Let me tell you a little something about strikes

France is infamous for it's strikes (des grèves). I'm pretty positive there is no other country in the world that goes on strike as often as France. In the past 2 1/2 weeks alone, there have already been two.

They're very organized about it though. Usually, the strike is announced the week or two weeks before and word spreads like wildfire. You always know when there is going to be one because people are always talking about it, and it is usually in les journaux (the newspapers). For the most part, strikes only last for a single day and then everything goes back to normal. However, two years ago I think it was, there was a strike that lasted several weeks and students in Paris didn't have school for a while! I kind of wish that would happen while I'm here and I could just travel....but I need the credits.

Right now, the French are pretty pissed about the retirement age (l'âge de retraite) being raised from 60 to 62, which yes to Americans is ridiculous because that's still 3 years earlier than our standards. But the French are pros at striking until they get what they want.

The only problem is, it kind of ruins everyone else's day. When the French go on strike, they go on strike. None of the public transportation is in service and even the dining halls on campus have quite odd hours (not so bueno if you're starving in between classes). The strike the first week of September was the reason we had to get our train tickets changed. None of the trains ran Tuesday (our original travel day) and we would have been SOL.

Strikes are different from manifestations (protests/riots). Manifestations can often be violent and last for however long people feel the need. In 2005 they were a lot of major manifestations in Paris that turned pretty violent. It started with a break-in and the death of two young French citizens who I believe were of North-African descent. This in turned started a rapid-fire outbreak of riots all over Paris and its suburbs with other young French of North-African descent protesting against racisim in France. The President even had to declare a state of National Emergency because there was so much violence occurring.

Anyhow, I expect to experience many more strikes during my time here but hopefully they won't affect travel plans. And hopefully there won't be another volcanic ash explosion from Iceland. Which, by the way, apparently the French decided to go on strike during one of the eruptions so others couldn't pass through to get to Madrid (the only place in Western Europe that had flights running).

An interesting blog from TIME about the retirement delay in France.
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2010/09/24/are-the-french-right-to-protest-retirement-delay/

ESPAÑA!!

Sorry I'm a bit behind on my blog posts, last week was the first week of class and it's been busy!

After the end of the pre-session we had a week until actual classes started, so two of my friends (Becky and Melissa) and I decided to go to Ibiza and Barcelona. We planned to train down to Barcelona Tuesday the 7th but, true to French form , there was a national grève (strike) planned for that day and none of the transportation services were going to be running. To avoid the strike we got our tickets changed to Monday and just stayed in a hostel that night in Barcelona and flew out to Ibiza on Ryan Air on Tuesday.

Aerial view of the island

*Side note: everyone talks about how cheap Ryan Air is, but they often slap on fees even after you hit the "book" button. We were slapped with 90 extra euros of fees that only showed up once we got to the payment page. Granted, it was for three plane tickets, but you need to be careful when you're booking flights.

Once in Ibiza, we took one of the public buses to our hostel in Es Canar. The buses run periodically through out the day and most of them are used as Discobuses to transport people at night to the area where the clubs are.

Ibiza is insane in all aspects of the word. Insanely beautiful (the beaches are so amazing), insane amounts of people (there were hordes of tourists everywhere), insane lifestyle (people habitually stay out til 630 or 7 in the morning like it's no big deal.

Our view at dinner the first night

There was a beach that was about a minute’s walk from our hotel, but it wasn’t as nice as a beach called Cala Nova that was about 5 minutes walking so we went there instead. Still, a crappy beach in Ibiza is better than any beach back home. Like any good tourists in Spain, we had Sangria with most of our meals. The food really good for the most part, but we had to make sure we found somewhere that was decently priced and didn’t charge us 5 euros for a soda.

We took it easy the first night since we were pretty tired from traveling all day and we slept for a solid 11 hours which was amazing. The second night we decided to venture to Eivissa for dinner, which was a mistake because the food was not so bueno and it was all so overpriced. The entire place was a tourist trap, but it had interesting back streets full of people (a lot of trannys) and gay bars. Quite an interesting scene but needless to say we didn’t stay for too long.

Cala Nova

Oh yeah, we went PARASAILING!! Becky freaked out.

Thursday and Friday nights we decided to hit up the clubs to get the true Ibiza experience. We went to a club called Space on Thursday and one called Privilege on Friday. They were both HUGE. I mean, Privilege won the Guinness Book of World Record’s award for biggest club in the world. At Space, there was an event going on called "Come Together" and a whole bunch of different artists appear at different times in the night. We were able to see English rapper Tinie Tempah, who I had only heard of because his song is in the DJ Earworm summer mix, but he is really big all over Europe. On Friday at Privilege there were multiple things happening all at once it was hard to keep track. A pirate show was being put on while acrobats hung from chandeliers, and performers rode unicycles across tight ropes 15 feet in the air as everyone in the crowd watched in awe.

Saturday we headed back to Barcelona. We stayed at a pretty good hostel near a place called Las Ramblas. We went to dinner near the Santa Maria del Mar Basilica in La Ribera district. The girl who worked at the hostel recommended that area and it was a great place to go to get dinner or hang out at a café. Afterwards we wandered around for a while and stumbled upon a festival going on in front of the Arc de Triomphe. This was probably my favorite part of Barcelona and why I would always recommend just openly wandering around a city because you’re always bound to run into something. At first we just thought it was a summer festival equivalent to the wine festivals here in Montpellier, but then we realized that it was a sort of rally/concert/festival all packed into one for the liberation of Catalonia. The people of Barcelona (well a certain really proud percent of the people) are really adamant about being Catalan and not Spanish, hence the rally.

On that note, one must remember that they don’t speak Spanish in Barcelona. They speak Catalan, which is a mix of Portuguese/French/Italian/Spanish. I didn’t realize this when we first arrived and was confused as to why no one understood what I was trying to say to them. Then again my Spanish is very limited, but the language is so different that you can’t really get by just speaking Spanish.

During the day on Sunday we did all the normal tourist-y things. We opted to skip the tourist bus because it was 22 euros and most of the big tourist spots had metro stops right near them. We started off with Sagrada Familia, a Roman-Catholic church designed by Antoni Gaudi. The church has been under construction since 1882 and has even more scaffolding and fenced-off areas than the first time I saw it. I remember my tour guide in high school said that it is privately funded and they continuously run out of money to pay for the construction, so it isn’t expected to be completed until at least the 2020s (140 years in the making, mind you). Despite the construction, it is still a fabulous thing to see because it is so majestic.

Sagrada Familia

Next, we headed towards Parc Güell, the famous park with all the mosaic decorations. It was another site I had seen when I went to Barcelona in high school, but I was glad to be back because it had been so long, also because I didn’t bring my digital camera on the first trip; only a 35mm manual to take pictures for my photography class. The park was just as great as I remembered it. In the grotto area with the giant columns there were lots of vendors and my friend and I both bought necklaces in the mureno glass style (did I spell that right?). They were only 4 euro which was a pretty sweet deal!

After the park we made our way over to the famous Gaudi houses: Batlló and Milà. Both were very architecturally intriguing from the outside and had museums on the inside, but since we are cheap college kids and their tickets didn't fit within our do-whatever's-free budget, we decided not to go in. Lastly, we headed to the Parc de la Ciutadella, a giant park in the middle of the city that includes a zoo, fountain and several museums. We didn’t go into the zoo or the museums because they, of course, cost money too, but instead we walked around and saw the fountain that was constructed for the Universal exhibition in 1888. It is based off of the Trevi Fountain in Rome and built in part by none other than…Gaudi.

Casa Batlló and Casa Milà

That night we headed down to the port/beach area for dinner. We spent a while trying to find the plaza that I had remembered from my first trip and once we realized I had no idea what I was talking about, we gave up and ate at a pretty good seafood restaurant near the beach. A large majority of the restaurants in Barcelona offer seafood paella, a traditional dish featuring rice, seafood, meat and seasonings. But... I just had the chicken, figures.

Afterward we hung out on the beach for a bit, which seemed to be a pretty popular place for both locals and tourists to hang out a night. We then ventured off to IceBarcelona, the self-proclaimed first ice bar on the beach. It was 15 euro for admission and one drink, and the necessary clothing to keep you from getting pneumonia (giant parka and gloves). Of course the only shoes we brought on this trip were sandals because we don't think ahead, but at least we had jeans! Some people were in there in shorts and dresses and they were loco. It was an interesting experience, complete with creepy bartender. It definitely wasn’t as big as the Absolut ice bars in London or Copenhagen, but it was cool because everything was made out of ice. The bar, the cups, the chairs, the people.. hah just kidding. It was funny because they were playing the movie Ice Age on the flat screen TVs that were apparently necessary for the bar. Except, it was Ice Age the Meltdown which made it more ironic because they were in a desert while our toes were slowly developing frostbite.

Getting attacked by an ice bear

Me, Becky and Melissa

After the ice bar we went to two other clubs that were on the same boardwalk. It was sweet because there were a bunch of people handing out flyers that gave us free admission so we didn't have to pay anything to get in (unlike in Ibiza, those covers were expensive).

A couple of our friends had been in Barcelona the three days before we went and they did a free walking tour and a bar crawl, something I wish we had known about. There are always free things to do in those major cities, so next time I am definitely going to do more research.

Monday we had a bit of a scare because we thought school started Tuesday, but then we kept seeing everyone's Facebook statuses saying FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!! So I frantically called one of our friends back in Montp (it's what the cool kids call it) and she confirmed that classes had already started. Luckily, my classes didn't start til Tuesday (I am in the IEFE aka the foreigners school and they run on a different schedule) and Becky and Melissa don't have any Monday classes, so we were good.

As soon as our bus arrived back in Montp, we headed straight for the Wok. The Wok is amazing. I want it right now. It's Chinese stir-fry and you can get whatever you want in it and they have so many sauces and MMMHM it's so good! I might have to get some tomorrow.

End of the Pre-session

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

Le week-end

I can't believe it's already been a week since I've been here! It's gone by so quickly but at the same time it feels like I've been here longer.

This past weekend was fun. Thursday night we went out to some bars around le centre ville and met a group of British kids studying abroad, but they were only here for three weeks and they left Saturday. We went to a bar called Barberousse that's pirate themed and they make their own flavors of rum, very pirate of them.

Friday we had class and then went to the Maison des Relations Internationales in la place de la Comedie (the main part of town). They have a really pretty garden (inset) and we had snacks and met the woman who was in charge of organizing study abroad for students who go to school in Montpellier.

Afterwards, we went to the summer wine festival called Estivales (which means summer festival or something along those lines). They have them every Friday in the summer, but there are only two left! They set up a whole bunch of wine tasting, food and vending tents in one of the gardens in the main part of town and you just go around, taste wine and eat food. It's only 4 euros for a glass and three wine tastings, which isn't too bad of a deal. I didn't have any wine this time because I'm not the biggest wino, but I think I will have some at this Friday's festival.

Saturday we had class :(. It's not so bad because it's only for two more weeks. Actually, this Saturday we go to a museum and get to sleep in til 10:30!! That will be the latest I'll have slept in the entire time I've been here. We swear they don't want us to sleep here because we always have to be up so early. Class ended at 1230 and Melissa, Becky and I decided to go to the beach again. We went to a different part of the beach from when we went with the whole group on Thursday, but it was nice because it was a bit quieter and had more scenic views.

That night we had a night tour of the city, which was cool because we went in chronological order, starting with the oldest parts and ending up in la place de la comedie. It's funny because the French consider Montpellier to be a young city and it's about 2000 years old (I think that's right). And then for the U.S. a young city is like 50-100 years old. It was kind of scary because one of my friends got mugged during the tour. He was lagging behind smoking a cigarette and these homeless people noticed he was dragging behind in a group full of tourists and they dragged him into the shadow and took 50 euro and searched his bag. Luckily they didn't take anything else like credit cards and such-- they were pretty strategic about it. But my friend was okay, just a little shaken up. After that, our tour guides and group leaders were very protective and made sure everyone in the group was together and not lagging behind.

Sunday we went to Nîmes and Pont du Gard. Nîmes was a cool city dating back to the roman times in the BC era, so it's one of the older cities in France. There's a big colosseum where they hold bull fighting events called La Feria. They have two per year and one is coming up at the end of September so we may go check it out since Nîmes is only about an hour from Montpellier. It was pretty hot outside that day so everyone was sweating and suffering in the heat.

Things got better when we went to Pont du Gard, the giant aqueducts not too far from Nîmes. The water was really cold and felt so good. It was also really clear which I wasn't expecting, I thought it was going to be gross run-off water. There were some guys that jumped off the first tier of the bridge and one of them busted his shoulder and then the guards had to stop other people from jumping off. It was at least 30 feet up so that must have hurt a lot. We jumped off some rocks but they were only about 8 feet up so it wasn't quite the same thing haha.

I got a rock in my foot and my skin closed over it pretty quickly so I had to go to the croix-rouge (red cross) and they only spoke French! But I think I did a pretty good job of speaking to them. Also, going back on what I said in a previous post about it being annoying that the people didn't speak French (and by "the people" I mean the two girls who are kind of our group leaders), it's good because I have to talk to them in French and therefore, améliorer (improve) my français. The two girls are really nice-- their names are Flo and Elodie and are both students at the same Université.

Now I am ready for this next week! We go back to the beach on Friday, a museum on Saturday instead of class and then Avignon on Sunday. It's going to be fun!

Also, I'm really excited because we get about 5 days break in between when the pre-stage ends and when classes start and I think we might go to Ibiza for a couple nights and then Barcelona for a night! We have to wait and see what the days for registration are, but I think it will work out! So excitedddd.

Allons-y à la plage! (To the beach!)

Thursday, Aug 19

Yesterday was the first day of classes. I found out I'm in the middle level, which I'm fine with. I'd expect that after 3 months of no speaking French. Hopefully by the end of the presession I'll move up to the C level, which is the highest level. Already I feel it coming back and it's only been a couple days. It helps that on parle en français quelquefois (we speak in French sometimes)- by we I mean the other kids in my program. Taking classes in French for 5 hours a day should get me back up to speed.

Yesterday, we had to go back to the city centre, mind you for about the 5th time this week. While we were there, we saw a man teaching his dog how to ride a skateboard! He would set the skateboard on its side and the dog would run up to it, knock it over so it was flat, hop on and coast down three or four steps. It was awesome! I tried taking a picture, but it happened so quickly, it's a bit blurry.

When I got back last night, I took a shower and my room flooded! Mine is the second room to have done this. The walls aren't sealed properly on one side (I didn't know this at the time) and I had the shower head facing that wall because I didn't want the water leaking out through the bathroom door-- the divet is only half an inch. So when I walked out my entire floor was covered with water. Thankfully none of my suitcases or electronics were ruined, but it was still a bit annoying. I'm going to have to switch rooms which is a bummer because mine is relatively big compared to the others.

Today was fun. After class (we only had two today) we headed off to the beach around 2:30. The beach was about 20 minutes on the bus to the south. The water was a little cold, but so clear and pretty. After playing in the water, we played some volleyball and then took a walk down the beach. The girls in this picture are (from left to right): Heather, Emily, Colleen, Melissa, Becky & me. The middle four go to Loyola in MD and I forget which school Heather goes to.

Apparently tops were optional. But it was elder women not wearing tops, not exactly what you want to see. There were a lot of people out on the beach. A lot of people come down from northern and middle France for vacation in August. The French government makes it mandatory to take of 5 weeks vacation!! We barely get two in America, that's ridiculous. Maybe I should just stay here.

I think tonight we are going out for the first night. This will be exciting because we will get to see a different side of Montpellier, and hopefully a younger crowd. We'll see!

I have homework to do, must go!

Deuxième Jour (Second Day)

Tuesday, Aug 17

Today was much less eventful than yesterday, but it was good because we met everyone else in our program. I'd say there are about 20-25 kids altogether in my program and then a group of about 20 girls from Mount Holyoke who are also doing the IEFE (Institut d'études françaises pour les etrangères= institute of French studies for study abroad students).

There are about 5 kids from Montana State University, and two of them are originally from Butte which is cool because that's where my mom is from and one is from Billings where my dad is from! There are another 5 or so kids from University of Washington, 4 or 5 from Geneseo (sp?) in NY, 4 from Loyola in MD and a couple from University of Louisville. I am the only student from Virginia Tech, but I'm not the only one who is alone from their school.

It was a bit sad because the only reason someone recognized VT was because of the April 16th shooting and that's always a bit hard to hear.

Anyway, we took a placement exam this morning and I find out tomorrow which level of presession classes I am in. Then a whole bunch of us went to the city centre again to get more items and more people got phones so now I have more than one phone number in my contacts!

We were going to go to the beach today but then the errands ran late. Classes go til about 1615 on certain days! Ridiculous eh? But Thursday we are definitely going to the beach because it's on our presession schedule.

This weekend we are taking a night tour of the city and then an excursion to Nîmes et Pont du Gard on Dimanche (Sunday), so I'm excited about that. My friend Steph knows someone in Saint-Tropez and we talked about visiting him later but he leaves next week! So he wants to come to Montpellier Thurs/Fri and then take her (and she invited me too) back to Saint-Tropez but that would mean missing the night tour and the excursion to Nîmes. Who knows!

EN FRANCE!

Je suis ici (I am here)! It's been a long 24 hours-- I've only gotten 3 hours of sleep since Saturday night but rest assured I will pass out tonight.

Yesterday was quite hectic, with leaving packing (somewhat) to the last minute-- thank god for Kelly, Steph & Meggie otherwise I would have never gotten packed on time. My travels started off with me freaking out about not having a watch, buying the cheapest one at the duty free store (and by cheapest I mean $100) and then realizing I never called my bank to tell them I was going out of the country. I was frantically running around Dulles trying to find internet and a pay phone and did not succeed in calling because I had to board. Needless to say, when I got on the plane I was close to tears because of apprehension and nerves.

I calmed down on the flight, thanks to Date Night and How to Train Your Dragon (don't knock it til you see it!) and made it to Paris at 530 a.m. local time. When I arrived in Montpellier this morning at 9 a.m. I was dead tired, having slept only 45 min throughout the night. When I located the people who were supposed to meet me, it was a bit annoying because they didn't speak English! You would think the international student program would send someone who spoke English to explain things but that was not the case. Anyway, me and two other kids took the Université bus back to the dorm area and spoke to more people who didn't know English.

I passed out for a few hours and then got up and decided to go explore. When I was leaving the dorm, it just so happened that a group of about 8 other girls were going to the city center so I went with them. We took the tram in, which only takes about 10 to 15 minutes and explored for a bit.

My favorite part was riding the little carousel right next to the tram stop. This is a picture of me and two of the other girls riding it. The one in the middle is Justine and on the right is Stephanie. Both of them go to school in NYC, but at different schools and Stephanie is originally from Dominican Republic, which is cool. We walked around for a bit and explored some of the close monuments-- there's an arc that looks like a mini Champs Elysées.

We headed back around 530 or 6 and brainstormed travels plans for when we get a few days break in between the presession and when classes start. Everyone's a bit confused on this though-- some people think classes don't start til the 19th but some think it's the 13th so if the latter is correct then unfortunately we wouldn't have a lot of time to travel. Anyway, if we do get to, we thought it would be fun to head to Barcelona for a few days and then fly over to Prague and go from there to Berlin, Zurich and Geneva-- Justine and another girl Katie have friends studying abroad in those places.

When I got back to my room I just hung out for a few hours and skyped with Diane (skype me!). Then Stephanie and I decided we were hungry and as we were leaving, two of the girls from earlier-- Becky and Melissa were heading out too so we took the tram back to the city centre and ate at a little café. (In the picture Melissa is far right, Becky is next to her then Stephanie then me.)

Now I just got back and I am super tired-- it's 11:45 almost! So I need to go to bed because we have to be up early for a placement exam. I think we might head to the beach in the afternoon though, since we're done around 2 or 230.

One thing I am not a fan of: no screens on the windows, so a lot of moths are buzzing outside and it's a bit annoying.

Bonne nuit!