Canal du Midi

So the study abroad program had a few trips planned for us over the semester, and today was the last of those trips. The first trip was the tour of Provence including a windmill, the Pont du Gard aquaduct, and something else I can't remember. They also took us on a tour of Nimes and one of our hometown,Montpellier. On all of these trips it was cold and rainy, which is pretty rare here in the south of France. Naturally today for our boat cruise it was also cold and rainy. The boat tour would have been pretty awesome and relaxing if it hadn't been for the weather causing us to cram over 60 people into a half in closed boat for over two hours. I made a video of the highlight which was the écluse (I can't think of what it's called in English).They also gave us around three hours for lunch, at which time I took the opportunity to discover french dessert. I have usually been sticking to the crème brûlée or mousse au chocolat since I know what they are, however today I was feeling adventurous. Other than the usually CB or MauC I have frequently seen Ile Flottant on the dessert menu. I think we even asked what it was once and were still to afraid to order it. Today was different. The waiter was charming and smiled more than any french person I have ever seen. He assured us that it was good, so I decided to try this "floating island" thing. When it came out I recognized it right away since I had actually eaten it many times in the school cafeteria, and hadn't known the name for it. It was the same, ohhhh, realization you get when you finally put a name with a face... a really delicious face. What it actually is, is crème anglais (English cream? If you know what that is. I didn't) and a fluffy island of meringue floating on top. It sounds kinda weird (why I didn't order it before) but it tastes good.

P.S. I didn't get a pick of her doing it but, Fanny, the dog was doing the mermaid thing and it reminded me of Smoky.

Strike = No Barcelona

Caroline and Andrea were here visiting me this week for their spring break. Caroline is just packing up to go back home at this very moment, she leaves about 7 hours from now. We got to see Carcasonne which is the largest walled city in France, I think. We also went to Nimes which I have already seen but it is a beautiful city so I enjoyed seeing it again (and the weather was much nicer this time). The whole week here was actually the warmest weather we have had so far, it stayed about 70 all week. We also got to go to the beach, however that was a little cooler due to the wind. There were tons of kite boarders at the beach, it was pretty exciting. I would like to try kite-boarding but it looked very scary, cold, and difficult. We also had planned to go to Barcelona on Thursday and come back today (Sat), but unfortunately due to the national strike on Thursday we were forced to stay here in good old Montpellier. It was interesting to see the strike though.


I just got my video figured out from Carnaval de Nice if you want to see it it's on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSYs0R76QKQ
It's not very long but it's kinda interesting. You could also just YouTube anyone's Carnaval de Nice and see what it's like.

Sorry I wrote this post like a couple days ago but I was trying to put the video directly on here and it wasn't working so it's being posted a little late

ESCARGOT!?!

I saw a real live snail. It was HUGE, he was like the size of a mouse. I did not realize how big and crazy they were. I kind of wanted to take him home as a pet, but I was also kind of freaked out. I wonder what they eat...

LOL - my first french movie theatre experience

Most movies at French movie theatres and American movies dubbed over in French. I have not yet been to one of these dubbed movies. I did however go to a french film called LOL. Since I have only been to the movies once I can only speak about this one theatre, so don't generalize. The concession area was very small and almost non-existent. You could buy sodas but it was in bottles not giant cups. Now that I think of it the armrests didn't have cup holders in them like they do at home. The chairs were big fluffy and red. They sat much lower than American chairs, and seat was much narrower. The movie was basically a teen drama about a girl and her romantic relationships. I could understand a lot of what was going one but some of the slang and other phrases were a little difficult, so I'm sure I missed many jokes. I was interesting to see what life is like from another perspective. In one part of the movie they took a school trip to England. I could relate to this seeing as I am in the same situation at the moment. Overall it was a good experience and I would definitely go to another french movie rather than going to a dubbed American movie.

Apparently in France they also say acronyms as words because when I tried to buy a ticket to L-O-L the lady looked at me like I was an idiot. Finally a french girl said Lol and the woman understood. Which makes me think about how we decided when to turn an acronym into a word and when to leave it as letters for example why is Aids a word and HIV letters? If you know the answer feel free to tell me.