Excursions

This Sunday we went on an excursion to the old Roman city of Arles and Les Saintes-Maries de la mer in the region of Camargue.  Arles was a city established by the Greeks and it became an important city throughout history because the Rhone river located there was helpful for transporting goods.  We went to see the Roman arena where they used to have gladiator fights and got to sit where the nobles got to sit.  Now they use this arena for sporting events such as bullfights.  It was also the city where Van Gogh was from and painted a lot of his paintings there.  Apparently the reason all the painters loved to work in this town is because the light and sun is always perfect and there are not many places where you can find specific colors in nature like in Arles.  We went to a cafe which was where he painted "Café terrace at Night".  Les Saintes-Maries de la Mer is a town where apparently Mary, mother of Jesus, Mary, sister of Lazarus and Mary Magdalene came after the death of Jesus.  Also, Saint Sarah went there as well and still today gypsies from all over Europe come to this town to gather and celebrate their pilgrimage.  This is a very touristy city, but it was beautiful and we spent our free time eating ice cream on the water.  The weather was beautiful, it was about 60 degrees and sunny.  

Although this week has been, to say the least, a tad stressful, I am officially done with my first class, we had our final exam today and it went pretty well.  Now I am on vacation for for a week and a half and heading to Provence, Barcelona and Morocco, Africa soon!  I'll be sure to put up a lot of pictures from my trip!

I apologize for these pictures being slightly unorganized, but here are some from our excursion.

http://s274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/krdorcas/Excursions/?albumview=slideshow  

 Hey everyone! I've added some more pictures so click on this link to see them! 

http://s274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/krdorcas/?albumview=slideshow

I hope everyone is doing well, I miss you all so much!  Some of the pictures are still of Montpellier, but last Saturday we took an excursion to three different cities near us, Sète, Cape D'Agde and Pezenas. It's really neat to see all the different places and to hear about the history of each city!  I'm going to school here, but believe it or not I'm almost done with 1 of my classes.  Because of the strikes in the school system here last November, the students are still in school from last semester...meanwhile we were put into an intensive 3 credit grammar course!  It's a lot of information, but it's really helping my french and I have my final exam next Wednesday.  I'm learning so much here about not only the french language and culture, but also about the world.  I find myself watching and reading more news about france and the world, so I'm hoping after this trip is done I'll begin to put down the gossip magazines and maybe reach for a newspaper for once!! :)  Today it's about 60 degrees, so I'm going to go out and enjoy the day! Take care!!

p.s.

Karyl, Merci pour ton message!  Bien fait avec le français!  Je voudrais regarder tes photos de St Marten, peut-être tu peut m'envoyer par email.  

My first week in Montpellier

Hey everyone!  Here are some pictures of my first week so make sure to copy and paste this link and then click on "reverse order" on the slide show because I uploaded them backwards.

http://s274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/krdorcas/My%20first%20week%20in%20Montpellier/?albumview=slideshow

So the first thing I noticed when I met my host mom was her pink hair! She was funky looking and although I was a bit nervous, I was excited as well.  We drove 10 minutes out of Montpellier to a town called Castelnau le Lez.  We turned on a street that looked kind of sketchy with houses really packed together, but when we entered her "maison" her house was like nothing I'd ever seen before.  Every wall was a different color, all the tables were mosaics, fake grass was on the walls in the hallway, tiles in the bathroom were spotted like cows, there was a yellow fridge and a dishwasher named "Maurice".  There is artwork everywhere, but in a really fun/ funky way.  They have the skinniest, scruffiest, scrappiest little black dog named Lily and she is just like a cat.  She will jump up so high right into your lap and she's so cute! She loves to play fetch, but since there are not balls in the house, she'll play fetch with anything including matches, woodchips and leaves from plants.  

I got settled and unpacked and we ate "déjeuner" which was chicken with a ton of cooked veggies, which smelled and tasted delicious.  Of course I got the try 4 different cheeses along with 2 types of baguettes and they were all so good!  Le "Roquefort" is a cheese that is super rich but so good.  Another one you can't even buy in America because it's not pasteurized or something so I hope I don't get too sick!  After lunch, our neighbor Isabelle came over with her exchange student Emily.  We had coffee, tea and "une galette du roi" for the celebration of epiphany.  Isa found "le truc" in the cake so she got to wear the paper crown for the day.  I then got to meet Vero's son Arthur who is 16, but I have yet to meet her youngest Virgile because they stay with their dad every other week.  We then went to the supermarket to pick up the dinner essentials...bread, cheese and wine.  

Although we were planning on eating at 7:30, a friend and fellow coworker of Vero (art teacher at an elementary school) came over with her boyfriend for wine and duck liver.  She asked me if I wanted some and as it sounded disgusting, I said no, but then I saw it and it was a pâté spread on bread so I tried and and it was très bien!  We had a red wine called Faugère from this region of Montpellier.  An hour and a half later the two of them left and we finally sat down for dinner at 9:00 pm.  We has a salad with a ton of great things in it as well as fruit salad for dessert.  Isa invited me to go salsa dancing with them, but I was too tired so I said "une autre fois" and called it a night around 11:00 pm.  An interesting, but fun first day!

1-1-08 Leaving!

Happy New Year!  We all had a ton of fun last night with our friends and family over for New Year's Eve.  I'm getting ready to leave at 5:30 pm tomorrow from O'Hare airport.  I'm going to miss you all so much, but I will see you in May!!!!