Meanwhile, in Montpellier (and Marseille too)...

Hello again everyone! Sorry for the looong hiatus. I really have no excuse. I’ve just been so busy and my mind has been a million places; unfortunately blogging somehow got left out of my to-do list. So, to make it up to you, I’m about to recap my past month and a half in Montpellier. Phew... here goes…

What is my life like here? Hmm, let’s see… In a word: normal. It’s weird to think about it, but I really have a day-to-day routine here that resembles my life in Louisville quite a bit. I go to school and work during the week, I go grocery shopping, I have homework, I do laundry, I take out the trash, and I clean my room. Those last 3 are nothing at all like life at home though.

That’s not to say boring, however. Quite the opposite, in fact. Everything is done under the wonderful pretext that I’m speaking French, which I’m happy to say is becoming more ‘usual’ and less ‘speaking a foreign language’. Beyond that, every week is punctuated with experiences that are so pleasant and unique that they’re impossible to take for granted. (click to enlarge photos)

I took a morning walk around the streets in the city center, just to see what it’s like in the peaceful twilight hours.

La Place de la Comédie – the grand circle of Montpellier. It’s normally swamped with people. On Friday and Saturday nights, that statue often serves as a podium for young winos to achieve momentary glory by climbing and belting out slurred soccer club anthems. I love this city.

Above all, the people I’ve met here have made my time here an absolute pleasure. I’ve been lucky enough to make friends from all over the world: France, Kuwait, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Germany, Austria… the list goes on and on. Some of us just recently took a weekend trip to Marseille.

It’s the second largest city in France, located in the south, off the coast of the Mediterranean. The summit off to the right is crowned by the basilica Notre-Dame de la Garde.

The golden statue of the Virgin Mary – or “The Good Mother” as she’s known locally – is said to keep watch over the people of Marseille.

It's pretty inside.

The view outside isn’t so bad either.

The next day, we went to those islands off in the distance

Nora and Patrick! That island fortress in the background is le Château d'If of The Count of Monte Cristo fame.

From left to right: Julia, Serge, and Nora – south of France chic.

Our last day we walked around the city and hung out in this park.

It was a very pleasant little weekend trip, and I think the next time we have a few days off school, we’re going to Barcelona! These are the perks of living on the TGV network in southern Europe.

I’m very grateful for the friends I’ve made here. Montpellier really wouldn’t be the same without them. That said, I can’t neglect to mention my other family, the Spiraus, who treat me like a spoiled grandchild by inviting me over for mouth-watering 3-course dinners nearly every Sunday.

I wanted to show them my version of haute cuisine, so I tried to make them PB&J sandwiches. However they only had baguettes and fancy organic grape jelly… so this was the result. French PB&J.

When they were away in Brazil one week, I creeped around and took pictures of their house while catsitting their other grandchild, Kirikou.

Peekin.

But then I just ended up taking pictures of the cat.

Another great thing about Montpellier is that there’s always something going on. There is some sort of cultural activity happening almost every day. I’ve been taking advantage of this by going to numerous concerts – many of them completely free – and every Wednesday there’s something called l’Agora des saviors, which is basically like a Montpellier's version of TED talks.

One of my favorites was the guitar festival. We bought some wine and snacks and just walked around the city from show to show. Sometimes they played in courtyards, or outside cafés, or sometimes just in the middle of the street, as pictured here.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy concert. He’s from Louisville too!

Architecture in Helsinki.

Yuck.

Just recently I went on a class field trip to a vineyard specializing in wines from Languedoc-Rousillon: the region of France of which Montpellier is the capital. Unfortunately it was raining so I didn’t get to see the vineyard, but we still did the most important part: DRINKING!

The guy on the left (forgot his name) explained to us all the intricacies of wine tasting. The diagram behind him illustrates the different ‘taste regions’ of the tongue. The guy on the right is my teacher, Mr. Dekeister.

Apparently, there are 5 steps to drinking a glass of wine. I’ll explain: 

• First, you look at it. Yes, LOOK AT IT. It has to have a shiny surface, or else the wine is bad or something… You tilt the glass around and look at the clear thingies on the side of the glass – the thicker they are, the higher the alcohol content, a.k.a. the better.
• Then, you take a huge whiff of it. Just kidding, you smell it. Don’t swirl the glass yet, that comes later. Just inhale. Do you want to drink it yet? TOO BAD, just shut up and sniff.
• Next, you swirl the wine around in the glass. This oxygenates the wine, which changes the flavor and the scent; so it’s very important. The guy actually put his palm over the top of the glass and shook it around – but then he told us not to do that because it’s an advanced technique. Whatever.
• Finally, you drin- …syke, you still have one more smell test. Now you smell the newly oxygenated wine and contemplate the new aroma it has taken on. Do this for at least 4 minutes.
• And then comes the grand finale: you drink your glass of wine. To drink, you take 3 short slurps (this isn’t even a joke), and then you can swish it around in your mouth like mouthwash, and even spit it out if you want to – but then you don’t get drunk which is the whole point of the damn thing.

It’s always a good sign if the glass is shiny as well.

The wine tasting room. Those sinks are where you spit the wine out if you don’t want to feel the alcohol, or if the wine is just really disgusting (this is rare).

At this point I was ready to chug a bottle of Yellowtail and be done with it.

It’s easy to make fun of wine tasting, but it was honestly really interesting. My taste buds are still untrained, but I can easily work on that by guzzling more wine. I was always skeptical of these “connoisseurs”, but this guy was the real deal. He could tell the year of a wine just from looking at the color. Crazy.

So, there you have it. My past month and a half in a nutshell. So far, my projects for the future are Barcelona and Oslo. Also, if you didn’t know already, I’m coming home December 20^th and staying til January 9^th! Can’t wait to see you guys. Expect another blog update within the next 6 months!