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.