May 22

Just an American girl in the Industrial District tucked in the ghetto of Montpellier.

You know that scene in Sex and the City where Carrie is walking around Paris in that fabulous little tutu dress and just blissfully happy and the only kind of happy that you can be when you’re in France? Well that is how I felt in Paris and not I feel as though I was hit by the bus (and metro) that I have to take back to l’industrie aka my home for the night. Hence the singular night because I was told that I would be moving homestay a. because of the distance from school and b. because I am in a not so bon area. The events of the day were quite interesting they included me taking a placement test, eating a tres delicious kebab (pronounced KAY-bab, emphasis on the KAY) and taking a bus home that made 12 stops before I got off. 

11 a.m. Me sitting in a classroom in University of Montpellier IMLS taking a French placement test or more like taking a 50 multiple choice test within 60 seconds and for the oral part of the exam when asked what I have learned in French answering with “J’aime le F. Scott Fitzgerald and favorite livre (book) is the Great Gatsby!

5 p.m. Me sitting in the back of lecture hall in a garden somewhere in Montpellier listening to a French women talk about something for an hour and half in which I understand one word: place (beach) thinking how in the world I got to France, when I thought it would be a good idea to stay with a family that doesn’t speak French, and how exactly do I get myself into these situations?

With all that said, my host mother of the night is very wonderful and sweet she showed me the rather lengthy root to school (1 hour if timed right) and made delicious salmon so I am finding it rather difficult to say au revoir when she is so wonderful. Montpellier is an interesting city, rather dodgy but hip and historical all at the same time. I am taking life pretty much hour by hour at the moment because c’est la vie!