Mini Recap

My first day taking the tram all the way to work, although Fred dropped me off at the tram station so I don’t really have the full effect of leaving from the house, taking the tram for an hour, and bussing to work. But surely it’s not a bad thing if I get to skip that entire process once or twice. So I shall be timing this ride.

In the mean while, let’s recap.

I moved to France.

I moved into a dorm with Rachelle, the girl who randomly spotted me on the train from Paris to Montpellier.

I met Carmen from Chicago, who I hung out with every day.

I went to Nimes to visit Audrey.

Audrey, Carmen, another American girl, and I went to Cassis to visit the Calanques.

I struggled for housing.

I found housing.

I now live in a home with a 13 year old girl, a 10 year old buy and a single dad, who is engaged and likes to spend a lot of time with his fiancée, hence why I am moving in.

So there’s the plot highlights. Now let’s do details.

The past week has been such a blur of transportation and waiting in line and running errands and eating at new places and seeing things right around the corner that you would travel hundreds of miles for. I don’t know how not to be so cliché when I say that Montpellier is like a treasure chest... or a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. Like the chocolate pudding pie from my favorite sandwich shop for only one euro- totally gross. But the crepe place in the mall that offers hot chocolate and a crepe for 3 euro? Fabulous. I would be gaining 40 lbs a week if I didn’t make a super delicious salad every other night and if I didn’t walk 400 miles a day.

Surprisingly, the only time my knees hurt are when I’m wearing running shoes? But then my feet feel just fine... on the other hand, when I wear flats, my feet are super sore but my knees are fine. I’ll take the sore feet fo shizzo.

A few random stories:

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1. Met up randomly with another assistant (another “Are you Asia?!”) and we were sitting eating some crepes a La Place De La Comedie (which is like the downtown of Montpellier)… so naturally we’re people watching and commenting as loud as we want because people in France don’t speak English (that’s wrong, they do... and we are going to get caught one day)...and there’s a huge ruckus in the corner with some lady shrieking “Papa! Papa!” and squeezing water over his forehead- he’s DRENCHED in sweat- and trying to shove some sort of fruit down his throat. Anyway, I’m looking past a guy who is looking at the same thing and I asked him what was going on and he started SHOUTING AT ME IN FRENCH! From what I could understand, he told me this is for eating not for looking and something something something and PUT HIS HAND IN MY FACE! I couldn’t believe it! You were looking too! Don’t lie! I just ignored him and kept watching. I would’ve had a retort or seventeen if I could speak that fast. I wasn’t as angry as I was like flabbergasted. Woah, dude, relax. This is France.

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 2. Standing on the tram with a dress on. Violated by a homeless dog. Enough said.

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3.  Sitting on the tramway, a man sits across from me… and now you’re going to have to sit next to somebody on the tram, for sure. That’s fine. But I knew from how he was leaning, elbows on knees, that he was going to try to talk to me. Oh and try he did. My French comprehension isn’t perfect. My French druggie comprehension is about null. My get-out-of-jail-free card is “I don’t speak French, sorry” (which doesn’t work when they hear you speaking French earlier)... sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. For sure doesn’t work when they hear you speaking French earlier, or if they speak English, or if they’re drunk or on drugs. So the latter was the case with this man who knew about four words in English. “I love you babeh”. Leaned over and tried to kiss me. A lot. Kissy faces. Carmen bolted and I followed her. Guh-ross. 

More to come, like always.