Wine tasting and beach part II

Once again I am trying to update this thing, and once again it is late, and today I feel particularly exhausted and not quite well, so don't expect anything too great (although the bar hasn't been set too very high thus far. Always too tired to think).

Our civilization prof took us wine-tasting yesterday. Eh...it was wine. Some people associate wine with sophistication and class, for me... well let's just say the smell brings back not-too-fond memories. And I don't particularly like the taste either. We sat for two hours listening to wine, while I serenely nodded off and spaced out most of the time. Then we did the "look at the wine, does it sparkle, what color is it, does it stick to the glass, what do you smell the notes of lavender and lemon?" Then we tasted it and were supposed to spit it out. They all sort of tasted the same to me.

Now if we did some sort of similar coffee tour...that would be more my style. (Mrrr...yes, I can nearly taste the mountain air of this arabica blend, mrrr *insert snobby fake English accent*)

BUT! Good things came out of this. My room became slightly more classy. I can now hold my pens in this...

Instead of the old (washed) yogurt cup I had been using for a week.
I Skyped Ewelina and she decided my current lifestyle is slightly ghetto. At first I protested. Then I reflected: I ran out of toilet paper and was using napkins from the cafeteria, I am using old yogurt cups for writing utensils and extra money, I stole (nay: borrowed) silverware from the cafeteria, meals generally consist of me eating something out of a can mixed with something else out of a can on some bread...  I don't know man, classy it is not.

 And today: la plage. Again, I wasn't feeling too great. Tired, probably dehydrated, I probably should have stayed behind and just taken a nap, gone on a run, looked at my classes, etc. But I went, and it was okay.

Never an un-educational moment. Here we see a backbend....

"Hey Brandon, so what's some good beach yoga?"

More pictures I forgot about...

Palais des papes and the beach - pictures I lost...

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What does the Princess and the Pea have to do with Popes? I don't know, but this was there...

And then we ate food...

And then we went to the beach... (much more fun than the old pope's house)

Pictures, stories

I'm going to keep this short because once again it is 10 pm, once again I have not started studying like I wanted to, and I almost (as in one point away) failed an oral comprehension test today which freaked me out a little bit: free time is now for listening to French radio and not for long blog posts that only four people read anyways.

Sunday we went to Avignon. Go ahead Wikipedia:

"Often referred to as the "City of Popes" because of the presence of popes and antipopes from 1309 to 1423 during the Catholic schism, it is currently the largest city and capital of the département of Vaucluse. This is one of the few French cities to have preserved its ramparts. In addition, its historic centre, the palace of the popes, Rocher des Doms, and the bridge of Avignon are well-preserved. It was classified a World Heritage Site by UNESCO under the criteria I, II and IV." 

I won't go into the history too deeply. It was constructed by Romans, in the XIV century the popes transferred their residence to Avignon, during this time it was the capital of Christianity until the pope returned to Rome in the XV century.

We saw the Pont St. Bénézet and La Palais de Papes, which I think I was too tired to really appreciate, and I didn't find it too very interesting. Sorry.

But then we went to the beach, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, which was awesome. Just swam in the Mediterranean...no big deal.

 But really, it was great. Too bad we only had an hour there.

The Friday before was the weekly "Estivales" in la Place de la Comedie, which was great. I wrote about it in the last blog, here are the pictures (sorry a lot of them suck). 

Aaaaand then a few of us went to a bar to dance. See last blog post.

Next day they took us on a tour of downtown (yeah..that seems like a French thing to do. Why show the confused students the town their living in before showing them random places an hour away? No no, that would make too much sense. That seems to be a running theme here. 

"I don't get why they would (insert thing French people did)"

"Yeah, I gave up trying to make sense of how French people function almost the second I got here. Why would you expect it to work normally?"

I'll get some more pictures later, but...yeah I live here. Well...okay, I live a half hour walk away from here, our place isn't nearly as nice, but still...I live here. 

It took 10 people, in case you were wondering

Arc de Triomph (no, not the one in Paris, the one in Montpellier)

Hey there Louis, how's it hanging? 

"I hate posed photos"

"Yeah, they're so awkward"

"Let's do one that looks more natural...someone say something funny"

"Okay guys..and we're laughing, and this is so funny, and we're having such a good time, and this is so natural..." 

They had a Dr. Seuss playground! But I thought it might be creepy if I was taking photos of small children. So these guys helped me out. ...And then me and another girl climbed a tree. Someone else got a photo of that. 

Side note: Montpellier has the BEST climbing trees. In life. Ever. Best. Trees.   

There you go. I should probably jut post these on fb like a normal person. I will eventually... 

Today nothing interesting. Met with my French "marraine," butchered her language, went to Geant which is like heaven but way too far away, bought a knife and a cutting board and all that fun stuff. 

On the topic of language: I can actually feel my English getting worse when I write, it doesn't flow as well. Which I suppose would be semi-okay if my French felt better...but it doesn't. It feels worse. Let's hope that changes and fast, or else someone's failing her classes this semester. 

But overall, still a great trip, having fun, can't complain, except for all the money I seem to be spending on food. That's annoying.