Week one!

Well dear friends, still no internet in my room, I'm told that should appear in a few days. Luckily, though, I have finally received my wifi password for the dorm lobby, so I can at least sit here for a while and update on the busy week I've had in Montpellier!

I left off my last real post Friday the second, shortly after arriving in Montpellier. That evening I went with a few others from my group on a short walk around the downtown area, from the Place de la Comédie where our hotel was located to Montpellier's Arc de Triomphe, about 1km each way. The weather was beautiful already, and somehow I felt like I'd been here for months. We stopped at a café for sandwiches and tea and then headed back to the comédie.

Saturday we were given a brief tour of the centre-ville, and then we had our orientation at the Corum, which is Montpellier's convention centre. After taking a placement test for our grammar and phonetics classes we split up into groups; half picking their classes and the rest going in small groups around the city to get mobile phones and tram cards. I was part of the group running errands first, which turned out to be lucky for me as I got a nicer phone for the same price everyone else paid for theirs, because they had run out of the kind I had by the time most people had gotten there. Getting the tram card turned out to be more of an ordeal than we thought, since we had to bring our own photos for them to put on the card. My group ended up going to automatic photo machines in the mall and not getting our passes until later in the evening. I'm glad I at least got it that day though - it has been extremely useful as it works on both tram lines and the buses, and I can get just about anywhere I could want to go. After all our little errands we spent a few hours trying to choose classes - something that turned out to be much more complicated than back home, but still pretty flexible since nothing was set in stone.

Sunday was the day everyone moved into their permanent housing. I was one of three people who will be living in the Cité Universitaire Vert Bois, also known as the dormitories. I was quite impressed and surprised when I got there; the room is much larger than I expected, and I have both my own toilet/shower and kitchenette. That should making living/eating on the cheap much easier for me. I've already been experimenting... After shelling out the money for a frying pan and a few basic ingredients like eggs and butter, I've made quite a variety of tasty meals for myself. Good to know, I can cook somewhat! (Those who are interested can go here to see what my room looks like.)

Sundays will likely be problematic when I'm not travelling, since here in "provincial" France everything, and I really do mean everything, is closed on Sundays. No groceries, no pharmacies, nothing. Only a few restaurants are open, and unless I'm meeting someone I probably won't be frequenting those on Sundays - last Sunday I took the tram to the Comédie just to take a walk, and spent .75€ on a baguette since I didn't yet have a chance to buy groceries. I felt so French carrying my bread in it's little tissue paper all the way back to my dorm. Hilarious.

Monday was the first day of classes, and I only had one. Our programme group had a little room on campus for us to meet up and make sure we had a full and non-conflicting schedule, and also so we could hopefully find where our classes were. I went around in circles with one of the programme directors trying to find out where the schedules for Czech language were posted, only to find out it conflicted with one of those courses I had to take, so I'll be taking beginning German instead. Monday I had the first half of my translations class, this part being translating English to French. It's a class specifically for foreign students who are native english speakers, so it was all British and American students. It seems like it shouldn't be too difficult. After classes monday evening is when I took care of my grocery shopping, which was a bit of an adventure in itself. I bought far too much for my own good since I wanted it to last a while, and the walk back to my dorm from the tram stop (which is a good kilometre or more) was a bit trying, but I'm sure it was good exercise. Add to that that I live on the fourth floor and there's no elevator, and well... I'll probably be losing weight here.

Tuesdays I'll normally have two classes, but the German one doesn't start until next week, so I had just the French to English portion of my translations class. Again, I think this will be a good class for me. Wednesday I was supposed to have my lecture for 18th century lit, but the professor was sick and so that was cancelled. While waiting for my Phonetics class later that afternoon with some classmates, it began to snow. Now, that may not seem that interesting, but the next morning I heard tell that that hadn't happened here in over twenty years. So that was a little impressive, and quite interesting to see in a mediterranean city! Phonetics looks like it will be too easy since I already took pretty much the same class back home, but it's one of two required courses for the program, and I'll get elective credit for it anyway, so hopefully it'll just be an easy A.

Thursday is going to be my busiest day, I have three classes with only an hour between each. First is Grammar and Methodology, which again is very similar to a course I've already taken, but should still be somewhat helpful and is required. After that is my discussion section for 18th century lit, which have specific subjects related to the broad lecture module - mine is on Marivaux and Travesty; we'll be reading two of his plays and doing critiques and anylysing etc. This seems like it'll be my hard class, especially since I'm not especially a fan of literature, and it's an integrated class so the professor speaks really fast in French. Luckily the grading scale is really lenient for transferring these courses back. My last class of the day and the week was the second semester of Italian, which I'm taking to compensate for the fact that German is only 1.5 credits, as is this. I figured since I was taking Italian last semester I might as well continue it.

Fridays I have free, which will be excellent once I've settled in and start travelling. I used my free time yesterday to explore the city a bit more, and then went with one of the girls from my programme to the bookstore to pick up a few textbooks and dictionaries. I went back with her to see her homestay, and her host mother invited me to stay for dinner, which was quite lovely. I decided against a homestay for various reasons but French home cooking almost made me wish I had one!

Today our group was given a guided tour of some of the medieval areas of the city. Some of the buildings here are more than a millenium old, with "updated" façades from the 17th or 18th centuries. The tour ended with us being let on top of the Arc de Triomphe, which gave us a spectacular view of the city. I was thouroughly amazed.

All in all, I'm very glad to have come to Montpellier. I think I'll be adjusted to life here in no time at all. Lots of challenges ahead but I'm ready for whatever comes my way!