Hello once again. I suppose it's time for an update. What's been going on the past two months? Well, for Christmas and New Year's, I came home to Louisville for what was probably the best three weeks of my 2011. It felt so good to see my family and friends again.
Arriving at the airport. Stole this one from Katie (thx lylas!)
Buds
Christmas party gift exchange
After three weeks of doing absolutely nothing except eating, drinking, and hanging out, it was time to go back to the real world. Upon my return to Montpellier, it was nice to be reunited with everyone I hadn't seen over the holidays. That said, I'm right back in my groove of school/work/weekends now. Very busy. It's strange; it's like Montpellier has become my "home" and Louisville is where I go on vacation. Weird.
In order to see a bit more of France, I've been going on little weekend trips. First I went with Anne to Cassis, the easternmost city of the French Riviera.
Cassis is a little town in the calanques (small inlets/coves) of Marseille.
€€€€€
Very touristy and picturesque.
If you look reaaallly closely on the cliff to the left, there's a villa overlooking the town. Geez.
Us plebs in the lower tax bracket were just happy to eat sandwiches on this rock and enjoy the view...
...and watch the sunset.
Another weekend, my friend Helen and I decided to head up north to Lyon. For the first time I tried couchsurfing. It's basically a website where members who have a spare room/couch offer up their place for other travelers free of charge. The goal is to encourage cultural exchanges for people abroad. In essence, you're staying at a stranger's house - after viewing their profile and choosing whether they seem trustyworthy based on previous travelers/commentary. My mom was convinced I was going to be kidnapped or murdered. Luckily, I escaped unscathed. We stayed with a young French/Cambodian guy named David. He had an apartment in a beautiful neighborhood called Vieux Lyon. The whole weekend we hung out with him and his neighbor, Marion. They were both really awesome.
He was incredibly welcoming and made sure we felt at home (as you can see; we just threw our stuff everywhere)
Helen and David. He's a really talented musician who had just quit his jazz manouche band.
From left to right: David, Marion, Helen. Don't worry, that's a cigarette...
We're not very good at card tricks.
It was really really cold (-11C), so we spent much of the weekend in cafés, hanging out, listening to music, playing cards; just - forgive me - CHILLIN. Friday we went to this really cool speakeasy-themed bar and danced swing. In spite of the cold, we did go on a little walk around the city just to sightsee a bit.
Insane flight of steps we climbed for a nice view of the city. This was actually only about halfway up.
The view was actually much nicer but I just took this crappy picture because my hands were about to fall off.
Lyon Town Hall, just a couple minutes walk from David's place.
Sweeeet
David's neighborhood, Vieux Lyon, seen from across the bridge. That cathedral up there is where those steps lead to.
It was honestly so much fun. I really hope they come to visit us in Montpellier. My first couchsurfing experience was a total success: I didn't get raped/murdered AND I had a blast. Cool.
This week we've got winter break. What? Winter break was in December? Nonono... that was Christmas break. Here in France, those are two different things. So, since I'm off school and work, I'm going to Barcelona with Hope! What's also cool is that a lot of people from my school are coincidentally going there too. So, my plan is fiesta > siesta all week long. I guess you can be expecting pictures from that trip sometime within the next four to five months.
In the meantime, take care and I love/miss you all!
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