kind of exploded about halfway through the journey, so we just locked both the bikes to a fence and walked the rest of the way. This actually turned out to be a good thing, because we got to walk on the beach. It was low tide, so the beach was comprised of miles of sand and beautiful shells (I got a little ahead of myself and collected about 30).

There was also this grass stuff on the beach. If you look REALLY hard you can
 see a tiny Mont St Michel in the distance.

I forgot to mention that I booked this bed and breakfast a month in advance for the nights of the 23rd and 25th, however it was completely booked up on the 24th because there was a huge marathon in the area. I was so determined to stay at this hotel that I decided to figure out a plan for the 24th later on. Turns out, there aren't that many options around the area. We ended up at a youth hostel in Pontorson that either used to be a prison or a school. It was gigantic and probably could have fit 100 people, but we were two of four staying in the creepy building. It was totally adequate for one night though, and the next day our fantastic bed and breakfast hosts picked us up and took us to the train station so we could go to St Malo, a port city that used to be a pirate republic. Both the hotel owners said it was a necessary place to see and that we would love it. They were once again correct. We had a great day walking around the city, sitting on the beach, and hanging out at the creepiest bar ever that had swings instead of bar stools and was decorated with doll appendages.

A good and completely candid shot of the city

Creepy but awesome

Totally worth the most expensive pint of my life

We gave ourselves plenty of time to walk back to the train station even though it was a straight shot. However, somehow, we ended up getting kind of lost and lost track of time, which resulted in frantically sprinting around the city 5 minutes before our train was supposed to leave and asking every pedestrian how to get to the station. Although I was dry heaving, we made it on the train with about 30 seconds to spare. 

That night we went back to the galette place to try the Camembert crepe (the essence of perfection) and prepared to head back to Montpellier for our last night in France. 

Sifnos

After Santorini, I traveled semi-alone for the first time. Tally (one of my best friends from Chatham Hall) was staying a few hotels over, but due to my lack of computer it wasn't always easy to get in touch. However, during these few days in Athens I met a slew of very interesting people and I'd be super interested in traveling alone(ish) again in the future. When I did meet up with Tally, we had a great time catching up and hanging out with her study abroad group.

I became extremely familiar with Athens because I was there for so long, and one day I decided I was familiar enough with the area to go on a run. I asked the Russian bartender who I befriended if the National Gardens would be a good place to go on a run. She explained that the gardens were nice, but ALL the Greek people go to the Olympic Stadium to jog. Apparently, it was illegal, but everyone did it and there was a place where you could sneak in. So, the next day I jogged to the place on the map where there was supposed to be a secret entrance into the stadium. After five minutes of just staring at a fence and hoping for an opening to appear I decided I would try to just fit through the bars. It was a tight squeeze, but I somehow made it to the outskirts of the Stadium. The fence hole was so tiny that I was certain that 1. either no one would be in the Stadium and I would get tased or 2. everyone who ran at the stadium would be a smallish woman. Neither of these certainties turned out to be the case. The track was filled with people, almost half of which were giant Greek men. I reasoned that there must be another entrance, but I couldn't find it, so I ended up exiting through the fence once again which I'm sure was very confusing for all onlookers.

Isabelle (our other best friend from boarding school) met up with us in Athens the day before Isabelle and I went to Sifnos. Sifnos, like Santorini, is a Cyclades island with classic blue and white houses and beautiful views. We arrived in Sifnos around 9pm, and since it is not a big tourist destination, it was completely dark. We thought there might be something like a mountain on one side, but it was almost impossible to tell. We were also a bit disoriented because 1. we didn't know what side of the island we were on or 2. what side of the island our hotel was on or 3. the name of our hotel. We were kind of freaking out due to our less than good planning, but luckily there was a tourist office right next to the port with WiFi and we were just a 5 minute walk from our hotel. I was super happy that I had accidentally chosen the port village as our destination.

Our hotel was SUPER nice and we were surrounded by the elderly and honeymooning couples (so we fit in perfectly). When we saw the island in daylight, we were pretty taken aback by its beauty. We were situated on the ocean between two mountains and there were a lot of farmland and animals all around. Sifnos was surprisingly not touristy at all and that made it all the better. While we were there, went on a two hour hike up to a monastery on the mountain, explored around and became regulars at a bar on the beach. The first time we went to the bar, we ordered frozen daiquiris. Isabelle's was notably stronger than mine, so when the flamboyant bartender came to ask how we liked them, I jokingly pointed out the difference between the two drinks. He responded: "Yes, that's because I made hers stronger!" I guess I gave him a pretty confused/irritated look, because then he said: "I bring you another drink on the house, and this time you won't complain." This sparked a beautiful friendship that consisted of us more or less living at his bar and him giving us a ridiculous number of free drinks. As we were pretty much the only customers, I'm not sure how this bar wasn't going bankrupt, but I didn't ask questions.

Good view of Kamares

Another good view from the other side

On top of the monastery 

Sunset at our favorite (perhaps only?) bar on the island

Anyway, Sifnos was great and I'll be happy if my actual honeymoon manages to be even half as romantic. Isabelle and I parted ways when we got back to Athens, as she had to catch a plane back to Prague at 4am and my flight to Paris wasn't until 11am. We arrived at the port a bit after midnight, which meant we had no other choice but to take a taxi, a fact that the taxi drivers loved to yell at you every five seconds once you got off the ferry. I ultimately gave in after trying to find a bus to the center of the city that was still running and got in a taxi with a very large, very Greek cabdriver. He didn't speak English at all, but he still thought that everything I said was just hilarious.

Me: I'm staying at the Backpacker's hostel
Him: *laughs*
Me: So.. you know where that is?
Him: *laughs even louder*
Me: Okay.. well here's the address just in case

I'm not sure what would have happened if I didn't have the hostel's card on me. The cabby continued to laugh at all my hysterical jokes throughout the drive, and at some point picked up something wrapped in aluminum that was on the console and started waving it in front of my face. I had no idea how to handle this social interaction so I just started laughing SUPER loudly, hoping that it was a joke and that it would stop immediately. But it didn't. He started waving the foil even more adamantly until I finally took it from him. He seemed pleased and urged me to open it. I'm not sure what I thought it could have been, but I was extremely relieved when I realized it was cake. It was then very clear that he wanted me to eat this gigantic piece of cake and he started singing what I'm 95% sure was a broken English rendition of Happy Birthday. Still full from the huge dinner we had on the island and moderately nauseated from the ferry ride, the last thing I wanted to do was eat this cake, but I ate half of it out of politeness (and fear that he would kick me out of the taxi if I refused his cake gift). He then started repeating over and over what seemed like the only three words he knew in English: "You, me, bar?" I declined as tactfully as I could and luckily he still took me to my hostel and didn't abandon me on the side of the road (though he did stop laughing at every word that came out of my mouth.) I will now forever be skeptical when a man laughs at my jokes.

Math is hard

In my defense, I still don't have a computer..

We arrived in Greece at about 2 pm, giving us plenty of time to walk up to the Acropolis and pick up our first souvlaki. The Acropolis was, of course, very cool, and on the way up a woman selling flowers tried to con me into buying one by referring to me as J-lo. This event alone made it a fantastic day. 

Still skeptical about flower woman's J-lo comment

We had a great dinner of seafood risotto, moussaka, and other awesome Greek foods that I was unaware existed. Our time in Athens was pretty short, however, because the next day Carson and I caught a 7:30am ferry to Santorini. The ferry ride was nearly 8 hours long, but when we saw the island we decided it was worth the travel time. This island is somehow even cooler than the postcards let on and I instantly regretted not booking a longer stay. When we got to the hotel, I pretty much felt like a cameo in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The manager was unbelievably nice and immediately offered us wine, and then a carafe of wine, and then coffee, and more or less single-handedly fulfilled every stereotype of an older Greek man that ever passed through my mind.

Highlights of Santorini include: the 7 mile hike from Fira to Oia along the caldera, sunsets on roof bars, ridiculously good food, the black sand beaches... really I could go on for days but why bore you with that when I have an equal amount of things that went wrong..

So, I'll start with the minor screw up. The first night we went out to a restaurant on the caldera that was suggested to us by our lovely hotel manager. I was about to order a bottle of wine when I noticed that the house wine was much more reasonably priced. I should have realized that this was not a wise choice after this interaction with the waiter:

Me: You know, actually, let's just do the house wine. It's not like were wine experts. Is it pretty decent?

Waiter: Well, it wine. It certainly wine. It not bad. Gets better more your drink it like everything! Right?

Me: Exactly! We'll do a liter of that. 

Well, I knew a liter was kind of a lot, but I wasn't fully prepared for the what-have-I-done moment that followed. Next thing I knew we were served a vase of wine that tasted like paint thinner and sad grapes. This was the first time in my life I did not finish wine that was placed in front of me. 

Overall this was a minor incident and more hilarious than problematic anyway. The rest of the trip went by smoothly and we had a wonderful time. On our last day we were on track to make it to the ferry back to Athens in perfect time so that Carson could fly to Paris the next morning and so I could meet up with my friends from boarding school. We arrived at the hotel at 4:30 so that we could drive down to the ferry that left at 5:30, when we realized that, in fact, the ferry left at 15:30- also known as 3:30 by those (read: me) who are too stupid to understand military time. I spent a semester in France, and still managed to not be able to tell the difference that the one in front of the five can make.

Anyway, it was a quick fix. There was a fast ferry that ACTUALLY left at 5:30, so we decided to just get a new ticket for that one. Due to high winds, the sea was extremely rough that day, so the speed ferry was about an hour late. I asked the guy who drove us to the port what the boats were like, as I had absolutely no idea. He responded: "You have strong stomach, yes?"

I immediately knew this would be an issue. I figured I would be fine, but after seeing the reaction on Carson's face I was led to think that perhaps my travel companion would not be. The ferry pulled up at 6:30, and we nervously stepped on to the boat (a metal box with airplane seats). We both popped a dramamine and the boat took off. It kind of felt like a roller coaster, but slower, and in the water, and more jolting. Carson pretty much immediately became sick and I spent the first 30 minutes of the trip thinking about straight lines and flat land until the dramamine finally kicked in. After that, I was ready to try and help Carson. That's when they sat a man down on the other side of me who very well could have been dying. The entire crew was surrounding our row in the very back of the boat and screaming at this man in Greek. They laid him down so that his head was virtually in my lap and held his legs in an upright position. Meanwhile, Carson is telling me that we have to get off the boat and get on the slow ferry at the next stop. I didn't know how to tell him that there was no slow ferry, so instead I told him that we were only an hour away. He quickly called me out on my lie, but I just explained that he was sick and delusional and didn't notice how much time had passed. Since he is such a trusting person, he let it go.

The ferry finally started to slow down and I realized we were coming to our first stop. I also realized that meant that we still had 5 hours on the boat. The ferry was slowing down and the rocking was becoming far more manageable, so I got Carson some more dramamine and told him to take one and a half this time.

Me: Here, we're slowing down so just take this

Carson: No, I already took one, I don't want too many and we're almost there anyway

Me: No, really, just take it

Carson: I don't want to be completely unconscious if we're getting off the boat in 40 minutes

Me: Well actually it's going to be five hours so you might as well just.. take it..

And he did, and the rest of the ride was uneventful as we were completely asleep. An emergency team came on to take off the man laying next to/on me, and we got back to Athens in time to sleep for about four hours before Carson had to get up to catch his plane to Paris. My biggest regret is not taking any pictures during this struggle. But here are some pictures we did take:

View of the caldera

Obligatory sunset picture

The black sand beach. Very pretty and unique, but also painful for bare feet. 

The rest of Greece and final leg of the trip to come! 

Barcelona, Budapest, Prague

Okay, so I decided it would be better to split up April and May because otherwise the post would be far too long, and no one likes that. It's like when you're reading a book and all of a sudden there's a paragraph that's freaking 2 pages long. Really, how am I expected to read something so painfully long?

That being said, here are the highlights from the first half of my May travels.

Stephanie, Carson and I took a train to Barcelona, where we met up with Katie and her lovely parents, on May 3rd. We had a great dinner of paella, sangria and various tapas in front of La Sagrada Familia (can't put into words how cool this thing is) and then returned to our hostel. Since we were exhausted, it was unlikely that we were going to go out even though we were in Barcelona on a Saturday night. When the slightly older girls staying in our hostel learned that we were 21, they insisted we go out and "burn it from both ends." So, we did just that. We ended up at a night club on the beach, where you could go out to the shore and find a plethora of sketchy men walking around and selling beer for 1 euro. I think this should be a thing that exists outside of every bar.

The next day we all met up with Carmen, who was studying abroad in the North Pole (basically). We went to Park Guell and had a great time catching up. After that, Barcelona consisted of sitting in plazas, eating tapas and staying out far too late. It was by far the most fun place I have ever been, but there's no way I could keep the Spanish lifestyle up for more than three days.

Not the best picture, but captures our excitement pretty well and shows that Carmen
and I actually have the planning capacity to meet up in a different country. Take that, world. 

Luckily, after three days, Carson and I headed off to Budapest. I knew virtually nothing about Eastern Europe and was therefore extremely excited to see what it would be like. I was an instant fan of the city after realizing how much there was to do and how cheap all of these things were. With my monopoly money in hand, I felt like I could actually buy and take over the entirety of Hungary. Instead, we went to a bath house, where there were 22 different baths of varying temperatures, and a whole gang of the hairiest, largest men I've ever seen. It was really fun and I would recommend it to people of all ages, sizes and amounts of hair.

Playing it cool 

Sean and Abby met up with us shortly after and we went on a free walking tour, checked out some ruin pubs (old buildings in the Jewish quarter that have been converted into the COOLEST bars I have ever seen in my life) and had a really incredible time. If I could have, I would have stayed in Budapest for weeks.

Shot of the Danube/city/us

Our next stop was Prague, which is a beautiful city filled with all sorts of cool old stuff. The first night we met up with Isabelle, one of my best friends from boarding school, and caught up over a flight of beer (because it is actually cheaper than water in the Czech Republic). The next day we went on a castle bike tour, where we were once again given no helmets and didn't have to sign anything. Our tour guide can only be described as an actual crazy person who throughout the tour said things like: "Well, this is definitely important, but uh, I'm not really sure why" and "Yeah I would really love to verify all the stories and facts I give on this tour but like, it's just not on the internet." When we looked at our cameras later, we realized that while he was taking pictures of us, he also took it upon himself to take about 15 selfies. Anyway, all in all it was a beautiful bike ride and extremely entertaining.

In front of the castle

The poster child of crazy

That night, after eating a meal of meat, potatoes and 2 euro liters of beer, we met Isabelle at a jazz club where Bill Clinton once played called Reduta (I think). Isabelle and I decided it would be a good time to try absinthe for the first time, so following the crazy tour guide's suggestion, we ordered some B-52 shots, which consisted of Kahlua, some other white liquid, and absinthe. The bartender handed us our shots, lit them on fire and then distributed plastic straws, which seemed a little impractical considering the fire. However, I didn't question her because surely they had done this a million times before and somehow the chemical reaction between the plastic and the fire and the alcohol wouldn't result in everything bursting into flame. Of course, science is science, so when we started taking our shots everything started catching on fire: the bar, the straws, probably some hair, etc. Meanwhile, the bartender is just taking pictures of us as if this is completely okay and normal. After a few frantic seconds of putting out all of the flames, we finished what was one of the more painful shots I have ever taken. Overall, it could not have been more hilarious and the pictures are absolute gold (but can not be posted in order to protect the identity of those involved).

Beer. Glorious beer.

On our final day in Prague, a staff member at our hostel suggested renting a paddle boat on the Vltava river. He claimed that there was a place that you could ride up to, push a button and have pints of beer handed to you. I was certain nothing so perfect could exist. But, we wanted to ride in a paddle boat regardless, so we went down to the river. It was utterly gorgeous, and after about 10 minutes, we found the mythical boat bar. Only in Europe can you drink endless amounts of beer on a river without life jackets or signing anything.

Getting to ride a paddle boat without actually having to paddle is indeed the dream

Evidently, Budapest and Prague allowed us to have some of the most epic double dates of all time. It goes without saying that the first part of the trip was incredible, and I intend on wrapping up May with a post on Greece and France tomorrow. (Hopefully someone will hold me to this).

April: Part two...?

I said I would post again soon enough, and from my subjective point of view I would argue that this still counts. I got back to the States two days ago after traveling around all of May, so there's a good bit to cover. I'm going to try to summon all of my motivation to catch you all up 100% instead of trying to break it up into two posts, which would ultimately result in my laziness taking over and another month long delay.

SO. We'll start with the end of April. After exams, everyone was pretty confused with what to do with themselves. No work? No school? What the hell can we possibly do with all of this ridiculous time on our hands!? It took us a week to figure out that we were in the south of France and had an infinite number of awesome things to do. This immediately sent us into a panic and made us try to fit every possible activity one can find in the Languedoc region into 4 days.

It had ALWAYS been a dream of young Rachel to return to the Pont du Gard, a gignatic (maybe biggest?) Roman aqueduct. I visited this site when I was 11ish with my grandmother and all I wanted to do was be one of those cool teenagers down on the shore of the river drinking wine and laying out and being cool and old. Finally, this dream was fulfilled and it was everything I imagined it to be. Young me would be proud.

Although, admittedly, I thought I might be a little cooler at this point

Before we left for our travels, we also decided to go on one last hike. Saint-Guilhem, a beautiful, mountainous place with various hiking trails, was the obvious choice. We took the bus a town over to catch a connecting bus to Saint-Guilhem. We were in our best attempt at hiking clothes, had a months worth of food packed, and were prepared to hike the crap out of this mountain. Unfortunately, since it's France, the bus either didn't come or had an invisibility feature, and we ended up waiting for an hour before we realized it was a lost cause. Discouraged and extremely full from having eaten all of our hiking food out of sadness, we took a bus back to Montpellier and decided to just go to some park that Maggie knew about. Luckily, the park was beautiful and filled with sprawling fields and flowers. We walked around a bit, and serendipitously stumbled across a 26 km hiking trail that pretty much went around the circumference of Montpellier. The walk was gorgeous, and we were shocked that no one had suggested it to us before. The path led us by a long river, through the zoo, and into a giant field of yellow flowers. By the time we were tired, we had more or less no idea where we were. We ended up asking a family with two children how to escape this hidden nature fairyland, and they told us we had to walk about 20 minutes and then we would hit a road that we had to walk down for about 1 or 2 hours before we hit the nearest tram. This was not good news, considering we were all exhausted, but since there was no other way we headed out. When we finally hit the road, everyone was silent and the only thing on our minds was reaching Le Petit Comptoir and immediately drinking a bière pêche (might have already mentioned this since it's one of my favorite things, but it's just beer with peach syrup. I am determined to make it catch on in the States). When I was about to lay in the middle of the road and call it a day, the same couple who gave us directions drove up in their tiny car. The man quickly jumped out of the front seat and into the backseat, put one of the two kids on his lap, and they insisted that all four of us get in. We were hesitant (especially Maggie, who forgot that we had talked to these people and thought we were willingly getting in a car with complete strangers (even though, I guess, they were complete strangers)).BUT that's beside the point. We all piled in and they drove us down to the nearest tram stop, where people stared in awe as we tumbled out of our veritable clown car. A few minutes later I got my bière pêche and we reflected on what was one of those magical days that only ever occur by chance.

So nature

Stephanie was too adorably excited to frolic in this field

Learning how small European cars really are

The last few days were surreal and nostalgic. On our last night before leaving on a train to go to Barcelona, a bunch of us went to the program director's house for dinner. It was sad to say goodbye to Carol, as she is an angel of a woman and the reason the program in Montpellier is so great. When we left her house, we all rode the tram to our respective stops. Stephanie and I live in the same direction and were waiting for our connecting tram line. Somewhere in the 20 minute wait, we started getting emotional to the point that we were crying and detailing all the things we would miss. The conversation took a turn for the weird when we started sobbing over how much we would miss the tram controllers (who had giving me a 33 euro fine just the week before), the homeless people and their dogs, and the dog poop that lines every street. We ended up opening the bottle of wine I conveniently had with me and reminiscing for over an hour while all the French people stared in disgust at our open display of emotion. There was no better way to spend my last night.

April: Part one

I realized that it had been a while since my last post when google no longer had my password saved and I had forgotten my password completely. I apologize for the delay, and of course must give the excuse that I have been very busy.

In the past month, we have made trips to Carcassonne, Sète and the beach (finally). As of today, we are completely finished with all work and exams (I still have an oral examination at three, but for all intents and purposes I am free) and I finally solidified my travels for the month of May. Most importantly perhaps, I switched from firefox to safari. If you have not yet made the realization that firefox is the devil's browser, I'm telling you now that switching over could very well change your life.

Since we have been so busy, no one has had the time to put up pictures of all these events, but I assure you that they exist and once they enter the Facebook realm I will put some up. In the mean time, I can give you a brief summary of the excursions.

Carcassonne: So, I still can't actually pronounce its name and have to verify the spelling in google every time, but that does not make me love this place any less. We went when Stephanie's parents were visiting, because everyone says it's a must-do in the south of France due to the incredible medieval city/castle. When we got off the train and saw the giant walls that surround the medieval city, I was indeed very impressed. Once we got inside the walls, there were tourist traps galore (that I gladly fell into) and tons of people walking around the extremely well-preserved streets. We toured around for a while and had lunch at a cute place that had a honey/goat cheese salad, which of course every single person ordered. We then got tickets and went into the castle, which had some great views. Since the tickets were free for students, Stephanie passed back her ID to her mother, and somehow that actually worked. I hope that I will be able to embarrass(/impress?) my daughter in the same way when I hit my mid-50s.

Also, I just made Stephanie send some pictures my way and they will far better illustrate the village than I can:

In front of the medieval city 

Inside the castle

After Carcassonne, we ventured to the beach for the first time since it's finally warm enough/socially acceptable to wear bathing suits. We had a fantastic picnic on the beach and laid out in the sun for several hours. Even I got burnt, but it was still a beautiful day and we've back several times since.

Picnic pic

The beach in all its mediterranean glory

We went to Sète, a costal town only 19 minutes away from Montpellier, to see a boat show this past Saturday. When I imagined a boat show, I expected.. boat races?...motor boats?.. something like that. I really didn't know what to expect, but apparently in Sète boat show means giant pirate ships, sailors, and about a million stands that sell striped, nautical t-shirts.

This is the best picture I could find of the boats, so once
again just ignore the goonery occurring in the foreground

Recently, we also participated in "American day" at a local french high school. All of us either accompanied a group of high school students all day or ran a workshop. Steph, Carson and I were charged with the musical activity, and we chose to teach the song "Home" to a bunch of French teenagers all day. It was pretty fun overall, however after singing Home for 6 hours, I pretty much had to stop myself from deleting it from my iTunes library all together.

We were told that a tex-mex themed lunch would be provided, which could not have turned out more hilarious. I'm not sure if there was some sort of misunderstanding down the line, but the meal consisted of baked potatoes, chicken wings, coleslaw, and tomatoes with deviled egg on top. Of course I am not complaining and it was by all counts pretty delicious, but the eggmatoes will forever be a mystery to me. I wish I had taken picture because I don't think I can properly describe the full extent of their weirdness.

Anyway, this month has been incredible and finals were really not bad. I'm going to go ahead and post this as a part one because Meredith has expressed that she can't wait any longer. Expect a part two soon enough! 

Wrapping up March

The week after spring break was, as I predicted and hoped for, rather uneventful. It didn't take me long to fall back into a pattern, but it was difficult to get used to not being with 8 other people 24/7. I found myself weirdly missing all of the people I traveled with and wanting to know every detail of what they had been up to for the 9 hours that I'm not already with them each day. This got creepy/old quickly, so I eventually adapted to that as well.

Last week, my mom came to visit and she gave us the opportunity to finally be tourists in Montpellier. We kind of needed this, because it can help you see a place in a completely different and more exciting way. My favorite tourist activity was most definitely a bike tour of the city. We biked around the entire southern half of Montpellier, which is the nicer part of the city by a long-shot. When my mom wanted to see where our french university was (it's in the North- we pretend that doesn't exist), I arbitrarily pointed to an attractive chateau and claimed that it was UPV. 

But anyway, we didn't have to sign anything and a helmet was optional, but of course we all opted for it because we are responsible human beings. Luckily, no one crashed or had any mishaps, except for Stephanie who had a short run-in with a pole.

Trying to remain inconspicuous

While Mom was here, I finally had the chance to try some of the awesome restaurants around the area and have my first massage. Since it was my first, I was going to think it was awesome no matter what, but according to mom they do it very differently here. Apparently the French are just much less concerned with personal boundaries, which we were all very surprised to learn (but not really).

My mom's trip also coincided with one of my host dad's concerts, which was very cool. We drove to the venue with my host mom, and after getting slightly lost, we actually made it on time (a rarity in this household). We watched the concert, mingled with some french people, and had a really fantastic time. I'm glad my mom got to see this strange and awesome part of my life, and she will be very missed by all.

Friday night we had a surprise birthday party for one of our friends. There were mojitos, tiramisu shots, and glow sticks, so it was really an ideal party for any twenty-something.

Saturday night Stephanie, Carson, and I went out to the countryside with my host parents. It was a concert/party type deal at one of the coolest houses I've seen here, and without a doubt one of my favorite nights of the trip so far. We played throughout the entire night- I mean actually the entire night. Stephanie and I fell asleep around 4:30, while my host dad and all of the other sixty-something year old french people jammed until 5:00 AM as if that were completely normal. Despite my inferior stamina, it was an incredible time, and I'm hoping that we'll be able to do something like it again before we leave Montpellier.

Now I am once again left with a bunch of work that I put off while Mom was visiting, so I'm going to try and get started on that. In the meantime, here's a photo of the marathon jam session:

So sepia

Post-spring break post

I meant to update this at least once while I was on break, but evidently that did not happen. At this point, I’m not even sure where to start or how to be thorough, but I will do my best to remember the high points, the difficult points, and the hysterical points (the latter two points being more or less the same thing).

Our group of seven started off in Paris, where we stayed in a typical French apartment, with knickknacks galore and a shocking lack of privacy (example: there was a wide opening in the ceiling between the bathroom and the kitchen). Everyone was a bit worried about this in the beginning, but luckily we’re a very open group. For the four days we were in Paris we got to explore the city and go on all of the classic tourist excursions: Le Louvre, L’arc de triomphe, the Eiffel tour, Le Musée d’Orsay, l’Orangerie, etc. One of our friends studied in Paris two semesters ago, so we got around the city very quickly and he made sure that we hit all of the important spots. Since I went to Paris when I was little, it was very interesting to note what young Rachel deemed important enough to remember after all of these years. Of course, the big monuments and museums were all familiar, but I was rather taken aback by the fact that my principal memories of Paris were wanting to magically transform into a pigeon and the historical importance of flying buttresses.

Since we don’t really dictate what we get to eat in Montpellier other than for lunch, every morning we made a huge breakfast of eggs, cereal, baguette and the most incredible croissants I have ever known; and every night we made giant dinners topped with an unreasonable amount of Tabasco to compensate for the time wasted eating non-spicy food in France. This proved to save massive amounts of money and it was a powerful bonding experience considering how much this group loves food.

On one of the many lock bridges

On top of L'arc de triomphe

Notre Dame

Eiffel Tour

...yeah

After Paris, we got on a plane to Trapani, Italy and our seven became six because Sean had to go to Morocco or something. Also, you are not behind in the times if you’ve never heard of Trapani. It’s just a tiny city in Sicily that Ryan Air happened to fly into and I didn’t even know how to spell it until spellcheck corrected me five seconds ago. When we first arrived, we were let into our bed and breakfast, which was gorgeous and had two stories and a terrace. Since it’s the off-season, we got the place to ourselves. Everything seemed to be going well until we tried to enter one of our rooms. It’s probably important to note here that European doors are hard. I have enough issues trying to open the plastic around straws and learning the difference between pull/push doorways, so trying to work my way around the ridiculous locks that Europe decided were a good idea is virtually impossible. We all tried every key the manager gave us until one completely snapped off into the hole. We called the kind man and he came back to help our sad, incompetent selves. He opened the door for us and before he left I demanded that he watch me do it so that we could be sure there were no future problems. I was magically able to open the door while he was still there, however the second that he left, the door became once again impossible to unlock. After questioning our education level and general competencies in life, we realized that the window was open. I climbed through it and we just left the door open throughout the remainder of our stay.

Trapani is situated between the coast of the Mediterranean and a mountain that has a historic village on top (castle and everything). I’m always up to see a good castle, so we decided we would set a day aside to go to the ancient mountain village. Figuring out transportation turned out to be difficult, but we decided a bus was probably a safe bet. We waited at the bus stop for a while, until Luci (who speaks Spanish, which was close enough to Italian to get us by) was able to communicate to a bus driver where we wanted to go. The bus driver said he couldn’t take us to the ancient village, but he could drop us nearby. After riding the bus for approximately ten minutes, the bus driver motioned for us to get off the bus. We got off the bus, confused as to how we could have gotten to the top of a mountain in such a short period of time, and realized that he had just dropped us near the base of the mountain.

We figured since we were there we might as well try to find another method of transportation, but since it was off-season, nothing was going up to the mountain and there wasn’t a person in sight. Thus, we ended up walking up the 80-degree angled winding roads. This seemed like a questionable decision at first given that we didn’t really know where we were going, but we eventually ran into 3 older Italians who (from what I understood) were mapping the way from the bottom of the mountain to the ancient village. Convenient. We then followed our guides up the mountain for about an hour and a half, until we were greeted by a jolly Italian tour guide who was not confused in the least by the fact that his scheduled tour group had brought along 6 Americans. We took some pictures and chatted for a bit with the Italians, when all of a sudden the tour guide started saying “Wine bar?” over and over. We all thought this was a joke and started laughing. He responded: “It is time for wine bar? No? You want?” He started handing out little cups and pulled a bottle of grappa out of nowhere. We all were laughing like maniacs due to the utter bizarreness of the situation as he filled our cups. We cheered and he explained that the grappa came from his vineyard just down the mountain and gave us his card. We later saw his grappa in the airport, so that was pretty cool. This was perhaps my favorite part of the trip, due to the extreme unlikelihood that a situation like that would ever happen.

Family dinner

So confused but in the greatest way

There was no competition for cutest couple

The whole crew

After we left the random and mystical city of Trapani, we headed to Rome for more sightseeing. We were feeling pretty confident in our expansive Italian vocabulary of please, thank you, and what is the price of this pasta, and we were excited to see what other weird situations we could get ourselves into. The first day we arrived, a beautiful Italian man pointed us in the direction of a restaurant that charged us an ungodly amount for bread but also introduced me to the best gnocchi I’ve ever had. Rarely have I been so sad to take a last bite. I kept hoping that if I ate slowly enough, the plate would somehow replenish itself with an endless supply of the pillowy, dreamlike gnocches that will forever haunt my dreams.

As for important sights, we did the typical stuff: coliseum, palatine, the Vatican, the pantheon, etc. This was all great, but the part of Rome that I will forever hold dear and close to my heart was the gelato place next to our metro stop. Seriously, if you are ever in Rome, take the metro to Basilico St. Paulo (verify this botched spelling first), get off, go across the street, and there you will find a wide selection of gelato. They might all look equally incredible, but do not be fooled. Get the coconut with almonds (honestly no idea what this flavor is but it kind of looks like coconut and almonds) and you will never be able to enjoy another dessert again. During our three-day stay, we ended up buying about 3 kilos. I wish this were an exaggeration instead of a conservative estimate.

Aside from the gelato, my favorite part of Rome was riding bikes in a giant park one afternoon. Three of us got singles, while Bree and Madison rented a two-person go-cart-like-bike-thing. It was pretty hysterical and I've decided there are few better ways to get around a beautiful place than on bike.

Hopefully faking throwing in a coin for the sake of a picture doesn't negate your prior wish

My personal favorite photo.

Arguably the best selfie of the trip

Just now realizing how much weirder we became with each city

Florence came after Rome, and it was one of the more aesthetically beautiful places I've visited. There were a ton of Americans students living there, so it almost felt like we weren't really in Europe. However, it was nice to be able to actually communicate with people and understand the language spoken around us. Highlights include hanging out in a gigantic beautiful garden for an entire day, a restaurant that charged only 10 euros for an unlimited food buffet, pasta, a glass of wine, and a cappuccino, and our hilarious bed and breakfast proprietor named Allen, who never missed an opportunity to crack a dad-joke about mean Italian women.

 

Great view of the city

Lounging

On what surely has a legitimate name but what we referred to as house bridge

Hanging out in a beautiful and important garden 
(in my more beautiful and important new jacket)

Being classy

Our last stop before heading back to France was Milan, and we were only spending one night. We got there in the early afternoon and spent the day walking around the city. We window-shopped at the stores we could never afford, saw the duomo, walked around a castle/park area, and did some shopping at the more reasonably priced stores. We went back to our hostel to hangout before going to sleep; however around midnight Katie discovered (and promptly destroyed) a bedbug. Knowing that bedbugs are bad news, we quickly made the decision to evacuate and demand a refund. The manager was not working, and one of her poor desk attendants was left with the task of dealing with eight angry, tired Americans. We managed to book a hotel room at the best western at one in the morning, however we are still in the process of negotiating a refund because the manager is convinced that it is impossible for bedbugs to exist in Italy.

Part of me was pretty excited about the situation because there are few things that make me happier than staying at a hotel, however when the group got out of the taxi, the driver explained that we shouldn’t go down the street because “they have the knives, and sometimes the guns.” We speedily entered the hotel, and after a night of good sleep and a continental breakfast, I had more or less forgotten about the potential pests living in my clothes and the possible mugging that could have taken place.

(No pictures were taken at this location as it was kind of the worst)

Later that day we rode in a bus for about 5 1/2 hours to Nice. It felt amazing to be in France again and to have the ability to communicate basic thoughts and needs. We had a wonderful day on the Mediterranean, ate at some awesome restaurants, and reminisced over how ridiculously good our spring break had been and how there was really no better way to end it.

The water was freezing but we tried our best

Currently, we are on a train heading back to Montpellier. We’re on schedule to arrive about 30 minutes before our class starts at 3:30, where we will be showing up without any materials (the current contents of my book bag are a computer, my last pair of clean underwear and a bottle of Roche Mazet), greatly unshowered (unless showering equals putting on deodorant and brushing teeth?), in clothes that haven’t seen laundry detergent in I refuse to say how long, and speaking a very questionable version of the French language. Luckily, this professor is very understanding.

After this trip, I realize that I prefer experiencing a place through exploring and wandering instead of through museums and sightseeing. Of course, those aspects were incredible, but my favorite memories will come from biking/walking/hiking around, taking in the scenic views, talking with friends/the people we encountered, and the food. I don’t want to get too sentimental, but this was very much a once in a lifetime type deal that I will never forget. At the same time, I’m extremely excited to get back to Montpellier and resume my everyday routine. For the rest of this train ride I’m going to reflect on how to say all of this in French so that I can try to explain my spring break to my host family tonight without it taking five hours.