Grotte de Clamouse et Saint-Guilhem-Le-Désert

Since my last post a few...interesting things have happened, but, sadly, it would be rude to publish it for the world to see. (Oh look we're 10 again: "I have a secret but I can't tell you.")

So I'll move on to talking about our next excursions: Grotte de Clamouse and Saint-Guilhem-Le-Désert. Both really awesome, and they would have been even more awesome had I gotten more than four hours of sleep the night before.

I think I've made it pretty clear that my study habits haven't quite been the same here as they were at the U back home. Homework is sort of optional, going out takes precedence over studying, my notes tend to be 75% doodles and 25% words. (And I'm still one of the more boring nerdy ones here. "You don't get drunk? You don't do pot? What in the world do you do for fun?!" I watch you drunk people and laugh at the things you won't remember you said tomorrow is what I do).

Anyhow, I was going to spend Saturday night working on a presentation I had today, but then one of the girls asked me if I wanted to come celebrate her 21st birthday with her. At first I said sure. Then I said no I have too much to do.Then another girl, let's call her "Extroversion Personified," half-forced me to go after I happened to wander into the first floor kitchen where her and a few others were making a family dinner (some of which I helped myself to, my food is so gross it was awesome to have some real cooking for once).

"I want to but I need to be a nerd and work on my presentation." "You are in Montpellier," she said, hand on my shoulders looking right at my eyes, "when you go home you won't remember studying, you'll remember having an awesome time going out. It's what's-her-face's birthday, we need to help her celebrate." No, I suppose knowing each other's names isn't a necessary factor of friendships here.

So I was convinced to go, then I and Extroversion Personified convinced the one guy that was going to actually get work done, let's call him Studious Poli-Sci Major, to go. She gave him the same speech and I whined that he was making me feel bad about being a bad student. ("you're turning me into a bad person" I seem to be telling a lot of people here lately). Then another guy stumbled out of his room after just waking up and she made him go too. It was confusing for him.

"You going out?" "Out where?" "To celebrate what's-her-face's birthday" "I just woke up, I don't really want to" "Do I need to give you the Montpellier speech? Put on some pants, we'll wait for you."

So the group slowly grew, we finally went out to an Irish bar. Details aren't really important to the story: in conclusion I came home late, stayed up late doing the presentation, and woke up early to work on it a bit, thus I was tired. (Yes, I know, that whole story probably wasn't necessary).

First we went to the Grotte de Clamouse.

"A not-to-be-missed tourist site in the south of the France, in the heart of the Hérault Gorges, Clamouse is one of the most visited caves in France and gives an exceptional opportunity to discover and understand the underground environment. The site is in the process of being classed as a World Heritage Site by Unesco. Clamouse offers guided tours covering almost 1 km to help you discover the science of the underground world including: galleries and huge caverns hollowed out over time by the underground river, exceptional formations, a son et lumière show called “Cathedral of Time” by C. Guyard" according to their website."


My camera sucks at night/in the dark, so I decided to steel some photos/YouTube footage offline and just put some of my videos up. 

This video kind of does it justice, sorry there's so much talking in it:

And a bunch of not-my-pictures:

http://orx2.my.tripper-tips.com/photo/grotte-de-la-clamouse-700-3065.jpg

http://www.herault-location-vacances.com/images/clamouse.jpg

http://blog.sitesdexception.fr/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Cr%C3%A9ditPhoto@Grotte-de-Clamouse.jpg

http://d4.img.v4.skyrock.net/8740/62678740/pics/2559397347_small_1.jpg

http://www.monjardinenville.com/images/grotte-de-clamouse.jpg

http://www.gites-lac-salagou.com/images_photo/Grotte_de_Clamouse_193_lightbox.jpg

http://villesvillages.free.fr/ccc/clamouse/images/clamouse00.JPG

http://www.id2sorties.com/privileges/chasse-au-tresor-dans-la-grotte-de-clamouse-st--18102011104136.jpg

And a few that I took:

Outside of the entrance

Fish. Blind fish. There were also salamanders on the other side who didn't have eyes at all. 

At one point there was a light show, you can see part of it in the end of the video above

Afterword we went to Saint-Guilhem-Le-Désert for a few hours to have lunch. It was the more adorable little village/town ever. 

Some information if anyone is interested:

http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/472181

https://sacredsites.com/europe/france/saint_guilhem_le_desert.html

Hot!!!

And then we went swimming at Le Point du Diable, which was amazing especially since it was 33 degrees outside. There's a bridge there that some people jump off of, and some boulders too, which would have been fun expect our grad student leaders would have killed us, put us on a baguette, and ate us. When we jumped off the rocks at le Pont Du Gard, one girl ended up with a burst eardrum. The program organizers were not happy, to put it lightly. 

So we swam, it was great. We went home, tired as always, ate food, I tried to work on my project and ended up just going to sleep. 

See the bridge there? A couple crazy people jumped off of it