Montpellier, France (Jan. 10 – 13)

When I returned from South Africa, the first two people I bumped into were NOT the people I wanted to see. Within seconds of me stepping into the residence with my suitcase, one of them dumped a load of dirty sheets into my arms and asked me to trade them in for clean ones later in the day. The fact that I had only just arrived back on the continent and was already late for class was a good enough excuse to turn that oh-so-tempting offer down. The second person was one that had two weeks previously confessed his “feelings” for me 20 minutes before I had to leave for the airport to head to South Africa. Upon my return, he came into my room and started telling me that he had changed over the break, and he no longer had feelings for me. He then proceeded to say incredibly horrible things for the sole purpose of proving that fact. It wasn’t appreciated. (He apologized later in a message.) In any case, I didn’t feel the need to stay in res, and I knew that Philippe, a friend of mine (and fellow guide, uOttawa student, ultimate and soccer player), had just arrived in Montpellier for the start of his exchange. He sent me an email saying to come when I could, and probably didn’t think that I actually would so soon! I hopped on the train and arrived in Montpellier that night, only three hours after sending Phil a message (and hoping he would get it in time) saying I was going to the train station. He was a little surprised, but it was so good to see him again and we had a good weekend.

Since he had only arrived in Montpellier a couple days earlier, we wandered around exploring the city, tossed a disc in a park, visited the market, and he took care of a few set-up things (i.e. getting a cell phone—the key element in the French culture to having a social life). We went out for a delicious meal with a few other international students and took a lot of pictures. Philippe’s residence is not really in the most central location, it’s quite far from downtown in fact; however, the walk to the residence is one of the coolest—if not THE coolest—that I’ve done since I’ve been in Europe. You pass some charming little squares and streets, an arc de triomphe, a really neat park with a pond and monument that marks the beginning of an aqueduct that runs all the way to his residence. And at night, they light up the aqueduct, and it’s BLUE—so cool! The walk in pictures would look something like the following:










On Sunday, Phil and I took the train to Aix, and we explored Aix a little bit. I’d have to say the most random part of the Aix visit was when this whole procession of dressed up bible characters was wandering the streets of downtown Aix singing. If that’s not random enough, they had a donkey and a camel with them—so odd!