1. Get a spoon
2. Get a jar of nutella
3. Open said jar of nutella
4. Insert spoon into jar of nutella
5. Remove spoon with ample supply of nutella on it
6. Insert said spoon into mouth (be careful not to confuse it with any other spoons that may be in the vicinity of said spoon with nutella)
7. Repeat as desired
If you aren't familiar with nutella, you are a sore excuse for a person. Get on that right quick.
So what have I been up to you ask??? Okay...I will tell you.
A few days ago, I attended a stellar party at this fantastic bar called L'Oxymore. There are pictures of this on my facebook if you want visuals. Quite a bit of fun was had, although I still must complain about the price of drinks here. Also, it's quite impossible for a guy to order a drink. In fact, I had a nice conversation about it with a French guy who was trying to do the same thing. I assured me that it was mostly just at L'Oxymore that this was the case. We'll have to see if this is true. Either way, we were both elated when a female bartender jumped back there and came directly to us. Holla.
Upon leaving the bar, the first entirely European thing happened to me since I arrived. A random Spanish guy ran across the street and smacked me on the back of the head. He started pointing at his ear and yelling at me in Spanish. I really have no idea at all why this happened. He left rather quickly. However, I do feel like I had more money on me that night than I was left with the next day. It's quite possible that I was pick-pocketed very cleverly. It's equally possible that this was just a very drunk Spanish man whose friends bet him he wouldn't run across the street and hit that American guy on the back of the head. Nonetheless, I feel this has primed me for the rest of my stay.
Two days ago, also known as Friday, a small group of my friends and I decided it would be a wonderful idea to walk to the Mediterranean Sea. We were told it was a mere seven kilometers away, so we went for it. After miles and miles of walking, we decided to ask some random Frenchman how to get there. I do believe he mislead us, because we ended up walking another 5 kilometers in the opposite direction than my spidey senses were telling me. Either way, we eventually found water of some sort. We became aware shortly after that we were in some town named Lattes. Upon successfully navigating the bus system here all the way back to Montpellier, I stopped in the study abroad office here and spoke with this French girl named Karima who works on the program. When I told her that we walked to Lattes, the look on her face was absolutely priceless. Apparently, walking great distances is not what they do in France. It's unbecoming...or something.
Today, I went to the zoo. Zoos here are as zoos should be. Basically, it was a large forest with random animal enclosures spread about. Not only did I feel less guilty about the trapped animals due to their suitable habitats, it was also just nice to look at. I felt a little bit like I was entering Jurassic Park, but my fears abated when I couldn't find any dinosaurs.
I'm a little concerned so far with the lack of French I have been able to speak. I am starting to think a host family might have been the way to go, but maybe I will just start putting a little more effort into finding native speakers. I have made a small friend in the lady who runs the little briocherie (bread/pastry/awesome) down my block. She taught me how to buy bread like the French do. I also got a chance to discuss the snow that happened here the other day. My favorite quote from her..."le neige ici, c'est la mort" (snow here is like death).
Other random thoughts....
There is dog shit everywhere. Apparently it's not a law to clean up after your dog. I'm not sure if the city does it either. It's generally important to keep a weathered eye to the sidewalk though whenever you go somewhere. When walking in groups, we have taking to assigning someone to shit watching duty, or as my friend Joan calls it, the shitstapo. It doesn't help that there are dogs everywhere. Apparently, dogs are protected under the law in some way here, so all the homeless people get one. They thus can't be arrested for doing nothing because the dog would have nowhere to go. It's kind of backwards...but completely true.
Next Friday, I'm hiking out to Pic Saint Loup, which is a big mountain on the horizon. It was supposed to be the plan for today, but it turns out it is impossible to get to on a Sunday because, like everything else, half the bus lines don't run, including the one that gets you near to the mountain. Either way I'm very excited about this.
The weekend after that, the program organized a day trip to Provence. It's apparently "interdit" (forbidden) to visit southern France and not go to Provence. A couple weekends after that there is a ski trip to the Alps. I'm still wrestling with whether or not to go on this. I don't ski, and it would cost me 190 Euro just to get frustrated for an entire weekend and then go sit in the lodge and sip coco. Instead, I've found some people who are going to Blois in northern France to see some castles. This will likely be what I do. There is also one free planned excursion put together by the program this semester. I've heard rumblings that it's Barcelona. I'm on that like white on rice.
We have one week off of school in February. At this time, I think there will be group of us heading to Amsterdam, London, Dublin, and or Prague. I think we might try and do three of those four. In the meantime, I need to get to Paris one of these weekends. I've never actually stepped outside of the airport there, and I feel that's a shame. I know everyone says it's just like New York, and that if you've been to one giant city, you've been to them all. But really, it's the principle of the matter. Paris must happen.
In March, I'm taking some extra time off to meet up with my friends Colin and Irina in Morocco. My friend Nida is also studying abroad there, so this could be really good shit. I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to work this with school. It was particularly stated that taking a lot of time off of classes is not a good idea. But really, there is only one class per week in France, so I can't imagine that this is really true. It's probably just the program encouraging studiousness. Fuck that...I'm going to Morocco.
Spring Break happens in April. I'm just a little bit too excited for the family to come see me. I'm thinking we'll do a little traveling, but not an intense amount. Mother wants to go to Italy, so we'll have to plan on that. I'm sure they also want to see a bit of Montpellier. This will only be for one of those weeks however. The other week is up for grabs as to where I want to go. I know some people here want to go to Turkey or Greece. Both of these sound lovely.
In general, this semester promises to destroy any that came before and all that will come after. However, I'm slightly nervous about my overall complacent nature getting in the way. That "go get 'em" attitude is sometimes hard to keep up. In any case, I don't ever want to find myself being okay with not speaking French on a given day. Additionally, I don't ever want to see myself staying in Montpellier for a long weekend when there are plenty of other places to see. But what can I say...sometimes the road less traveled can be a bitch. We'll see how I manage.
DON'T FORGET TO LOOK AT THE PICTURES.
www.flickr.com/photos/francepants/
I'm adding descriptions tonight.
Cheers everyone!
Corey
Your first paragraph explains exactly why I cannot buy myself nutella or as it was called in the Netherlands "Hazelnoot Pasta" I start out spreading a little on toast, then I think I will just have a little with my spoon and then, before I know it, I am eating it off my fingers.
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