Notre Dame et l'Arc de Triomphe

We got a fairly early start on Monday morning, but as it turns out, it wasn’t quite early enough. Mom and I got to Notre Dame around 10:00 to climb the towers, because they open at 10:00, but the line was already really long…only later would we discover how long.

While waiting in line, we were entertained, if you could call it that, by a guy dressed like Quasimodo and his accomplice who was dressed like a fighter pilot with a red clown nose. They would randomly pop up behind people and scare them or mimic them or just creep them out, and then after half an hour or so, they’d stop, take a bow, and collect money from everyone in line. Even though the clown nose guy came specifically up to me trying to ask for money, I refused. I always feel a little guilty about not giving money to the plethora of entertainers, musicians, gypsies, homeless people, etc. in Paris, but I have to keep reminding myself that they are consciously choosing to make this their profession because it’s fairly lucrative for them.

Anywho, mom and I waited in line to climb the towers for almost 2 hours…but I felt like it was totally worth it. It kept trying to rain and sprinkled a few times while we were in line, but it really started to rain just as we popped inside the tower, so we didn’t really get wet at all. The climb itself was like a ridiculous Stairmaster that spiraled forever upwards, but the views from in between the two towers were just stunning, and the views from the top of the tower were even more amazing. And the higher up we got, the narrower the stairs got. There were actually points at which Mom had trouble fitting her foot on the widest part of the stairs!

We also got a chance to go inside the bell tower, which was really cool. I didn’t realize that the insides of the two towers are lined with wooden beams so that (a) the bell doesn’t crack the stone towers and (b) the sound travels better down into the rest of the cathedral.

After having waited in line for hours and then climbed the towers and toured around at the top, we were fairly hungry, so we wandered down a side street and ended up at a cute little café…just before it started to rain again. Talk about more perfect timing! And the waiter gave me the nicest compliment that just absolutely made my day. We had a brief conversation about where we wanted to sit (inside because I was afraid of getting wet) before he came to our table to take our order. Somewhere between when we sat down and when he took our order, he stopped talking, looked at me, and said, “Wait, where are you from?” and when I responded that I was American, he said, “Really? I thought that you were Parisian at first!” Teehee  Obviously, I have a bit of an accent that eventually gave away that I wasn’t French, but hey, I’ll take that compliment!!! He really seemed to enjoy the fact that I wasn’t a stupid American tourist, and we chatted for awhile about how most Americans don’t speak French, how I was studying French at my American university, and then somehow, oddly enough, we got on the topic of the economic crisis and Michael Jackson’s death…We concluded this conversation with him stating that now that Michael Jackson had died, there was nothing good left in America. I retorted that I was left, and he laughed and complimented my comeback. Yay for speaking French with French people!

Since there are a lot of gift stores right near Notre Dame, mom went into a few of them and got some gifties for her friends before we headed back to tour the inside of the cathedral. It was gorgeous, awe-inspiring, and crowded of course, and I took a lot of pictures.

Next on our agenda was the Arc de Triomphe. We took the metro from Notre Dame to the top of the Champs-Elysees because it was my intent to shop our way up to the Arc and then shop our way back. My plan mostly worked. We did shop our way up the left side of the Champs-Elysees and stopped into some really cool stores, including Louis Vuitton and Lancel, as well as stared in the windows of Cartier, but mom ended up being too tired to make it all the way back down the other side of the road, so we hopped on the metro stop halfway down the other side.

I’ve been to the Arc de Triomphe twice before, but I’ve never had a chance to climb it. Fortunately, our Paris Museum Pass (Carte Musée et Monuments in French) gave us priority access, so we didn’t have to wait in line at all. Apparently Monday was the day of spiral staircases, because the inside of the Arc had them too! They were not nearly as narrow or harrowing as the ones at Notre Dame, though, which was great, especially for mom. Inside the top of the Arc was a neat display about the Arc’s history and its transformation over the years. Mom also bought a few cheesy souvenirs (e.g. Eiffel Tower eraser lol) before we climbed up yet another spiral staircase to the top of the Arc. The views were just spectacular. I loved how you could look down the Champs-Elysées as well as down all the other streets surrounding the Arc. There were also perfect views of Sacre Coeur, the Eiffel Tower, Les Invalides, and the Grande Arche de la Défense.

Mom and I headed back towards our hotel, took a brief sieste, and then headed out to dinner. We ended up at a café/brasserie near our hotel that was much nicer than we expected. Our table was on the second floor in an alcove overlooking the street, which was really cool. We both ordered salmon from the prix fixe menu, but mom got a mozzarella and tomato entrée with hers while I got a crème brûlée dessert. It was so rich and fabulous. I’ve actually never had a crème brûlée before, and I think that Paris was a pretty decent place to start.

Pourquoi, Lance? Pourquoi?

On Sunday, we enjoyed a very nice breakfast at the hotel that I found very comforting and familiar oddly enough. They had little soft cheese packets as well as Nutella, just like my French family! The breakfast had a very wide array of foods, much more than I expected at a French hotel – croissants, baguettes, cereal, fruit, apple sauce, tea, coffee, two kinds of juice, pain au chocolat, yogurt, and other things that I’m sure I’m forgetting. It was very good. We then headed to the Eglise Reformée de l’Oratoire, a church not far from our hotel that is a member of the Reformed Church of France. The woman who greeted us was really nice, and she seated us near the front. The building was beautiful inside and had a very impressive organ.

It used to be a Catholic Church, but it has been the Eglise Reformée since the late 1800s, and if you look carefully at the walls, you can see the hooks and little metal pieces that once held up icons that have since been smashed off. The service was fairly easy to follow, for me at least, and the sermon wasn’t too shabby. The pastor did seem a little bit fluffy, if that’s the right word, and not terribly deep with his message, but it really wasn’t too bad. After the service, we went to a little reception off the sanctuary where mom chatted with an American man who’d been living in Paris for 25 years. I just enjoyed the free French pastries!! We stopped back at the hotel to change clothes before heading to lunch at Pomme de Pain, a cute café that you can find all over France. And then guess where we went….the TOUR DE FRANCE!!!!

I thought that seeing the Tour in Montpellier was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but as it turns out, it was a twice-in-a-month experience?? Hey, not complaining. We took the metro and got off at the top of the Champs-Elysees, right near the grand stands and the winners’ podium. We then walked down the Champs-Elysees towards the Arc de Triomphe a little bit until we found the perfect spot right up near the barriers and right underneath a giant American flag that the man next to us was proudly waving with his American friends. It ended up attracting a fair number of Americans by the time the Tour actually came by, so it was cool to be in good company.

It was insanely crowded, as expected, but we had a great view of the Tour route as well as the giant screen that showed a live feed of the race on France3. Mom and I actually got to the Champs-Elysees around 2:00, even though the cyclists didn’t come by until 4:30, because, first of all, I really wanted good spots, and also because the pre-Tour parade came by at 2:45! This time, I actually got to see the whole thing from the beginning to the end, and it was pretty cool. The concept of a parade here is quite different from that of an American parade, especially since all of the “floats” in this parade were more like drive-by advertisements, but it was still really fun. There were cars shaped like water bottles, tires, and of course cheese, along with lots of dancing, horn-honking, and a few semi-trucks, which was a little scary, especially when they were swerving around on the road to look cool.

In case you didn’t know, the Tour de France ends on the Champs-Elysees, but it actually goes up and back down the street 8 times before the finish line. The tension building up to when the cyclists first drove by was ridiculously intense, but I have to admit that I was definitely part of it. I was screaming with everyone else when they rode by. And they were going ridiculously fast, like ridiculously fast. I can’t describe how cool it was to be there – to see the helicopters flying overhead and to realize that they were filming me, where I was standing, what I was looking at; to see a live feed of what the rest of the world was watching on the big screen and realize that I was there in person; to watch Armstrong and Contador battle it out down the Champs-Elysees. I took a few videos and more than my fair share of photographs, and I screamed for Lance until I was hoarse….but clearly it didn’t help.

I was so disappointed that he only came in third, while the grumpy Spanish woman who pushed her way next to us even though she didn’t get to the Tour until 4:00 was annoyingly pleased that Contador won. You let me down, Lance. I was pulling for you. I really was. I did get to see them pull out the Tour de France finish line, which was really cool, and I also saw the crowning ceremony. Mom and I pushed our way further up the Champs-Elysees as soon as the Tour itself ended so that we could get a better view, and we ended up having decent views of the backs of the winners as they received their prizes. Booooooo Contador. I could read the disappointment all over Armstrong’s face…sigh.

We hopped back on the metro very quickly and managed to make it out of the crowds without much of a problem. We had dinner at this cute little Chinese place that the concierge at our hotel recommended for us. And I have to say that I’m a big fan of all of our concierges. They recognize us when we come by, and they’ll ask us specific questions about our day and they don’t need to ask for our room number anymore – they just give us the key. (In case that doesn’t make sense, in France, you don’t get to keep the room key most of the time, you have to turn it in and pick it up every time you leave the hotel). When we came back from the Tour, the concierge teased that he’d had a better view of the Tour than I did because he watched it on TV. I heartily disagreed of course, because we had a fabulous view. I guess I’m still a fan, Lance, but only if you give me an autograph.

Bienvenue (encore) a Paris

The transition from Montpellier to Paris was definitely challenging in ways that I did not expect. I knew that I had grown attached to my family and my life in Montpellier, but I had sort of ignored the fact that I would eventually have to leave them. It didn’t really hit me until my French dad dropped me off at the train station and left. I managed to hold it together for about 2.2 seconds after I turned away from him, and then I started to cry. The train ride itself was very uneventful. I even had a very nice man load my suitcase onto the luggage shelf and then another really nice gentleman take it off the shelf, off the train, and onto the platform in Paris. Who said French people weren’t nice to strangers? Oh, right…I did…well I suppose that there are occasional exceptions.

The airport/meeting up with Mom experience was not nearly as smooth as the train ride…I easily found my way from the TGV station to her terminal (she was able to call me on my French cell phone while I was on the train and tell me her terminal number and where she was waiting). However, I was greeted upon arrival at the terminal by six gendarmeries carrying assault rifles and asking everyone to step back. Fortunately, as I spoke French, I was able to ask what was going on. Apparently, someone had abandoned a piece of luggage and it had been sitting unattended for over 30 minutes at the terminal, and the French police and gendarmes had been called in to detonate it. That’s right…detonate it. They had police, men and women with machine guns, a bomb kit, and even medical personnel who specialized in treating burn victims. Yeeeeps!!! I managed to make friends with a nice Swiss man who was stuck like I was. However, mom was not so lucky. She was on the opposite side of the terminal, and while we could see each other, we couldn’t talk to each other. At first, not understanding what was going on, she tried to encourage me to cross the large gap between us. Ummmm false. Said gap was being heavily guarded. She then tried to borrow the cell phone of a nice British man next to her so that she could call me, but it didn’t work. Fortunately, just as I had started to use notebook paper and highlighters to write her a message, the situation was resolved and we were allowed to cross the gap.

We then had even more trouble trying to get our prearranged shuttle service to come and get us. I called the number and the nice woman on the other end said that the shuttle would be there within 25 minutes. 25 minutes came and went and no shuttle. At this point, I realized we were standing at the wrong door, so we walked to the correct one. I also called the woman back and told her that we were still waiting. She recognized me because we’d had a bit of an issue spelling my last name the first time, and she said that the shuttle had come and left because we weren’t there. Oops. But she also said that another one would be coming within 5 minutes, and indeed one did. However, when mom approached the driver and tried to give him our name, he said “non non non” and drove off. I called back again, and this time another man answered the phone, and he too was in on the saga and also knew who I was. By this point, we’d been waiting for 45 minutes, and I was quite annoyed. Finally, our shuttle came and took us to our hotel, which is quite lovely I must say. Props to mom for picking a (ahem) four star hotel…

Our room was ready as soon as we arrived at the hotel, so we were able to drop off our suitcases before heading out to find lunch. We went to a brasserie down the street where mom had a sandwich and I had a croque madame (mmmmm!). Mom was unfortunately quite tired, really jet-lagged, and her back was bothering her, so I felt like I was pushing her to do things that she didn’t really want to do, but we went to the Eiffel Tower anyway. I actually ran into a few of my friends from the IEFE while in line for the elevator, too funny! What are the chances? I had thought that visiting the Eiffel Tower wouldn’t be that strenuous – we’d just be standing around, riding the elevator, and taking pictures. However, it turned out to be a bit more than mom could handle. I really enjoyed finally making it to the top and soaking in the stunning views from up there (third time’s the charm, eh?), but mom really struggled with all the standing and the crowds, especially with her back. After a small mishap that involved me misreading a map and asking an attractive gendarme for directions, we managed to make it back to our hotel and had dinner a French Pizza Hut where we split a pizza and cheesy breadsticks.

And I would just like to take this moment to give myself a round of applause for all of my confident French usage, my ability to navigate the Parisian metro system, and my patience for long lines/waiting. Apparently, some of my newfound skills from Montpellier have managed to stick with me…at least for now. I do have to say that it is quite a bit more difficult to have to speak for two people. While a fair number of Parisians do speak English, especially in the touristy areas, that is not necessarily the case in restaurants or in our less touristy part of town, so if mom wants to ask a question, needs something, or just wants to order her dinner, I usually have to do it. It’s great practice for my French and is really helping me to be less timid, but it definitely made the transition more challenging. I feel responsible for everything from navigating around town to picking food to purchasing tickets since I speak French. I’m really glad to have my mom with me and show her around, but I miss speaking French with others who also speak French.

Au revoir Montpellier

My last few days in Montpellier were an absolute blur. I still stand my ground about my mean professor being mean mean really mean. On Wednesday in class I knew that we were having a test on oral comprehension, and it’s not exactly like you can prepare for that because you have no idea what specifically you’re going to be listening to. I actually joked with my French dad at dinner on Tuesday night that I was practicing my listening comprehension just by being with him at dinner and chatting. Anyway, we get into class, and the professor passes out a paper with questions on it – multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, etc. We then watch a short news clip, fill out the paper, rewatch the clip, and then fill in whatever we didn’t get the first time. I was so determined to get a better grade on this test than on the last one that I was taking notes in pencil during the clip and then going over them in pen. However, as soon as he calls time, he tells us that we are going to go over the answers. Wait, what?? We’re correcting our own tests?? Nope. He gave us a practice test without telling us it was practice…Who does that???!? I didn’t want to practice! You can’t practice listening comprehension!!! ARGH. So, clearly I was quite ticked when he passed out the actual test, and then a girl in the class raises her hand to say that she has actually already taken this exact same test. His response? “Oh well! Guess you’ll just get everything right this time!” Ummm, unfair. Ridiculously unfair. Bah. And the actual test was way harder than the practice one, of course, so practicing was completely useless.

Wednesday after classes I used up my final ticket for the Resto U and then two of my friends came home with me so that we could play in my pool! I had hoped that my baby French sister Raphaelle would be there so that they could meet her, especially since I had talked so much about her and Gabrielle during my presentation on Tuesday. Alas, she went to the crèche on Wednesday because her dad went in to work. For a couple of hours, we lounged around in the pool on the kiddie floats, which resulted in a few mishaps…I may have gotten stuck in a Barbie float…and one of my friends may have epically crashed off of the large pink float…But we had tons of fun! Sadly, neither of them had given their presentations yet, so they both had to go home to finish working on them fairly early.

Wednesday night, my French dad gained even more brownie points, if that’s possible. First of all, I have to tell this adorable story about Raphaelle, though. She now speaks “American” as her dad calls it. There is apparently no French equivalent to “uh-oh,” and I say it frequently without thinking when I am talking to her. If she drops something, I tend to say “uh-oh” and then hand it back to her. Well, after dinner on Wednesday, she dropped her pacifier, and I said uh-oh and handed it back. Then she says back to me, “uh-oh!” in her tiny cute French accent. Eeeeeek! And apparently she figured out when it was appropriate to use it because the next morning at breakfast, she dropped her bread on the floor, and without prompting says, “uh-oh!” Her dad whips his head around and looks at her. It was hilarious. I laughed and apologized for teaching her English. He laughed too and said it was fine – at least it wasn’t a curse word! Anywho, back to Wednesday evening - I was hanging out downstairs in my room after dinner (lasagna!!!), and he comes downstairs with a gifty…A full season of Grey’s Anatomy on DVD! YES! I watched like 5 episodes in a row before I went to bed. Love my French parents.

On Thursday, classes were alright. We watched a cool historical fiction movie that sort of reminded me of PBS or BBC versions of Jane Austen. After school, we had the final project presentations at Fauvel’s apartment. I have to say that most people’s projects were really interesting. I was particularly impressed by one girl who is studying to be a doctor and did her presentation on medicine in Montpellier. Montpellier is known for its herb garden, school of medicine, and biological research. Pretty cool.

After the presentations, we all agreed to meet at the fountain in the center of town, our favorite meeting place, for dinner together as a last hurrah, and we invited our W&M professor to come with us. We ended up at a cute little Italian place where I had spaghetti and this amazing mint chocolate ice cream and hot fudge dessert. Our waiter was really sweet, especially considering he was being relentlessly hit on by a slightly tipsy member of our group.

Several of us then went to an English pub called the Shakespeare to toast our time in Montpellier. I had a yummy apple cider before heading home fairly early since we had classes the next morning.

Friday was…interesting…we got our grades from our IEFE classes, and apparently my mean professor disliked me more than I disliked him. I had told Fauvel when I first spoke with her about how I was struggling with his teaching style that it wasn’t the grade that mattered to me but rather how I was perceived and the fact that I was having trouble learning because I was always so ticked off at him. Well….here is what he handwrote under my grade (which was an A- thank you very much):

« Peu de participation spontanée. Se situe dans la moyenne du groupe. Peu de progrès. Potentiel important, dommage qu’une attitude négative constante ait perturbé son travail, le mien, et surtout celui du groupe. »

Didn’t get that ? Here it is in English for you :

“Very little spontaneous participation. Situated in the middle of the group as far as level. Very little progress. Had great potential – too bad that a constantly negative attitude disturbed her work, my work, and especially the work of the rest of the group.”

ARE YOU SERIOUS??!?!?!!??! I was beyond ticked off for the rest of the day. I couldn’t believe the nerve of him. I had even spoken to him about how his teaching style was a challenge for me, and I thought we sort of had an understanding. Clearly not. And he made similar comments for other W&M students in my class. And when we showed our comments to other non-W&M students in our class, they were floored. All of them agreed that we were nothing like that, couldn’t figure out where he had gotten that from, and told me specifically that I was one of the most active participants in the class! I had said all along that it wasn’t the grade that matter, and I was right. Even though I got a fine grade, I was beyond mad about what he had written. I am not that kind of student. It literally took me the rest of the afternoon and a good portion of the evening to get over that comment.

Moving on….Lunch on Friday was quite tasty. My friends and I ate a café that sort of reminded me of a Panera. Their prix-fixe menu was only 7,10 euros and it came with a big sandwich (I got ham, cheese, lettuce, and pickles with some sort of sauce), a dessert (chocolate cake!), a drink, and tea or coffee (I had tea). Yum!!

I was quite eager to get home because my French mom and Gabrielle had come back from Paris. I packed up most of my stuff and took a short nap before heading outside to hang out with them. Gabrielle had popped into my room requesting me, teehee so cute. She also convinced me to dig out my bathing suit from my suitcase and jump in the pool with her. I wished it could have lasted forever. My French dad was pushing Raphaelle around in her little floatie; Gabrielle and I were horsing around in the shallow end while my French mom watched. It was too fun. For dinner, my French dad had told my French mom that I really enjoyed the lasagna from when she was gone, so she got some more! Mmmmm. After dinner, we took lots of family pictures outside in the garden before I went into town to the Estivales to tell all of my new friends from the IEFE goodbye.

Unfortunately for me, most of them shared the idea of drinking to celebrate their departure…and I wasn’t interested in participating in that portion of the goodbye. However, I did find a really cute pair of earrings in one of the boutiques and hung out with some of my W&M friends who also weren’t drinking. Somehow, we managed to miss the tram back home by literally 30 seconds, so my friend and I walked all the way back home. Sigh. Oh the tram…who decided that it was good plan for it to only come every 30 minutes after 10:00 p.m.?

Une tristesse enorme

I can’t believe that it’s over already. I don’t know how time went by so quickly, and when my French dad dropped me off at the train station this morning, I definitely wasn’t ready to leave yet. I feel like I left right when I was getting comfortable with everything and that there will still so many things that I had not yet discovered or was just beginning to discover. At the same time, I also feel like I learned so much about myself in Montpellier – how to not sweat the small stuff so much, how to let others take charge, how to have amazing amounts of confidence in myself in challenging situations, and so much more. It’s almost like I discovered a better version of myself in Montpellier. I desperately hope that this new self comes back with me to the United States. Will I have enough confidence in myself to go to class without doing my hair and makeup? Will I still be able to let other people make plans and go with their ideas? Will I still be this confident when talking to strangers or when in unfamiliar places? Will I be willing to take risks not knowing if they’ll pay off? From the bottom of my broken little franglais coeur, I certainly hope so.

I haven’t even been gone a whole day yet and already I greatly miss:

Gabrielle’s little footsteps running around upstairs above my room

Ice cream after dinner with my French parents

Gabrielle’s tiny French voice calling, “Amanda?”

Being a princess at the dinner table

Watching the French news/Tour de France/Meteo in the evenings

Nutella and baguettes for breakfast while playing with Raphaelle

Breakfast tea in my elephant mug

Being challenged and pushed to improve my French and my listening comprehension

Holding Raphaelle’s tiny hands and wandering around the house and garden

Riding the bus to school every morning with my friends and catching up on gossip

Complaining about the Resto U food but refusing to eat anywhere else because of the price

Playing in the pool

Being teased relentlessly by my French parents and their friends

Hanging out at Estivales and wine tasting

Riding the floral tram and trying not to topple over

It’s really the everyday things that I took for granted that I miss the most. And I’m not going to lie, I’ve cried a couple of times today…

I’m so glad to have my mom with me in Paris, but I wish that I had known how much I was going to love Montpellier so that I could have taken her there instead.

My last few days in Montpellier absolutely flew by, and I promise that I’ll tell you all about them (as well as today’s adventures) very soon. However, the internet in this hotel is ridiculously expensive, and I’m actually typing this on the floor of my hotel’s bathroom because all the lights in the bedroom part are connected to one light switch, and my mom has already gone to bed.

I can’t wait to go back. I’m saving up now!!

P.S. Anne-Sophie et Laurent, si vous lisez ce blog, vous me manquez plus que vous pouvez comprendre. Vous étiez les meilleurs parents français en tout le monde. J’attends avec impatience le jour que je peux revenir chez vous. Donnez plusieurs bisous à Gabrielle et Raphaëlle pour moi !!

Finalement!!!

I finally finished my research project, and I couldn't be more excited!!! Our final product had to be a fifteen minute oral presentation in front of the professor, the other William and Mary students, and the woman from the French university who helps out with our program. I don't have a grade yet, but I feel like it went really well. I'm just so excited to finally have that burden lifted from my shoulders :)


Our Sunday excursion this week was to a tiny, adorable, medieval French town called St. Guilhelm-le-Desert. Ironically, it is definitely not in a desert. In fact, a river runs through the middle of town and there are natural springs everywhere. My favorite tiny French tour guide told us that it was named "le desert" because there were no people there when the town was founded, so it was deserted. How clever of the town-namer. St. Guilhelm-le-Desert is known for its beautiful views (It's in a valley) and its historic monastery. Sadly, somehow it didn't occur to our French monitors (the graduate students who help lead the summer program) that since it was a Sunday, the monastery and church might not be open to tourists...uh duhhh! We popped into the church briefly before mass began, but we weren't able to stay for more than 10 minutes. On a bright note, instead of touring the church, the monastery, and the crypt (which would have been ridiculously cool), we climbed a mountain!


Baptiste, the tiny-but-awesome-French-tour-guide, led our excursion, and the views were absolutely stunning. I have to admit that it was a little challenging making the climb in flip flops...but it was totally worth it!

After our trek up the mountain, we split off and did our own thing for a few hours. My friends and I had lunch in the center of town at a cute little cafe, watched a band play, and then went shopping! St. Guilhelm has adorable little shops everywhere that sell handmade things - everything from honey, to local wine, to lavendar, to jewelry, to clothes, you name it! Then, we got ice cream. So good :)

We then got back on the bus and drove 10 minutes down the road to the Pont du Diable (the Devil's Bridge) so that we could go swimming in the river that ran underneath it. It didn't take long for us to discover where it got its name from...While my friends and I laid out on the rocky shores of the river, which was quite interesting since there was no sand), one brave/crazy student from William and Mary thought that it would be cool to jump off the bridge into the river below. Other French teenagers had been doing it on and off all afternoon, and we hadn't paid much attention. However, when we realized that he was about to jump off, suddenly it became quite interesting. This bridge is over 5 stories above the water easily, and despite warnings, this guy jumped.


Word to the wise - if the sign says don't jump, don't jump. He is currently in a French hospital flat on his back wearing a full body brace that goes from his chest to his hips because he slipped one of the discs in his back when he landed. If he moves, he could rupture his spinal cord... He is, however, in quite good spirits considering his situation. I went to visit him today along with 5 other William and Mary students, and he's got quite the stash of candy and sweets. Everytime someone comes to visit him, they seem to bring him something else to add to his collection. He also picked out a rather stylish pattern for his body brace - tigers, elephants, birds, and flowers - he chose it from the children's pattern options lol. Anywho, he should heal, but it will be a slow process. He'll have to wear the brace for the next 3 months as well as be super-careful once he has it taken off. He also has to fly home early and is getting a special ambulance ride to the airport since he can't ride in cars for long periods of time. And after having visited a French hospital, I am now absolutely certain where I stand on socialized health care...absolutely no no no. The hospital is un-airconditioned; you have to pay to have the television turned on in your room; and the building looks like it hasn't been renovated since the 1970s. No socialized health care please!!

Monday involved school, school, and a little more school. Sigh. In fact, Monday afternoon I came home right after classes, ate lunch in my room, and slaved over my research project until dinner. When I finally surfaced around 6:45, my French mom and 5-year-old sister had left for Paris! I knew that they were leaving yesterday, but I sort of figured that they would say goodbye...and I felt really bad. I have since learned that that's pretty standard for French goodbyes - not to say goodbye. So, now it's just me, French baby, and French dad, which so far, has worked out quite superbly. I came upstairs to find French dad attempting to feed Raphaelle, to no avail. She understands a lot more than she can say, so when her mommy told her that she was leaving, Raphaelle got it. As a result, Raphaelle repeatedly said "mamamamamama" and refused to eat her dinner. She would close her mouth and clench it tightly so that her dad couldn't feed her. He finally gave up and offered to make me dinner.

At first, I felt bad that he had to make me dinner while he couldn't get his daughter to eat, but I'm pretty sure that he and I are going to make a fabulous team. He told me that when his wife is gone, he doesn't like to cook, and then proceeds to open the freezer to reveal a stack of frozen pizzas! Score!! And not yucky French pizzas with fishies and olives and mushrooms, but legitimate American pizzas with pepperoni and sausage. My eyes must have been as big as dinner plates. Oh my gosh. He asked me if I liked pizza like that, and I couldn't say yes fast enough. I then decided to be brave and tell him that I didn't really like the pizza that we'd had the other night. As it turns out, neither did he! He prefers the more American-style stuff. Perfect. He did teasingly ask if I wanted to add olives, or salmon, or stinky cheese to complete my pizza. Clearly I refused.

While he baked our fabulous frozen pizzas, I took over feeding Raphaelle, who couldn't be cuter. She decided that she wasn't going to eat vegetables, but that she would eat pudding, so I was feeding her pudding, which she loved. In between spoonfuls, I got the brillant idea that maybe if I snuck in a random spoonful of veggies, she'd just eat them. False. She opened her mouth, thinking the spoon contained pudding, and when she realized it didn't, she opened her mouth back up and let it all fall back out. She then proceed to wipe off her tongue with her hand. Ackkkkkk.

It was cool being able to eat dinner with just my French dad because he has a lot of cool stories to share. He is a professor at the University of Paul Valery, where he teaches Psychology and Biology in addition to researching insects. So, we talked a lot about the French and American university systems, random stories about him trekking through the woods learning about bugs, and then he showed me a really cool article about him in a climbing magazine. Apparently he owns the largest collection of climbing videos in all of France. Who woulda thunk?

I then spent the rest of the evening holed up in my room working on my research project, which I finished around 12:30 a.m. This morning, my French dad let me print the outline for my presentation on my French mom's printer before he headed off to work and I headed off to school. Classes today actually weren't that bad. In my first class, we took a test, which I thought went well; we'll see when I get the grade back. In the second class, we watched a French film set in the impressionist era that was sort of Jane-Austen-esque, and I liked it.

Then, of course, this afternoon were the presentations....dun dun dun. My friends and I had a quick lunch together in the center of town before heading over to Mme Fauvel's apartment. Half of the group went today, and the other half goes on Thursday. I am definitely glad that I chose to go today so that I wouldn't have it hanging over my head. And now I'm done! Yay!

Dinner tonight was pretty sweet too - lasagna. I'm really starting to think that French dad and I have similar food tastes. We chatted all about his family, my French mom's family, and all sorts of other stuff. So, that's what I've been up to!

Trop de choses a faire!

Dear goodness I have so much going on over here that I scarcely have time to breathe! I'm up literally every morning by 7:30 (yes, including Saturdays and Sundays) and busy doing things right up until bedtime. Phew! Hence why I have neglected this lovely blog over the last several days. I will now attempt to catch you up :)

On Thursday, the lunch at the Resto U was less-than-appetizing, so one of my friends and I ventured downtown to find something to eat for lunch. Epic win. We found a SUBWAY! It was so lovely and familiar-tasting. Mmmmmm. I had a Subway Club with Chipotle sauce and pickles and lettuce, and then I had a cookie with M&Ms.


Then, our William and Mary professor took us all to see the Musee Fabre, an art museum in Montpellier. We had a really great guide who took us from 18th century paintings all the way through modern art (yick), and she was really well-informed. Sadly, unlike in the Louvre, you are absolutely forbidden to take pictures, so I have no pictures from my visit, but it was cool, trust me! The thing that struck me the most about the Musee Fabre, though, was actually its architecture. Our guide explained that the museum started out as a private home and then acquired the surrounding buildings (a library and a convent) as its collections grew. As a result, there were oddly placed little steps up and down every so often that linked the buildings. Also, and I think this was in an effort to unify the museum's buildings, everything in the museum (floors, walls, ceilings) was done in polished concrete painted grey. It was a very odd juxtaposition of gothic arched ceilings and walls made of grey concrete with 18th century paintings hung on them.

After the museum, we went to the Jardin des Glaces, an amazing ice cream place on the esplanade, where our professor treated us all to ice cream! It was so good. I had a chocolate sundae with whipped cream and sprinkles, which, as I learned, French people do not have a word for! We asked the waiter and the ice cream scooper, and neither of them knew what the little colored dots on top of my ice cream were called. Isn't that weird?


Then, that evening, I got to go see the French National Orchestra perform! It was absolutely fabulous. My ticket only cost me 6 euros, and I had a great view of the stage. Also, the acoustics in the opera house were fantastic, so it didn't matter that I was as high as you could be in the room, I could hear everything perfectly. The woman next to me, on the other hand, did not seem to enjoy the concert as much as I did...


Funny story - during the first half of the concert, which lasted around 30 minutes, I took a few pictures of the orchestra. I did not use flash, and my camera is durn quiet. However, as soon as the lights went up for the entr'acte, the woman turns to me and says, in French, "Your taking pictures is driving me absolutely nuts. The light is bothering my eyes and I can't see the stage. I really need you to stop. Do you understand me?" Then, thinking that I don't speak French, she switches into very poor Franglais, and repeats herself. At this point, I interrupt her, informing her that I speak French and ensuring her that I won't take any more pictures. She then responds, "I certainly hope not!" and huffs out of the row. Geeeeez! I turn to my friend next to me, and we both have the same stunned look on our faces. I was in no way blocking the woman's view of the stage with my camera because she was on my right and so was the orchestra. Also, I didn't use flash, and finally, it's an orchestra, not a ballet, so if you can't see it for 2 seconds, it's fine. Either way, I stuffed my camera into my purse for the second half of the concert. Until, that is, the whole orchestra came on stage. I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest not to be able to take a picture of the French National Orchestra. So, I carefully slid the camera out of my purse, turned off the screen (heaven forbid it blind this woman with its ridiculous amounts of light lol), slid it over to my friend who was sitting on my left, and then I leaned forward so as to block the fact that she was taking pictures. They turned out pretty well for her having taking them essentially blindly.


On our way out, my friend and I decided to take the elevator instead of the stairs, which turned out to be pretty cool. We took the elevator down to the bottom level of the opera house, and we expected to find a door leading to the outside. False. It was very industrial and basement-y looking with no door in sight. There were, however, signs indicating an exit. We must have walked through 4 doors before we even saw anyone else. Then we realized where we were - with the members of the Orchestra under the stage! We followed out a couple of them who held the doors for us with their instrument cases and garment bags in hand. It was pretty sweet.

Since my gripe session this past Wednesday about how much I was struggling with my classes and the workload, it hasn't really gotten any much better. In fact, I have a presentation Monday; my project is due Tuesday; and I have a test on Wednesday. So, that's about the same. I did get a chance to talk to the William and Mary professor who is leading our program about how I did not appreciate the way that my grammar professor approached me in class. She was only moderately understanding. She kept trying to ensure me that it was only a cultural difference and that I shouldn't take it personally. However, even if it is just a cultural difference, the way he approaches me still greatly offends me, so I felt like she was almost telling me that my feelings weren't valid. I did get some good advice from some of the other students who also have him (And they all backed me up on what I was saying too, including how he picks on me specifically because it seems to amuse him).

In other news, it has gotten strangely cold here?? As in I wore a cardigan and jeans to school today and yet was still cold! In fact, last night at the Estivales, even though I was wearing long sleeves and jeans and had had two glasses of wine (quite good wine I might add), I was so cold that I went home before 11:00 even rolled around. And I wasn't the only one either. Two of my friends, one of whom was wearing a sleeveless top and capris, went home at the same time.

Also, on Friday afternoon, I saw Harry Potter!!! I figured out which theatre played it in English, as opposed to dubbed in French, and went with a bunch of my friends. It was amazing. I will admit that it was not completely true to the book, but I am not one to insist that movies based on books be completely accurate because it's just not possible. There were also a few cheesy moments, but overall, it was really well done. The best part was that only my friends and I laughed at the jokes in the movie because the French translations in the subtitles just didn't do them justice, which meant that the French people seeing the film didn't get most of them. My friends and I would start laughing at a joke, read the subtitles, laugh at the poor translation of said joke, and then laugh that no one else was laughing. It was great!

Today, sadly, I had to go to class, even though it was Saturday because we didn't have school on Bastille Day. It was a little painful, and there were more than a few people missing...and not that I'm going to name any names, but I would just like to say that the Estivales wine festival downtown is meant to be just that - a wine festival...intended for people to try the different wines of the region, not for people to get schwasted...

Anywho, after class, a few of my friends and I had a lovely lunch at a cafe, where I helped out some grammatically-challenged American preteens order their lunch. I ordered a panini, paid, and then moved to the side to wait for it to be made. And this is silly, but every time French people just speak to me in French without question, I get excited because it means that my French accent/use of the language is good enough to where they assume that I must speak French well. So, I was standing in line waiting for my panini to be made when these girls came up behind me and started chatting in English. Then, one of the girls points to the menu and says, "That sandwich don't come with no fries!" I shivered. Such bad grammar! I started to worry about whether they'd be able to order... Then, came their turn to order. One girl managed to order a cheesburger pretty easily because it's the same word in French as in English, so the cashier understood. The next girl, however, did not have as good of luck. She pointed to a sandwich and asked what was in it. The cashier didn't seem to understand her question and told her that it was a panini. The girl asked again. Still no, and then the woman starts to grab it, thinking the girl wants it. At this point, I decided to intervene, since the girl was about to get served a sandwich with goat cheese and ham. I leaned over and pointing to the sandwiches, I told her what was in all of them. The look on her and her friends' faces was priceless. It was the oh-thank-goodness-an-American-who-speaks-French face. I felt very helpful :) Yay! And when they sat down at their table later, the girl I helped turned and gave me a very grateful smile.


This evening, some of my family's friends came over - another family with an 11 year-old girl and a 9 year-old boy. We had some, ermm, interesting pizza for dinner...oh how I miss American pizza. Let's see, there was salmon pizza, mushroom and olive pizza, onions and salami pizza, and finally cheese pizza. I thought I would go with the cheese because it sounded safe and familiar. Bad thought. Somehow it didn't occur to me that French people would put French cheese on their pizza. Ewwww stinky! Luckily, I have some food stashed in my room downstairs, so I will be eating Cornflakes later this evening lol.

And now I must work on the research project that appears to be consuming my life. Sigh. Here I go!

Un jour dans ma vie

An photographic guide to a typical day in my life here in Montpellier!!

I usually get up around 7:30 (boooo) and get ready for school.


I eat breakfast upstairs with my family, which usually involves breakfast tea, nutella, and French bread. Mmmm!

I take the La Ronde city bus to school.


My bus comes at 8:24, and my stop is a 45 second walk from my driveway.


Most mornings, if we all make it on time, there are 4 William and Mary students who ride this bus together to school. We all get off at the St. Eloi stop and walk 5 minutes from there to the University of Montpellier 3, also known as the University de Paul Valery (The campuses are numbered and have different names based on the concentrations offered there.).



Once on campus, it's a 2 minute walk from the front gate to my building - Batiment I - which houses the IEFE (Institute for Foreign Speakers of French).



Generally, I get to school 10 minutes before classes start, so I hang out in the lobby area in the front of the building with the other students studying in the summer program.



My class is located at the top of the building...I've decided that the 3 flights of stairs every day are sufficient exercise while here.



My first class is from 9:00 to 10:30 and is supposed to be about culture I think? It's really more about practicing spoken French and listening comprehension skills.


There is a half-hour break from 10:30 to 11:00 during which time everyone goes back downstairs to the lobby to hang out/have a snack.

My second class is from 11:00 to 12:30 and is most definitely about grammar grammar grammar and more grammar. Boo.

After class, I usually take the blue tram to the Resto U (short for restaurant universitaire). The Resto U has two eating options - upstairs, which is similar to the UC or the Caf at William and Mary in that there's different options every day for main courses, desserts, and side dishes, and downstairs, which is more like a cafe. However, the food upstairs is frequently not to my taste (example: today - "Forest Turkey", yesterday - "Chinese puree"), so more often than not, I eat in the much yummier cafe located downstairs.


Paninis are my favorite things to get :)


After lunch, since there aren't classes, the afternoon activities vary. Sometimes I go home to do work; sometimes I go to the centre-ville with friends; sometimes our William and Mary professor has activities planned for us like museum visits or ice cream!

I usually get back to my house in the late afternoon/early evening.


Dinner is served promptly at seven, and both of my French parents are very good cooks! Sometimes, they have their friends Cecile and Marie over for dinner, and they are also really good cooks :) Dinner generally consists of 3-4 courses, each of which is brought to the table separately - quite typical for France. There is the main dish first, then 1-2 side dishes, bread, cheese, and then yogurt. Finally, without fail, ice cream is always served after dinner.

After dinner activities depend on the day - sometimes I play with Gabrielle the 5-year-old, sometimes I do more work in my room, and sometimes I just watch TV with my French parents.


I usually head downstairs before 10:00 and putter around the computer before getting in bed to start all over again!!

Les etudes a l'etranger

I don't want to seem like a whiner, so I'm going to start this post with happy things and then gradually ease into less happy things. I am going to see the French National Orchestra tomorrow night in Montpellier, and the ticket only cost me 6 euros!!! EEK! Annnnnnd, the fireworks last night for the French national holiday, Bastille Day, were amazing. A couple of my friends and I went out to see the ones put on by the town of Montpellier, and I was quite impressed. There were several kinds of fireworks that I'd never seen before including heart-shaped ones and purple ones!! Also, today, I had the most hilarious conversation with my 5-year-old French sister. She and I were drawing together in her room, and I was drawing pictures of my kitties for her. I was trying to tell her that one of the cats, Pearl, is very fluffy...but that's not exactly a vocab word you learn in French class, so I had to ask her how to say it. Impressively, she figured out what I was trying to say. Gabrielle has actually gotten quite good at being able to help me figure out how to say things in French that I don't know how to say, and it's become a bit of a game. This time, though, I tried to explain to her why I didn't know what the word for fluffy was. I told her that I learned French in school the way that she learns English, and that at my house I speak English, not French. She seemed to get that. However, when I told her that my mommy doesn't speak any French at all, her eyes got huge.

Gabrielle: "Your mommy doesn't speak French? Not at all??"
Me: "No, she only speaks English."
Gabrielle: "She only speaks English? She doesn't understand any French????"
Me: "No, not really."
Gabrielle: "Oh! So that's why you only speak English at your house? Because your mommy doesn't speak French?"
Me: "Mmmm, no. No one speaks French where I live. Everyone speaks English - the teachers, the doctors, the salespeople, everyone."

:stunned silence:

In fact, she found this occasion so momentous that she bounced into the kitchen to tell her dad a few minutes later. Hilarious.

However, much less hilarious is the amount of work that I seem to have mounting up. I have a test on Friday, 60 lines due on Saturday, a 2 page paper due Saturday, and a 15-minute oral presentation due Tuesday. While I appreciate that I am getting 9 credits for a summer study abroad program...I am really struggling with how hard it is to earn those credits. My research project is driving me nuts and is taking away from my actual experience in France. I spent hours yesterday, Bastille Day, working in my room on my computer instead of hanging out with my French family. I also feel guilty about constantly hounding people to fill out my surveys so that I can do the project.

And, aside from the research project, my classes at the University make me want to rip my hair out sometimes!!! I guess I expected to take classes similar to those that I take at William and Mary in the French department - essentially classes in history, culture, or literature of France and the Francophone world that are conducted in French. Much to my dismay, though, I seem to be taking high school French all over again, only at a much more nit-picky level. Today, it was all I could do not to cover my head and scream. In my first class, we did listening comprehension. That's right listening comprehension on a CD...like I used to do in French 3. While I will admit that it was much more challenging than French 3, I felt like it was a pointless activity. I do listening comprehension daily at home with my French family!! Why are you making me listen to a newscast and answer questions??? I do that after dinner every night!! Teach me about history or something!! Then, in the next class, with my favorite mean mean mean professor, we did something I detest even in English - creative writing. Ummmm.... EWWW! I have no desire to write a pretend story about a woman whose body was discovered in a metro station. Don't care. Don't even want to pretend to care. Bahhhhhhhhh. Talk about study abroad with an emphasis on the study part....

Les Princesses de Montpellier

I have finally really connected with my little French sisters, Gabrielle the 5-year-old in particular. Initially, she was very timid around me, which I can understand. I am a stranger suddenly living in her house; I speak French with a funny accent; and I don't always understand what she's saying. However, something must have clicked, because now she is permanently attached to me. I think it was our trip to the fair on Sunday after I came home from the world's fastest tour of Avignon. (photos here) Gabrielle, her mom, me, and a family friend named Cecile drove to Carnon to go to a traveling fair, which is called a fete foraine in French, and Gab absolutely had the time of her life. She rode everything that she was allowed to ride - bumper boats, bumper cars, the giant slide (6 times, in fact), trampolines, bungee trampolines, and finally the ferris wheel. She also "won" prizes at a couple of games that were rigged for kids such that you couldn't lose. Ironically, the very first thing she did was play a game where she shot balloons with a rifle...even though the French don't have the right to bear arms....yeah....


The ferris wheel was definitely my favorite thing at the fete foraine because I got to ride it too; the trip was really an outing for Gabrielle, and I didn't want to ask my host mom or her friend to pay for me to ride stuff lol. What was really funny about the ferris wheel was the fact that my French mom is absolutely terrified of heights, and yet she agreed to get on the ferris wheel anyway...The entire time, she has her head buried in her arms and she's freaking out, telling Gabrielle not to move so that she won't fall out. Cecile and I are just cracking up, and when my French mom says she'd rather give birth than be on the ride, Cecile (who actually was her midwife) starts pretending to coach her through breathing exercises for birthing children. Hilarious. Anyway, sometime during that evening, Gab decided that I was her new favorite person.



The next evening at dinner (Monday night), she insisted on sitting next to me and then spent the entire time after dinner passing tiaras around the table, making everyone a princess including me. Then, after dinner, she and I played together in the living room where, of course, we were wearing princess crowns. She drew pictures, we worked on numbers and letters, and she started asking me about how to say lots of things in English. She had been doing this intermittently, but yesterday evening I think it finally clicked for her that I speak another language most of the time and that I can help her learn it. It was really sweet.



This morning, I was finally able, for the very first time since I've been in France, to sleep in!!! Yay! After I'd gotten up and had breakfast in my room, I was working on my project (which seems to consume my life, booooooo), when I heard a tiny French voice outside my room. "Amanda? Tu veux manger avec nous?" Teehee! Gabrielle was outside my window and she wanted to know if I wanted to have lunch with her and her family. Duh! At lunch, again, she insisted on sitting next to me. Then, after lunch we played together some more, and I have to say, our communication is improving drastically. For the most part, we understand each other all the time now!

This afternoon, both of my French mom's sisters and their husbands came over to hang out and play in the pool. Gabrielle insisted that I get in with her, and that is where I spent the rest of my afternoon - throwing her around and otherwise horsing around in the pool. And boy does she squeal if you do something that she doesn't want you to lol!

And lest you think the tiny French baby doesn't like me, she and I have developed a special bond too. She now "talks" to me, which is ridiculously cute because it's baby French. Example: At lunch today, Raphaelle handed me her empty bottle and said "Core", essentially "encore" or in English "more". She also hands me things randomly - like her bib - and wanted me to walk around with her today while I held her hands. Yay!