Blog #11: Finally in France

Blog #11: Montpellier, France (6/14/2005 to 6/16/2005)

This was my first trip into France. It occurred to me that, although I live in Switzerland, that as of two weeks ago I had yet to visit France, Germany or Italy, all less than 4 hours away by train, while I have visited countries 36 hours away by train. I guess some of the reason is that I very quickly realized there are too many things to see in Europe in four months, so I started writing some destinations off. Paris, London, Rome, Ireland: they can wait for their own trips when I can find a cheap flight out of Chicago O’Hare. That list of destinations is also growing. From the people I have met on the road, Australia and Thailand have definitely been added to the list with India. Ah, so many places to see….

To start, the whole reason I went to Montpellier was to visit a girl I had met in Salzburg. We were staying at the same hostel there and ran into each other the night I was leaving. I said that I had yet to make it to France and she said her exchange student roommates had just left, so she had a couple extra beds free. It was a good enough invitation for me!

My visit to Montpellier was a nice little trip. There are not many tourist attractions in Montpellier so Caitlin, doubling as my tour guide, showed me the town in just a couple hours. I took some pictures of the cool areas in the center of town, where everyone hangs out and drinks coffee, and some old aqueduct. We spent a lot of time here in the next couple days because we would visit the cafés or run errands. We rode a few trams because Caitlin’s apartment was about a 20-30 minute walk from the middle of town. I have to admit that those trams were the nicest I have yet ridden. They are new, relatively clean, there are seats and some of these leaning areas that are a great idea and, most importantly, they are air conditioned. Other cities need to follow suit. It is about time Europe has discovered air conditioning on a larger scale. And they wonder why something like a thousand people died from heat exhaustion in Paris a couple years ago!

Since it was the end of the semester for them there were, on average, two people leaving every day. This meant going-away parties and last trips to the beach. By the way, what people say is true about European beaches: the ones who are going nude are the ones you definitely do not want to see. At least the only distinctly homosexual nude area I have had to misfortune of visiting was a park in Munich. Since all of Caitlin’s friends are Americans studying French, I was able to brush up on my own French. Now my rusty, embarrassing French is only slightly less atrocious. At least my French is better than my German.

One of the fun, new things I have learned from Caitlin’s friend John is guerilla photography. What is that? It is easiest with a digital camera, but with a little good aim and auto focus you can capture people in their natural states. It is a little like those guys who photograph gorillas eating ants off each other, except you will not catch me photographing people eating off of other people. My friend from Tulsa, Jason, tries to catch people in their natural habits, but he has a camera the size of a small dog and he is Korean. He has a knack for standing out in Europe.

Pictures from Montpellier, France: http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2124947408&code=16710374&mode=invite&DCMP=isc-email-AlbumInvite