Appart'City Montpellier L'Orangerie

... nice because I hadn't seen him in a while. Clement is the closest thing I have to a real childhood friend (sorry Tim, but we met when we were 12 so you are my real teenagehood friend, okay?) from elementary school. His father owns a restaurant in town so we'd have a blast eating and drinking there for free. We caught up on so much lost time and reminsced about the things we'd do when we were kids. I think that every time we see each other we ...

What a waste of a day...

Go to Nimes and the national parks people said..... we ended up at a campsite way out of Montpellier and the highlight of our day had been the supermarket!!!!

The national park was lots of farm type marsh land... not what we had imagined. Nimes seemed pretty and lots of well preserved Roman things but the traffic was a nightmare and too hard to park so we kept driving with a plan to go out in Montpellier that ...

... that will linger in the memory, well beyond the consumption, and without really knowing what we were ordering. After complimentary salads to start, Alison had sliced duck on skewers (the waiter asked, in the manner of steak, how madame would like it), and I had a pot of seafood (Marmite). Both superb. We followed, in the same manner with desserts that were unknown to us, but proved to be delicious – Alison's was a chocolate tart ...

... vinaigrette and a little round of bread topped with chevre and fig confit. Lovely. The owners don't speak English, but were very pleasant. Since there is only pizza on the menu, there is little need for conversation.

Lucy has been unable to get her wifi to work, so she has gone to the cyber cafe down the street. I don't have the card reader for my Nikon, so my pictures are temporarily limited to snaps from my pocket Canon. Bon Soir.

... people. I have met so many people that have touched me emotionally, intellectually, or just made me laugh very hard. Out of the people I have met, only few I can call real friends that I would like to see again. Now, however, I have contacts in San Diego, Germany, Montana, Montreal, England, and Australia. All these people have extended an invitation to stay with them if I am ever in the area.

What I also ...

... chaque fois que vous traversez la rue. Aller au marché à Cotonou c'est une vraie aventure. Il paraît que c'est un des marchés les plus dangereux de la ville. Il y a des délinquants et ça arrive qu'il y ait des braquages à main armée. Heureusement nous avions notre super garde du corps et nous sommes rentrées saines et sauves.

C'est le déluge!!! :-)
Vendredi 10 juillet à 14h55:
Il pleut, il pleut, petit zem, comment on fait pour rentrer? Il pleut, il pleut petit zem, on va ...

... and we head to the first field. Fantastic, it's a school, its not green as the map would suggest. The second place is a sports centre, we arn't getting in there without climbing the 20 foot fence. We end the kite flying trip and head to the centre of town. We firstly stumble upon a fake arc de trumph. Not so impressive but we do get fantastic views from the top, we can even see the sea for the first time this trip! Florin bids his goodbyes and leaves us, saying he will return when we ...

... place pour le lendemain. Nous partons donc en expédition a la recherche d'un endroit ou coucher, mais une petite erreure de calculs nous envoyat carrément a l'autre bout de la ville. Par le temps qu'on revienne sur nos pas, tous les hotels ont fermés leurs portes. Commence le calvaire. On a trouvé un parc bien éclairé avec fontaine et banc pas trop comfortable, on s'est ouvert une canne de lentilles, sortis nos couvertes et affronté la ...

... boulangries. Its amazing. In our dorm I have my own room, but I live on the same floor as Linda and Lucie, two other girls from Geneseo. We've also made friends with a girl from Romania who lives down the hall. Classes were pushed back until Feb. 1 because the students went on stike last semester and they missed like 5 weeks of classes or something like that. So they set up a little orientation ...

... So I make my way next door to the police station and believing that the Police Station is my safe haven: someone there will surely speak English, and they will help me through this process and everything will be okay. Once inside, I walk up to the receptionist and ask "Parlay voo Longlay" and she doesn't even say "Un Pue" she just shook her head and said something in French. I sighed, and retired to a chair and whipped out my pocket translator. After 5 minutes of ...