Whoops, I've been lax about blogging the past three weeks. It's funny to look at my last post and see that I had written that I amazed by the fact that it had already been a week since I'd been here and now it's been a month! Ahh it's flown by.
So, for the past three weeks I’ve been quite busy. The week after my last post, we went to a winery for civilization class to taste wine. We learned about the “art of dégustation” which means how to taste and appreciate wine. First, you have to look at the color of the wine. You’d think this would be simple because it’s either blanc, rouge ou rosé, but vin blanc has different tones to it- most are yellow. Second, you smell the wine. The curve of the wine glass serves a purpose in smelling the wine by directing the particles in one direction towards your nose (I kind of made that up but I think it’s right). Take note of whether it smells more like fruit or flowers. Finally, you taste the wine. Enough said.
That Friday there was another Estivales, the wine tasting festival held in the main part of the city. This time I did have the wine and it was actually really good. Estivales is a great place to go to experience true French culture; great local food, local wine and the locals. We met a lot of interesting people including local French people so it was a good opportunity to améliorer mon français.
The next day we had a guided visit to Musée Fabre and got to see an exposition on Alexandre Cabanel, an artist from the 19th century who was originally from Montpellier. Cabanel won the prestigious Prix de Rome scholarship at age 22, allowing him to study in Rome at a young age. He eventually became a member of the Institut (the academy of distinguished painters) and became a professor at l'École des Beaux-Arts, the renowned architectural school that was featured in Inception.
Sunday we went on an excursion to Avignon. It was a cool city to see because there were a lot of ancient ruins and also the Palais des Papes. My mom studied abroad there when she was in college so
it was interesting to be in the same place that she had studied abroad back in the 1800s (only kidding). After Avignon, we went to a vignoble (vineyard) and got to see the vines and how wine was made. The one we went to was not only a vineyard but also a school where people go to become an œnologue, a connoisseur of wine. Picture: Outside the Palais du Papes. I'm not entirely sure of the significance of this elephant, I only know that there was a replica inside the palace.
That week we also got to see an olive plantation (ferme d’oliviers) and we were able to taste the olives and the olive oil th
ey produce. And when I say “we” tasted the olives, I meant the other kids did because I don’t like them. But I like the olive oil and that was good except not when it’s by itself, which is how we tasted it.
Our last excursion was two weekends ago. We went to Saint-
Guilhem-le-Désert aka THE cutest town in the history of the world. All the streets were coble stone and there were so many little shops selling all sorts of different items. Everyone fell in love with it and we’re all going to live there together some day. Not really, but it was so cute. When we had free time to walk around the town, we stumbled upon an art project in one of the little streets. The woman doing the project is a local artist and she lays out a canvas on the ground with different paints and asks everyone that passes by to paint something on it. It was really interesting to see/paint on because everyone painted something different.
After Saint Guilhem we went to Pont du Diable (Devil’s Bridge) to swim. The water there was so clear it was amazing. Right under the bridge there were a bunch of different leveled rock formations from which people were jumping off. Some of us swam over there and jumped off a couple times. I wish I had gotten some pictures but I wasn’t about to swim over with my camera. The first rock I
jumped off of was only about 8-10 feet from the water so that was an easy one but then I moved on the a much higher one (aka 30 plus feet from the water). I was pumped to get up there but as soon as I looked over the edge I started freaking out. I almost didn’t go but then my friend told me to “ne réfléchit pas” meaning don’t think about it, so I sucked it up and jumped. And I survived. It was awesome cause you fell for so long and I screamed the entire way down causing the French teenagers to make fun of me but I didn’t care. And then I climbed up a second time and did it again. Picture: Le Pont du Diable
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