How to most efficiently get attacked by a prostitute in Amsterdam

The title is catchy ain't it?  Well unfortunately, you're going to have to wait to find out until much later on, for my recount of my winter vacation in Europe will go chronologically.  Starting.......now.

As some of you might already know, the French are all about doing as little work as is humanly possible.  This is why they give their students not only a two week spring break in April, but also a week off in the middle of February to go skiing and whatnot.  Being that I attend a French university, I am entitled to both these vacations, and given that the school is practically always on strike, I'm not really a student for all intents and purposes.  Thus, for the past 10 days, I have been traveling around northern Europe with a small group of friends.  We decided northern Europe is a better idea because the weather sucks pretty much everywhere in Europe right now.  So it's best to save southern Europe for when it will be really nice there and only "meh" in the north.  The following locations were chosen; London, Dublin, and Amsterdam.

On February 13th, I and four others hopped on a train in Montpellier on our way to Marseille, a much larger city on the Mediterranean.  We had a couple of hours to kill before we had to make our way to the airport, so we walked along the seaport and found a place to eat on the water.  If you've never been in southern France when it's 60 degrees and sunny right next to the sea, you really need to get your head in the game and haul your ass over here.  It's breathtaking to say the least.  Good thing I live on the Mediterranean or I would have been much more sad having to leave so quickly.  

We then bussed to the airport in Marseille to have our first Ryanair experience.  For those of you who have not experienced this wonderful little detail of European travel yet, Ryanair is a really friggin cheap airline that flies all over the place.   All in all, it's not a bad deal.  You learn real quickly how they can afford to keep their prices so low when the minute you climb on board they're making advertising announcements for Hertz or shoving scratch and win tickets in your face.  Note to the future Ryanair user: Put on your IPOD and ignore all of this.  You are not obliged to buy shit from them, and I'm pretty sure the staff thinks that those who do are stupid.  All in all, it's not a bad deal.  Baggage restrictions are a little tight, but you shouldn't be traveling around Europe with more than you can fit on your back anyway.

London is baller....enough said.  Okay, maybe that's not quite enough.  But really, it's baller.  Hostels, on the other hand, not so much on the baller scale.  The one we stayed at was pretty filthy, cramped, and smelly.  However, you could drink in the lobby until all hours of the night if you wanted to.  We only took advantage of this once, however.  The rest of the time we spent rolling through London being all stellar and shit.  Of course I saw all the normal things to see in London; Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and the like.  Two highlights, however, were the British Museum and the London Eye.  The British Museum is entirely made of artifacts.  There aren't really any paintings whatsoever.  While there, one can see the ACTUAL Rosetta Stone.  Believe it or not, it's not just some random name for the rip-off program that "teaches" you foreign languages.  The London Eye is that gigantic ferris wheel that you've probably seen in some movies before.  It's an amazing view of London, and is definitely something not to miss (this is starting to read like a travel guide...sorry).  Also, the tube is great fun...as long as you mind the gap.

Monday night, it was on to Dublin, the land of Guinness and Jameson.  Believe it or not, the Irish do really seem to play these two things up as the most important aspects of Dublin.  Our hostel here was much better, although the bedroom did smell worse than the bathroom.  I'm still not quite sure how that works...

Immediately upon getting in, I met my friend (and future roommate) Jessica, who is studying abroad in Dublin and interning with the Irish Parliament (SWEET).  We went out to a bar and drank...that's right, you got it....Guinness.  The next morning we went to....oh wait, what was it???? OHHH YEAHHHH The Guinness Factory.  Guinness was abound, needless to say.  

Wednesday, we all decided to take this tour of the countryside in southern Ireland.  Now generally, I despise tours with every fiber of my being.  Most of them are inauthentic, and you spend half the time listening to information about a place when you could be taking it in for yourself.  So obviously, I was skeptical going into this.  I realized it was going to be a killer tour the moment I saw the tour guide and the automobile we would be taking.  Usually, when one thinks of a tour, the words coach bus and charismatic asshole with a microphone come to mind.  This however, was a very old Irishman named Ed and a van.  Ed reminded me of the father from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, only Irish.  As the father in the movie could prove that every word in the dictionary comes from Greek roots, Ed could basically prove that everyone in the world was Irish in some way, shape or form.  Besides bringing us to some sweeping Irish landscapes, he also gave us tea and cookies with a view of both Bono's and Enya's houses.  Believe it or not, Enya's was way bigger.  It was also castle style.  Way to go Enya.  However, I imagine Bono has one or 17 more houses around the world. (see pictures on facebook of this tour...totally worth it).

And now for the part we've all been waiting for.  How to most efficiently get attacked by a prostitute in Amsterdam.  It's quite simple really.  Merely, take a picture of her (or him...you never can tell).  No no no, this did not happen to me.  However, it did happen to one of the girls I was traveling with.  Despite having talked about not taking pictures in the red light district earlier that day, she decided that she could snap one photo of a red light and no harm would come.  Well upon snapping this one photo, a very large, possibly spanish prostitute came dashing out of her window onto the cobblestone street in nothing but an ill fitting bra and some stilettos.  She moved pretty quick for someone of her size.  It was really quite surprising.  I was about thirty feet ahead when I heard her yelling "OY OY (random babbling in some language)".  I whipped around and saw my tiny friend Joan wrapped in the clutches of this woman's arm fat struggling to get her camera back.  She fought all the way into the brothel (something I'm not sure the hooker was expecting).  This all happened too quickly for anyone to realize what was happening, let alone do anything about it.  The rest of us stayed right at the window to make sure they didn't do anything to her.  The two hookers inside were really just looking through her pictures with angry ho scowls on their faces. Anyway, they let her go with her camera shortly after.  Joan took it like a champ.  To be honest, I would have just let them take the camera.

We didn't go back to the red light district, and with good reason. The rest of Amsterdam is really quite beautiful.  The Van Gogh Museum is life-altering and tragic all at the same time.  Starry Night was there on loan from the MOMA.  I'm not going to lie...it was way better in person than it is on all those bad prints you see around the world.  Also, if you go to Amsterdam, never pay for public transportation.  They have no mechanism to check, and it seemed like hardly anyone was paying.  Don't blame me if you get caught, but we rode it a lot and no one ever seemed to care.

We got back home today.  This was easier typed than done.  We woke up at 7:00 am in Amsterdam and got on a tram (free of course).  This we took to the Amsterdam Centraal (that's how they spell it in Dutch...pointless extra A if you ask me) train station.  From their, we got on a train to Eindhoven.  In Eindhoven, we took a bus to the airport.  We got on a 12:55 pm flight to Marseille.  From the Marseille airport, we took a bus to the Marseille train station across town.  Then, we got on a train back to Montpellier, arriving at 6:15.  And what did you do today, might I ask?

Really, there are too many details to write down.  So please don't hesitate to ask if you want more.  

Cheers!

(PS...I typed this up in a hurry.  Please ignore grammar/spelling/awkward wording mistakes...in fact this goes for every entry in this blog....please and thank you)

Yet again...

I manage to break my promise of writing in this twice a week.  I'm sure this has left all four of you that actually read this all curled up in a corner rocking back and forth, just waiting for more.  Well the methadone has arrived my friends.  Here we go...

First, and definitely foremost, I finally went to Paris this weekend.  The fact that I lived in France for more than a month before hitting the Paris streets makes me a little sick to my stomach.  I'm just glad I've remedied this fact now.  Either way, I spent the weekend living in Versailles with my old buddy Andrew Organ from high school.  I hadn't actually seen him for two years before Friday, but we seemed to pick up as if that time in between had never happened.  Andrew has been living in Versailles (which is about a half hour out of Paris) for the entire year on an architecture program from the University of Illinois.

I got to Paris, Gare de Lyon, at around 2:00 on Friday.  I then figured out the metro/RER lines, or what have you, and made my way out to Versailles.  I met Andrew there a little bit later on.  He showed me around his school which is ridiculously nicer than the one I go to.  I've described my school as "Bratislavaesque".  I'd give his school at least "Warsawesque".  Either way, it seemed like a really great program consisting of a close knit group of kids.  None of them spoke French for all intents and purposes before moving, which is BRAVE AS HELL if you ask me.  

Afterwards, Andrew went off to a meet his "gypsy band" (I'll explain later), while I made friends with his roommate Daniel, who was to be my babysitter for the night.  We had dinner and hung out for a bit, and then we hit the train system to get back into Paris to see Andrew's band perform that night...

The metro...hilarious.  It's exactly as absurd as everyone told me it was.  In one three day stay in Paris, I managed to witness someone throwing up, someone receiving sexual favors, and two guys straight up smoking crack.  Now I've never even seen crack (you can breathe mom!), let alone seen it smoked, let alone on public transportation.  So I apologize if this seems naive to the crack experienced out there, but this was shocking to me.

We got to this dive bar somewhere in Paris shortly after to see Andrew's gypsy band.  Okay, so gypsy band.  What the fuck is this you ask???  Good question...I'll tell you.  It's an all brass band filled with all French people and then Andrew and his other roommate.  They basically get smashed, put on ridiculous outfits, and play such classics as "Hot Stuff" and various ABBA.  Needless to say, while jumping into that frigid cold pool everyday sophomore year for swim practice with Andrew, I never once thought that I would see him doing this.  Despite the slight awkwardness that came with not actually knowing anyone there except Andrew, it seemed like a pretty authentic experience.  

Saturday, we slept in late, as I was exhausted and Andrew's drunk ass definitely needed a few extra hours of sleep if they were available.  We got into Paris later that afternoon where Andrew took me to see all things that one must do on their first time to Paris, no matter how cliché they are.  We went to the Eiffel Tower, walked down the Champs Elysées, and saw l'arch de triomphe.  After that, we took the metro out to the Centre Pompidou (the crazy building that's tubes and pipes are all exposed), and then to Notre Dame.  Finally, we went back to the Eiffel Tower to see the light show at 8:00.  Stellar, enough said.  

Andrew and I went out to his friend's house that night where we played some drinking games like some good ol' Americans.  There were a couple really random French people there, but I got to talking to one of them about what the hell I was doing there.  He eventually told me that of all the study abroad students he has ever met, I speak by far the best French....This is possibly the best compliment that an American can receive in France, no joke.  I was giddy about this for quite a bit. 

Today, I went to the Louvre.  Baller is the expression that comes to mind here.  That and "Asian Tourist".  They're everywhere.  I had to fight through like 50 of them just to get a look at the Mona Lisa, and same went for the Venus de Milo.  Other than that, it was one of the greatest things I've ever done.  The Rubens room is breathtaking.  Andrew and I played a game where he sat in the middle of the room and made witty commentary about what he thought was going on in the paintings (all of which were bigger than my apartment times 2) and then I went up and read what was actually going on.  Which brings me to what I really admired about the Louvre.  I loved that they didn't put a billion different translations next to each painting.  They just have one in French.  I felt like too many of those little plaques would detract from the displays.  Granted, I read French...so I imagine opinions vary based on language competence. 

I trained back home to Montpellier at 3:30 this afternoon.  I was actually quite sad to be leaving.  I don't know whether it was because I was leaving a friggin awesome city or the comfort of a familiar face (probably a little of both), but either way I need to go back soon.  On the way home, I started thinking about how I'm going to remember this trip.  I was looking at some of France's breathtaking country landscapes and thinking...how the hell am I going to remember I saw this exact place at this exact time.  Of course I'll always remember going to the Louvre, but will I remember the funny banter I had or the delicious chicken caesar wrap Andrew and I split?  A lot of times, it's these little things that make the bigger things seem even greater, and I would hate to lose them in the dank pit that is my brain.  Photos will help, and so will this blog and my personal journal.  But I can't hit apple+s on everything I see, and I can't write down everything that happens.  Even if I could, I don't think my writing skills are good enough to really express everything that happens in a given moment in order to bring me back to it at a later time, and the pictures I've taken thus far haven't done one single bit of justice.  This might just have to be something I get over, I'm not sure.  Maybe I'll attach a video camera to the top of my had and run it 24/7.  Genius...

Okay...pictures are forthcoming...I promise.  Though my camera did die in the middle of Paris, so I only have the beginning and the end of that.  But Andrew is sending me the rest.  

A bientot!!!! 

Corey

When in France...

...eat like a fat ass.  This is the motto I live by here.  There's this dangerous patisserie right on my street that sells the most delicious everything.  The lady that runs the shop told me today, "Le deuxieme ventre que vous allez obtenir pendant ce semestre sera un souvenir de votre voyage!"  Translation...the second stomach you're gonna grow this semester will be like a souvenir!''  Thanks French lady... If you haven't already figured this out, food will be a recurring theme in this little thing I'm writing here.  I base my days around it (as do the French for the most part), so I see no way around this.

Okay, so I'm awful at keeping up on this. But I warned you all right from the very start that I was going to run out of time and brain power to be persistent about this.  But I'm reaffirming my commitment to this blog right now.  At least two per week...I promise...kinda.

Needless to say, I've been preoccupied with all sorts of epic things over the past week and a half or so.  Last weekend, I hiked Pic Saint Loup.  It's this decently sized mountain that one can see off in the distance from a very tall building in Montpellier.  Getting to Pic Saint Loup, however, is equally as difficult as climbing it is.  You have to take the Montpellier tram to the L'Occitanie stop.  Then you get on the number 108 bus, but you must ask them for a special stop that's not on the route.  This special stop gets you within four miles of the actual mountain.  You walk the rest of the way.  This takes about an hour or so.  Nonetheless, the hike was nothing short of life altering.  You can see the pictures on facebook, but honestly, they don't do it any justice whatsoever.  This is fine though.  These are my memories...not yours.  Get your own.

This weekend, myself and my friends Mandi, Stephanie, and Joan went to Nimes.  Nimes is an impossibly old city that used to be part of the Roman Empire.  As such, Roman architecture is abound, including a quite sizable coliseum type structure in which they used to stage some good ol' fashion gladiator battles.  For lunch, we found this little place called "la flambée" or something like that.  It was a small creperie with no one in it but us.  IT WAS BRILLIANT.  The food was incredible.  It was also the owner's birthday.  We thus sang to him...and then the women who ran the store decided to tell us that after we finished eating, we would all jump on the tables and dance.  I was all for this, but apparently they were joking because it never came to pass.  

Saturday, there was a group tour of Provence, a region close by to the northeast.  Like everything else in France, it's all very old.  We did four stops.  The first was at a very famous aqueduct in southern France called Pont du Garde.  It was built somewhere around 50 a.d.  It stands completely in tact today, which really makes you wonder how the good state of Minnesota can't build better bridges.  Shortly after, we went to this very small town called La Fontaine Vaucluse.  The main attraction here is this mysterious river source that seems to come from nowhere.  In truth...it comes from groundwater and a system of cavelike passages in the mountain side.  Apparently no one has found the exact source of the water though...Jacques Cousteau got pretty close this one time, but that's it.  The water was so clean and the town was so beautiful that I was kind enough to hold my increasingly full bladder until I found a suitable bathroom rather than turn nature into one.  Next, we drove into the mountains to this mountain with a medieval city on it, including huge castle ruins at the top.  My friend Ralitza and I ran to the top like the Crocodile Hunter (may he rest in peace) and his wife on their way to some crazy adventure.  We looked ridiculous no doubt, but they only gave us an hour for the whole thing.  We were the only ones to get all the way to the top though, and the view was, as mother would call it, transformational.  Pictures of this trip will be up on Facebook shortly.

Otherwise, I'm starting to feel like I should have looked for a more independent study abroad program.  Don't get me wrong, I love this program, and I'm having the time of my life.  That being said, certain things about it have felt very... inauthentic is probably a good word for it.  For instance, there were nearly 50 people on this trip to Provence.  How is one going to truly experience something like that with all those people around, especially all those loud American people.  A smaller program would have also forced me to speak more French, which is something I have to actively struggle for here.  At the same time, it's kind of nice that a lot of stuff is taken care of for me here.  That way I can focus on traveling and whatnot.  My feelings on this change daily...so I'll let you know of any updates. 

Pictures are going on Facebook from here on out, because the flickr page makes you pay if you want to put a lot of pictures on.  Screw that...facebook is free.  

Tchao everyone!

Corey

A French Breakfast

To start, I figured I'd give you all a little recipe for a classic French breakfast that I have enjoyed the last three days straight.  Here goes...

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

flickr

www.flickr.com/photos/francepants/

This is where all my photos will go.

How to make southern France freak out...

Snow...that's apparently all it takes.  It snowed today in Montpellier, which I quickly learned practically NEVER happens.  I walked into the U.S. office that they have set up for our program today, and one of the staff looked at me and said, "il neige...il ne neige JAMAIS ici."  This means, "it's snowing, it NEVER snows here."  He seemed a little bitter about this.  Meanwhile, everyone from the University of Minnesota was ready to put on their shorts and eat at an outdoor café.  When I was on campus today, I watched two Frenchmen fight with a bag of sidewalk salt to melt the non-existent ice.  They yelled at each other for a bit and then just started digging into the bag with their hands and throwing it about.  I wanted to go tell them that it wouldn't even be cold enough for that to be necessary, but it was too fun watching them argue.  The rest of the city seemed totally unprepared for this as well.  Apparently in the past, they have closed everything down at the slightest sign of snow.

Okay, so here's a rundown of my life.  I started classes on Monday.  I'm taking five, four of which will likely be very easy.  Mondays I have "Civilisation du sud", or "southern civilization".  This is a class about the south of France basically.  Should be pretty fun.  We have to do projects about cities in the south of France, but they can't be researched.  You have to actually go do something.  My group is currently deciding between Nice and Marseilles.  Oh good god no!!!! Don't make me spend a week in Marseilles!!!!  That's cruel and unusual punishment.  Wait you're saying you are going to give me course credit for spending a weekend there?  How dare you?!?!?!?!?!  Hah...I love my life.

Tuesdays, I have two classes. In the morning I have a class strictly on conversation.  This is a joke.  I just finished a conversation class back home which was MUCH more difficult than this.  Which brings me to my next topic...the level of French spoken here by the majority of the program is DEPLORABLE at best.  It's frustrating.  I literally had one girl tell me that she didn't want to speak French.  My response (silently to myself), GET OUT OF FRANCE YOU DIPSHIT.  I don't mind if you suck at it, but if you are going to come to France and not try and speak the language, just leave.  Go to Cabo or something with the rest of your sorority.  

Phew, now that that's out of the way, Tuesday nights I have a pretty intense literature class with M. Picot.  It's called "Le mythe du vampire", or "the myth of the vampire" (I know that one was probably difficult to figure out).  It's basically about the use of vampires in literature.  Pretty cool topic, though I'm not sure how this is applicable to anything.  Once the prof found out about the Americans in the class, he spent a good 15 minutes making fun of us.  He rattled off something about his favorite author and none of us had heard of him before.  He managed to squeak out, "I hate you" in English.  Later on we realized he was saying Joseph Conrad, but it sounded nothing like that at all with his accent.

Wednesdays I have a large lecture connected with the vampire class called "Les avants gardes de vigntieme siecle".  This prof is stellar and is very easy to understand.  Later on that day, I have Advanced Phonetics.  I already took this class at the U of M pretty much, but they make us take it again here.  This will be impossibly easy.  The teacher loves me though because I already know the international phonetic alphabet.

Thursdays all I have is advanced grammar in the morning.  Then I'm done.  There was a class I really should have taken on Fridays because it would have counted for absolutely everything back at the U of M.  I, however, compromised my academic integrity and decided not to take any class on Friday.  I will thus be peacing this place most weekends right after class on Thursday to travel.  I mostly won't even have to come back until Monday mornings because my class on Monday doesn't start until 3:15.  Brilliant eh?

So my sleep schedule is obviously very screwy.  I accidentally fell asleep when I got home today at around 8:00pm.  I slept til midnight, which is why I'm wide awake at 3:30 in the morning.  I have to wake up for class at around 8:00 too, so we'll see how this goes.  I will be making a website with flickr.com or something to post my pictures, so watch for that in my next post.  Leave comments if there is something in particular you want to hear about.  

A plus!

Corey

Hey Everyone!!!

To begin with, let's just be honest...how fly is this picture of me?  I mean really...BADASS. I'm not even sure of the name of the place that I'm at in this photo, but seriously...this is why I'm hot.   Now that that's out of the way, I've been here for three days now and I'm enjoying it quite a bit.  The pictures here are just a small taste of what's been up, but I think I'm going to set up a flickr.com page on which to post all of my pictures.  I will let you know when that's up.

This city is absolutely stellar.  One walks up and down the streets and immediately feels like a part of a movie.  The architecture in Montpellier is actually quite a bit newer than the buildings in the rest of the large cities of France, meaning that most of it dates back only to the 16th century...practically new right??? Nonetheless, the University that I'm attending dates all the way back to the 13th.  I've figured this much out, the centre ville (city center...or where shit happens more or less) is basically one incredibly large outdoor mall.  Clothing boutiques are abound, along with small cafés and other random shops.  There are also two McDonald's and two Subways. Yes Alex, that means you could work here if you wanted.

My French seems to hold up pretty well.  Certain people have asked me random things while I was ordering something from a restaurant that I didn't understand at all.  I've figured out that when this happens, the proper response is always "oui, merci".  But most of the time this isn't necessary.  I learned very quickly that the French don't understand American sarcasm.  I made a sarcastic joke to one of the program assistants here and all the Americans around me laughed, but he looked visibly puzzled.  Note to self: Completely change my sense of humor. 

I moved into my apartment today.  It is possibly the smallest inhabitable space in the world.  But I'm beginning to think that it's pretty standard for a French student that doesn't live at home.  I will show you pictures of it soon, but in the meantime, imagine a small white box.  Then put a bed and a desk in it.  That's about it.  I have a kitchenette and a bathroom as well, but the fact that I could actively cook and shower at the same is not a good sign.  There are 4 other people from my program in this building, so we've bonded a little over out interesting living situations.  Good news is that it comes with free internet which the vast majority of the students in the program don't have access to.  

Last night, I went out to my first France bar.  All I have to say about this is that they played Mambo #5 by Lou Bega, and it wasn't as a joke.  Oh and a rum and coke is 8 euro.  

There's a crap load more to write, but class starts tomorrow and I must sleep.  I leave you with the French version of a movie theatre (please compare this to AMC 30 in South Barrington or your local suburban movie theatre).

  Sweet right???  And here's a view of part of the city from up higher.

Cheers!!!

Corey