Important things

These past few days have been packed full of events, and my jet lagged brain is having a super difficult time differentiating from/remembering them. It's having an even more difficult time taking words and making them into coherent phrases, but we're going to give it a shot. Important things that have happened: New Year's Eve, getting to Montpellier, my first day in the city.

New Year's Eve was really fantastic. I was able to see everyone that I was afraid I wouldn't see before I left and had a great final dinner with my mom. It was a pretty typical New Year's, and is probably best summed up by the following candid photo:

I wish I could claim it was our goal to look weird and uncomfortable.

Now, on to the whole point of this blog. I got to the airport early on New Year's day so that I could hang out with/see off Carmen, my best friend of a ridiculous number of years who just happened to be leaving for Finland on the same day. To all of those concerned (and you are if you know Carmen)- she made it safely to her Finnish apartment. The rest was pretty uneventful. Katie and Carson, some friends also going to Montpellier, were on my international flight and made the trip seem short. We had something like a six hour layover in Paris, which turned out to be a good thing, because we managed to insert ourselves into every single line that we weren't supposed to be in. When we finally reached the terminal, I immediately passed out on the floor with my book bag still on my back. 

My host mom greeted me at the airport and took me to her unbelievably beautiful home, where I was able to unpack and settle in. I'm not sure how to convey how whimsical, artsy, eclectic, and occasionally confusing (ex: there are strategically placed rocks everywhere you turn) the decor is.

I found out upon my arrival that there is a Japanese student living in the room across from mine for the next month. Her name is Mika (sp?) and she's very nice. I also met my host mom's partner, who is a political cartoonist and musician. He gave me a guitar to keep during my stay here and we played together for a bit, so needless to say I'm a big fan. My first night we had a really incredible lemon-grass soup with sticky rice and what I think was curry sauce. 

Every dinner so far has included a small piece of lettuce. It's like the
 illusion of a salad, but without actually having to eat a salad.

After dinner, they put out different cheeses, clementines, and yogurts. They were extremely, extremely enthusiastic and happy about my love of cheese and general cheese knowledge. I knew it would come in handy one day.

The next day, I had my first communication mishap. Not because I didn't understand my host mom's French, but because I can be extremely dense sometimes. I knew that I had to be at Accent Francais (one of the schools I'm attending here) at 10 am. I set my alarm for 9 am and was told to be ready to leave by 9:40 am. I can count and do basic addition/subtraction (source: elementary school degree). However, for some reason I was certain that waking up at 9 would give me two hours to get ready. When 9:48 rolled around I was leisurely brushing my teeth in my pajamas. My host mom gave me a very baffled and frantic look when she came downstairs. I now know I'm capable of getting ready for an entire day in under 4 minutes.

Over the course of the day we covered a lot of logistical/school related things that I don't feel like thinking about again until I am forced to, so here are some pictures from my walk home:

View of the Arc de Triomphe from behind some arches.

More arches.

The city is ridiculously gorgeous and the fact that they're allowing me to live in it still hasn't really set in. When I got home, we ate a Moroccan-themed dinner that was just as well-presented and fantastic as the soup mentioned above.

In short: I'm in the honeymoon stage and very excited for the next couple of months.