Research

I actually got to campus early for once, so I sat down on the lawn outside my building. All of the sudden a lady comes up to me and asks if I'd like to participate in a research project. Well, I didn't really have anything else to do, so I agreed and went with her. It was some sort of cognittive research, I had to trace a line I couldn't see over and over with the same finger and then draw the line. Pretty easy.
Then I found out my teacher isn't there and I have no German this week. Awesome.

Boat...cruise...?

This weekend I didn't have my own excursion planned, good because I have plenty of homework to keep me busy. However, Saturday was a sort of day trip sponsored by the programme, where we were supposed to be going on what they called a boat cruise on the Canal du Midi from Grau d'Agde on the Mediterranean to Marseillan further east along the coast. We were a little hesitant to set out at eight in the morning on the first cold and rainy day in weeks, but still we piled on the bus. I think our instincts may have been right on this one.


We got to Grau d'Agde a little before the boat did, so we walked toward the sea. I was the only one insane enough to be wearing shorts and sandals, so I walked on the beach a bit, collecting a few seashells. Most everyone else went to the end of the pier to look at the lighthouse, and before long it was time to embark on our journey.

This was a small boat, and there were easily 70 people on it. I think calling it a cruise may have affected some people's expectations of what the boat would be - this was clearly a fishing boat with some seats put on it. I sat near the back, which was fine at first. We went first into the sea and past an old fort, and then up the river Hérault to Agde, where we stopped for a three hour lunch.

As we were disembarking at Agde the rain really started. I went with a few others on a search for a relatively inexpensive place to sit and eat for the whole time - harder than we'd thought as being Saturday in March most everything in this small town was closed. We finally found a pizzeria where I had an onion soup and we sat for the entire lunch break, save stopping for dessert in a bakery on the way back to the port.

It was still raining rather hard so everyone tried to move into the covered part of the boat, which was quite crowded and made seeing the sights narrated to us a bit difficult. We started to navigate the canals from here - what I remember is a lock unique in the world in that it is round and has three levels of water; one to the Atlantic, one to the Mediterranean, and one to the Hérault. We were supposed to have passed through a bird sanctuary as well, but it was hard to tell. By the time we disembarked in Marseillan we were all cold and tired and maybe a little seasick. Not the best day I've had, but still, another experience.

Alba

I've never been one to let a little thing like a head cold get in the way of me having a good time, so despite my stuffed nose and sore throat I headed off Friday afternoon for my weekend in Scotland. It wasn't as if I could reschedule or refund it anyway, and even though my sister decided not to join me as originally planned, I was determined to have a good time.

And I can honestly say that I did. I flew from Montpellier to Gatwick (fourth time in eight weeks! If only easyjet had a frequent flyer programme...), waited two hours, then caught a flight to Edinburgh, arriving just after 8. I took the bus into city centre and walked to my hostel, only a few blocks from the bus stop, and just off Prince's Street, one of the main thoroughfares of Edinburgh. Since it was late and as I mentioned I wasn't feeling well, I just took a short walk to get some dinner and then called it an early night.

I got up around 7 Saturday morning, with the intention of using every last second of daylight to see the city. I first walked down Prince's street to grab some breakfast, then I headed towards my farthest destination: the Royal Botanical Gardens of Edinburgh. The first and only time prior to this I was in Scotland in May of 2002, my mom and I spent quite a while there, but the only things I remembered about it was that it was a really long walk to get there and that their café had excellent carrot soup. The walk wasn't nearly as long as I remembered, probably because I'm more accustomed to walking places now. I got there before it opened, so I walked back the way I'd come to have a cup of coffee before going back when it opened. I spent well over an hour there, admiring the scenery and taking plenty of pictures of flowers. I did make it back to the café, and while they didn't have any carrot soup, I tried their minestrone, which was quite good as well. The bread they served it with was what sold it for me.

I walked back into city centre afterwards, stopping to buy some fruit and dropping it off at the hostel. From there I decided to head toward Edinburgh Castle, passing many monuments along the way, and taking pictures of the fascinating buildings. The castle being on the top of a hill, there were breathtaking views of the city around me. I could see the mountains, the firth, and all of the buildings of the city. Nearby there was a tartan mill and museum, so I took a quick look around there, finally finding what the Fettes (Fiddes in old Scottish) family tartan looked like - this is my mom's mom's family name, the only Scottish I can definitely link myself to. Unfortunately since it's a family and not a clan, there really aren't any scarves or whatnot with the tartan available - I would've had to order them. Well, at least now I know a little more of the family story.

I kept walking from the castle down the royal mile, getting as far as the parliament building and taking pictures all along the way. I turned back and stopped at a pub for dinner; steak and mince pie. It was quite good, and I stayed a little while watching the six nations rugby matches: the end of England v. Scotland (England won) and the beginning of Ireland v. Wales. I find rugby a bit confusing, but still interesting.

I headed back toward the Princes street gardens, and got a few good shots of the castle from below. I pretty much just walked around the city centre until the sun set, then ended up calling it an early night, getting all my things together since I had to wake up early Sunday morning to get back to the airport.

As per the usual, today was just travel, travel, switching planes in London and getting back in the late afternoon. I was useful in my own way; helping some British travellers from my flight find their way into Montpellier (they were all getting off a few stops before me on the same tram line), always nice to feel useful.

...I miss Scotland already.

Luttons! Pour nos droits!

After several weeks of classes cancelled due to strike, a few weeks ago students blocked the campus. This basically meant the doors to all of the building except the library, cafeteria, and institute for foreign students were blocked by chairs, tables, and angry students. Every general assembly since then has voted to keep the blockage going. I can't claim to completely understand the situation, but it does seem like they're looking at things a bit out of proportion. However, I'm not French, these reforms aren't affecting my schooling beyond this semester.

This strike has, however, deeply affected my current semester. We haven't had classes except the ones run by our programme, so obviously there's not much to be graded on. To make up for this, they've gone through a couple of steps, first having us write 8-10 page papers for each integrated class we have (I have three) and then making us attend additional lectures arranged for American students so we have "something to do". Uh, what? Most of these have nothing to do with what we're not studying, and honestly the two I've been to so far have not been informative at all - one was basic stuff I learnt in linguistics and another similar to an intro journalism class I took. Neither are related to any classes I have here. And the papers? Well, my literature professor still expects us to do a dissertation, and luckily if I stretch it to eight pages it will count for that one. The fact that we still mostly have our translations class (the professors weren't ever on strike, only missed for the blockage) and that it's nearly impossible to write eight pages about beginning German means that it will be the only one I have to write, which is a relief. Even though I have fewer classes, I still feel overwhelmed with what I have to do. I know travelling so much probably doesn't help, but I made these arrangements before I knew there would be a strike of this magnitude and honestly I thought the classes as they were at the start would be pretty manageable. So I won't change any of my plans, but I just have to be more serious about using my time during the week for studying. I think I can handle it. In any case, we have to turn in the papers before spring break, so it won't be hanging over my head the whole time. Good.

There apparently will be another general strike on Thursday, which for me only means that bus and tram services will be severely disrupted, but seeing as I have a grammar class and the second half of the linguistics lecture to go to, I'm not really bothered. Just hope I don't get caught up in any protesting. As much as I like France, I'm starting to think I'll never really adjust to the French way of life. Oh well, just another experience to add to the backlog that defines this crazy, crazy person I call me.

Ticket to ride

Well, I bought a Eurail pass intending to use it for spring break, but since I had extra days I set out Thursday night for a long weekend in Italy.
A weekend isn't enough time to make it as far east as Venice or as far south as Naples or Rome, so I decided to spend one night each in Milan and Florence, as well as a few hours in whatever cities I hit by train along the way, due to a lack of direct routes that didn't require an extra charge.

It took a bit of effort just for me to get to Italy; I had to change trains in Marseille and Nice before arriving in Ventimiglia, known in French as Vintimille, just on the other side of the border. It was after midnight by the time I got there, and the train I would be taking to Genoa didn't leave until 5am, so I pulled out my blanket prepared to sleep in the station. It worked for a little while, but around 2:30 or so I just couldn't stand sitting on the hard ground, so I decided to get up and go for a walk outside. The station was less than half a mile from the Mediterranean, so I walked to the rocky shore and sat for a while, just staring at the ocean. I walked around a bit longer getting back to the station around 4:30 and finally got on the regional train for Genova Piazza Principe.

I got into Genoa around 8:30 am and had about three hours until my next train, so I went for a walk around the city. Something about the ancientness of Italy made me want to take lots of pictures in black and white. This isn't to say other places I've been were un-ancienty, just maybe not in the same way. (And yes, un-ancienty. That's exactly the word I was going for. Bonus points if you know why.) This took care of my time there and soon I was on the train for Arquata Scrivia, where I had 40 minutes before the train to Milan.

I had a hostel booked for Friday night in the northern half of Milan, so after arriving at Centrale station I navigated the metro system to Affori to find it and drop off my bags. It was a little hard to find because it was on the grounds of on old psychiatric hospital. Still, it was pretty nice and relatively cheap so nothing to complain about... I then took the train back into town and went to the Duomo station, right in the centre of the city. There I found Milan's magnificent cathedral - absolutely gorgeous both inside and out. There was also a sort of antique car show going on in the plaza just outside of the Cathedral, so I watched that for a while, my one semester of Italian enough to barely grasp the commentary. After that wandering the streets of Milan, the centre of Italian fashion, eventually finding dinner and then some gelato before heading back to the hostel to get some sleep, recovering from the night before and getting ready for Saturday.

I got up Saturday, packed my things, and headed back into Milan, wandering for a bit before making my way back to the Centrale Station. With no real plan except my hostel reservation that night in Florence, I was free to take my time riding the rails without going directly there, which is also cheaper since I didn't need a reservation for regional trains. I went through Piacenza, Bologna and Prato, spending a little time in each before finally getting to Florence in the late afternoon.

I dropped my bags off at the hostel, which was luckily quite close to the Santa Maria Novella station where I had come in. I starting walking hoping to hit the monuments highlighted on the map the reception had given me. I passed many gorgeous churches - Florence is in fact a city known for its artists and architecture, so this isn't surprising. I went through a street market and ended up buying a cashmere scarf, which upon wearing was apparently enough for people to stop assuming I was a foreigner - I had a few people coming up to me and asking for directions in Italian! I tried to help if I could, but it was mostly Mi scusi, non parlo italiano. Many more plazas later I found the Ponte Vecchio, a famous old bridge that from the side looks like another row of houses, not something suspended over water. Quite remarkable. I had a florentine pizza for dinner and went back to the hostel when everything started to close. One of the girls in my room was from Paris, so I talked with her in French for a while, we even went for a late snack in a nearby café. I went to bed before too late because I knew Sunday was going to be rough...

No matter how early I left Florence, there was no way I would be able to get to Montpellier the same night. So I took my time to some extent, going to a 10:30 am mass at the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, the main duomo in the centre of Florence. This was actually really interesting, because it was mostly in Latin with gregorian chants, excepting the scriptures and homily in Italian. I was glad I went because otherwise the cathedral wasn't open to tourists on Sundays, and moreover I didn't really want to pay €8 to get in anyway.

From there I went to a café in the Piazza Indipendenza for lunch, and then headed to the station, where I caught the first train to Pisa. I was hoping to be there long enough to see the tower, but I only had an hour before the train to Genoa that I needed to take, and it just wasn't close enough to the station to make it on foot. Instead I walked as far as the river and took some pictures before getting back to the station and the train back.

Through Genova and again to Ventimiglia, where I caught a regional back to Nice. On the train I met some Japanese girls who were students in Nice, so I got my monthly Japanese conversation thing on (hahaha) and chatted with them until they got off in Eze-sur-mer, then finally getting to Nice around 9:30. There would be no more trains to Marseille until the morning, and having no real desire to sleep in a train station for that long, I walked a bit until I found a hostel with open rooms to sleep in until I could get a train. The hostel was run by some old ladies who were also running a restaurant, but being a Sunday night they really had no clientele for either; just two customers for the restaurant and me. I chatted with one for a time whilst she filled out my forms, she seemed really impressed with my French abilities, but really, I've been studying the language for over 10 years, so I hope I can hold a conversation by now.

I had an eight bed room to myself, but I went to bed as soon as I got there so I could leave around 5:30, get to the station and take the 6:02 to Marseille. I had an hour layover there so I took some pictures of the cityscape, finally getting on the train for Montpellier and getting back around 11, thinking I'd have about 15 minutes to get ready for class once I got back to my dorm. I hurried to get ready - but contrary to the email my programme had sent the campus was still mostly blocked and my professor never showed up. Oh well. At least I had a great time in Italy!

A (partially) sunny day in Cardiff

Friday afternoon I got on a plane bound for London (this is getting to the point of familiar) and then a train for Victoria, where I caught a coach bus headed toward Cardiff. It was nearly 9pm by the time I arrived, so really I would only have one day in which to enjoy the Welsh capital with my sister. She had already checked in to our hostel so we walked across the river Taff and called it an early night in order to wake up early on Saturday...

We ate breakfast at the hostel and left before ten, heading straight for Cardiff bay whilst the weather was still nice enough for us to enjoy it. It was warm, I even took off my coat for a while and enjoyed the breezes. We saw the Millenium Centre and Mermaid Quay, all along the bay noticing places where Torchwood and Doctor Who have been filmed... Okay, I'm a nerd. I'll admit that. Next was the visitors centre - an interesting building shaped like a tube, and filled with fun facts about Cardiff and the surrounding areas of Wales. There were also many monuments and statues outside, as well as the Norweigian church that had been converted into some sort of gallery.

I would be lying if I said I had come to Cardiff for any reason except the Doctor Who exhibit at the Red Dragon centre... Sam and I spent quite a while nerding out there, all the shiny stuff.... Okay, I'm getting a bit carried away here, suffice it to say it was everything I'd hoped for and more. We took our time there and then walked back along the river towards Cardiff Castle. By this time it had started clouding over...

It was raining by the time we got to the castle, so we decided against paying to go in unless the rain were to let up - it never did, so I kind of wish we had just sucked it up and gone in, but at least I got some nice pictures of the outside and a reason to go back to Cardiff! We walked back by Milennium Stadium, where the Welsh rugby team plays (not this weekend, though), and looked at all their spiffy logos and merchandise. We didn't really want to wait an hour for the next tour, so we went back to the hostel after a quick lunch and took a little break, hoping the rain would pass. It let up for a short while, long enough for us to walk the streets of Cardiff for a bit just taking it all in, and starting up right as we decided to pop into a cinema to see Watchmen. I realise it's a bit silly to see a film when you're on a short holiday like this, but this was one I wanted to see in English, and in Montpellier I've only been able to find it shown in French. It was worth it, I think.

After the movie we stopped at Hard Rock Café for a bit, and then back to the hostel so I could sleep before catching my coach back to London at 6:30 am... Another day full of travel and back home to Montpellier. Yet another great excursion!

Iberia

Well, this may be the first time wandering off without a plan has backfired on me; but only half. Apart from the times of tickets for trains and/or planes, I usually don't have any concrete ideas of what I want to do when I travel. That managed to make this weekend both much happier than I expected, and slightly less entertaining than I hoped. How's that? Let me explain.

After encountering some of her classmates in Ireland, I got back in touch with my friend Theresa, my roommate from my summer programme in Korea. She had been spending her time since Africa travelling all over Europe with her boyfriend. I hadn't seen her in over a year, and since she wasn't so far away, I thought there had to be a way to meet up... And there was! I had planned back in January this weekend trip to Lisbon, but due to train schedules I was going to have a six hour layover in Madrid, which is where she was going to be for the weekend! Perfect.

Early Friday morning I hopped on the train for Barcelona. I got there with about an hour layover, so I used that time to go to the hipermercat (think supermarket, but waaay bigger) across the street from the station to get some food for the rest of my trip, since it's quite expensive on the train. Apart from my staples like fruit and granola bars, I also picked up a half litre of the most delicious orange juice I've had since living in Florida - it was squeezed and bottled right in the store! Not to mention the oranges they used were the mandarin/clemintine variety, which made quite the tasty juice. My time used up, I head back to Sants Estació and boarded my train for Madrid.

It's odd to think that the most comfortable train I was on was the shortest and only domestic trip, but then the line between Barcelona and Madrid had been newly remodeled and was a high speed train - hitting 300 kph (about 186mph)! The ride was just under three hours, and they were playing a movie... I thought, hey an american movie! Surely it'll be in English? No. Spanish with Catalán subtitles. Little weird. So I took a nap instead.

When I got to Madrid, the plan was to meet Theresa at her hostel near the Plaza Santo Domingo, so that meant taking the metro. Luckily I have an uncanny talent for figuring out subway maps (I think I mentioned that about London) so after glancing at the lines and buying a ticket (only €1 - pretty cheap for public transport!), I hopped on the next train and was there in no time at all.

After catching up for a bit we went out to explore the city. We seemed to be in the central area, as we saw so many different street performers - a mariachi band, some guys rocking out on dulcimers, magicians, "mannequins" (you'd put money in their box and they'd do some sort of performance - othereise they stood completely still), balloon makers dressed as furry characters, and so on. We walked around the streets for a while, eventually seeing the palace and plaza mayor and many monuments and impressive buildings. We ate dinner and kept wandering about until 9:30, when I headed for the next train station, so I could catch my overnight train to Lisbon.

I'll admit I really had no idea what I was getting myself into when I reserved these tickets. My plan basically involved travelling all day Friday, spending Saturday in Lisbon, and travelling all day Sunday back to Montpellier. So when I got to Lisbon at 8am following a restless night trying to sleep in the seated accommodation of the hotel train, I had hoped that I would arrive in the city centre as was the case with most train stations, or at least somewhere with tourist things to do. The tourist office in the train station apparently wasn't open on weekends (what's up with that?) so I went outside to survey my surroundings. The train station was right next to the port, and being so early in the morning it seemed like nothing was open. So I decided to just start walking and see what I could find; after all, I had 14 hours to kill. The first thing I noticed was how the entire city seemed to be uphill. Steep hills at that... It didn't take long before I was exhausted and stopped for some breakfast at a small pastry shop. I really don't speak any Portuguese, and the little electronic phrase book on my ipod isn't all that comprehensive, so I pretty much just went for what looked tasty and pointed at it. Obrigada. I spent the next hour or so just wandering the streets of Lisbon, admiring the architecture and the old feel of it all. I felt like it wasn't even part of Europe, because (naturally) it had that distinctive latin flavour reminicent of South and Central America. Eventually I ended up in what appeared to be Lisobon's chinatown, realising finally that this actually was a big city, for I found a public transportation map, and there was a metro system. Not a big one, but it was there. So I looked at the map for signs of things which might be of interest to someone who is just a casual traveller and speaks no Portuguese, and then got on the Metro headed for Campo Pequeno. The map showed that there should be a museum nearby; I ended up in a shopping mall. Now as I have mentioned before, these kinds of places are just as interesting to me because I can more easily see the differences in culture. So I wandered around for a bit, seeing what the commercial scene was like in Portugal. As it turned out, this was not mere shopping mall. Since I had come in from the metro, I didn't see it from the outside before hand, but it turned out that the mall was built around a sort of giant hall, home to various shows and concerts (I saw a sign for Jason Mraz appearing next month) as well as a cinema. After an hour or so, I decided to move on and see if I couldn't find that museum... I couldn't. I ended up walking to the Campo Grande, Lisbon's large central park.

When they say grande, they mean it. This park is huge. I walked for quite a while, snapping photos of the statues and flowers. When I made it to the other side I did find an art museum, but of course just as it was closing for lunch or some such. What I saw of the outside was pretty, though. So I walked back on the other side of the Campo, which took me past the University of Lisbon and even more statues and monuments.

Since every museum I passed was closed and I was at a complete loss as far as what to do in this city, I decided to take advantage of the fact that my eurail pass had been stamped for the day and take a train somewhere outside of Lisbon for a few hours. I got on the next train my pass was valid on, destination Tomar. I ended up getting off at Santarém, after admiring the lovely Portuguese countryside all along the way. It was a beautiful old town, but by the time I walked outside of the station and started looking around, it started pouring and I didn't have an umbrella. So I ended up going back to the station and taking the next train back to Lisbon.

It was getting dark and late by the time I got back, so I spent a little more time admiring the sea and the area around Santa Apolónia station, then bought some more food for the ride back. Another overnight to Madrid, changing stations back to Atocha via the metro, a short layover in Barcelona and back in Montpellier just after 9pm. It was overall quite the adventure, and even if I didn't have the greatest time there at least I can check off Portugal on the list of places I've been!