It was the perfect end to an amazing trip, full of adventures, new discoveries, and new friends, most lifelong. I learned a lot about myself, the culture of France, and the French language. If I wasn’t obsessed with the language and the country before, you better bet I am now! I can’t wait to move back to Athens to cover my walls with all my pictures! I definitely want to go back and spend most or all of my junior year at the University of Lyon, where I will already know 2 people!

Thanks again for following me and if I ever make a flight to Seattle to visit Daniel, I’ll put my pictures up on here to keep y’all updated with my travels!

One semester- down
Paper- written
Final- passed
Friends for life- made
South of France- seen

Time for Paris- Encore une Fois (One more time) Our plans are to go back to the Louvre, shop, go to the TOP of the Eiffel Tower, somehow we only got to the second story last time, go to the top of the Notre Dame, and the Tour Montparnasse… so it’s more like Paris- en Haut, mais c’est ce que nous voulons à faire.

I’m taking the train to Lille on Monday and probably staying till Thursday, Friday, or Saturday… we’ll see how the flights look. I don’t know when I’ll have internet again, but I’ll update when I can!

Merci à chaqun qui m’a suivi
-Thanks to everyone for following me!

Studying and writing papers outside the Shakespeare Café

Groom to be at his bachelor party… in a Bob l’eponge suit. Classy

Kim and I at the beach after class

Ramsay and me at the Crepe restaurant

The house special. MMMMmmmmm

Dessert. There’s ice cream tied into the crepes. Délicieux

Sitting on the Esplanade de l’Europe

My gorgeous friends- Le rire c’est la musique de l’âme

Our new friends we made 2 days before leaving

Raphaël (Cape Town, South Africa/France), me, Erin, Sarah, Nicolas (France), Mel (Colorado, USA)

Ma mère d’accueil Nicole- Host Mom

Celebration Kebab for being done with school for 3 weeks!

One hour into the packing process

The key to a smallish suitcase

C’est fini! Flat Fred is content.

À bientôt Montpellier

I’ll let the pictures do the talking for the beauty of the city that sits 10 minutes by train outside Montpellier. I don’t have time to write captions for all of them because there are so many. I even only chose the best ones! It really was one of the best days I’ve had here. It was a little chilly and WINDY, you’ll see, but we did and saw everything we wanted to while having time to just STOP… and take it all in.

The coast


Deserts of Sète

Awesome hammock store

The 1998 trip to Alaska made me appreciate lighthouses


Sarah, “Guess you didn’t want to be in that picture”

A bit windy

One of my favorite pictures

House in the mountain-side on our hike to the top

Sarah running up the stairs, because we’re young and we can

How could this Not be your favorite place in the world?


What is this a picture of? Exactly. Sea and Sky have no bounds.

Take 3, when the wind worked somewhat in our favor


I’ve never seen a church like this, where the whole inside is painted

The Bible stories are painted on the wall because no one could read and Bibles were expensive

The old theater

I don’t enjoy cemeteries, but this one not only had a great view and all the tombs were extravagantly decorated




Sarah smelling the Lavender! Gotta love the south of France.

I would never get tired of this view

More canal. So cool to me!

Where we ate lunch. Still super windy.
Sarah after salad literally blew out of her mouth into the water, “Well this is a good diet.”

Then we stumbled upon a movie filming!

(Insert french accent) Action!

Cute isolated part of town

So quaint

Fisherman’s nets

Hey Steven

Karah and Sète…

it was love at first sight

I’m so sad that I have to leave Montpellier soon BUT! In my despair, and not being able to visit MaryKate in Ireland, I’ve been contacting everyone I know in France, just for the chance to stay a bit longer. Marguerite, my exchange student, is on vacation with her friends. Her friend Charles invited me to Nantes, but had to work during the day (made that option #2). SOOOOOO…

I’M GOING TO VISIT PAUL IN LILLE!
Paul is Daniel’s exchange student. I’m so excited words cannot explain. The only thing I’m not looking forward to is hauling my luggage, but the feelings of joy will overcome the feelings pain I feel sure. On the phone he said he was very happy to be able see me, as is his family. I can swim in their pool in their back yard and hang out with all them! So, scratch the former plan, I’ll probably be home by the 31st. Its not all worked out yet so we’ll see.

Today, Sunday, is a day of work. Its not alllll play here in Montpellier. I have a paper, a presentation, and a final exam this week. Ugggggh, but I really can’t complain. That’s all for now. BACK to WORKKKK…

Bastille Day (…equals French 4th of July) was Tuesday, July 14th for your trivia knowledge, so we went to the Beach!

And there were WAVES! Yes I body surfed in the Mediterranean for hours on end. Believe it.

This kid was so cute. He kept picking up dry sand, running 5 steps, and throwing it in the water. I think he thought he was saving it because every time he’d look down like this with a sense of accomplishment on his face.

Feet picture. It just happens

Not the same desk you saw the first day, ey? I’m not even sure you can see the desk beneath my trucs

Didn’t think it was possible, but this elevator is slower than Creswell’s… yes, slower. Sometimes when I push the button its so slow it forgets and the light goes out and I have to push it again. I really live on the 6th floor by American standards (just like in c-well!) because the ground floor is 0

My mailbox. Cool right. I know you’re fascinated. I had some extra time before class.

Chez moi. The top apartment on the far right side is my balcony.

Flower Power Tram!

Careful now, that’s per liter.

I wait

SIMPLY! The alternate to Monoprix, and has the cheapest cookies in town.

Je habite à Mas Drevon

Worst part of my day is when I walk out of my gate and see this coming down the hill… run, wait… run?… wait. Merde

Then I get to Accent and my lovely friends are eating in our quaint kitchen

The market in La Place de la Comédie

Beaucoup des gens sur la rue… plus a creeper or two

Kinder icecream made my day. Pieces of Kinder Egg in icecream? Why didn’t 31 flavors think of that?! Only in Europe.

As our time is dwindling, there seems to be more and more talk about this place called America. In remembering the good old U.S. of A, we’re appreciating it more and more, and realizing the things we miss. Here’s a list I made in class to keep me awake… it was that right-after-lunch-I-just-wanna-nap feeling that hit me

I want to be able to…

-keep the bathroom door open
French people have this weird thing with toilets, and it’s always a closet that smells terrible. Who knew I’d miss bathroom stalls?!

-drink from a large glass
We get an itty bitty cup of water at dinner time that I fill up multiple times

-hear God Bless You when I sneeze
they have a saying for it… that they never use!

I also miss…
-Cereal that’s not the CoCo Puff equilivant
-Large cars, or anything that’s not a car. Not that I’m driving here, I just want to see one. It’s been a while.
-Neighborhoods- almost nonexistent in France
-Sweet tea. You can take a girl out of the south, but you can’t take the south out of the girl
-Ice! mmmm sweet tea with ice…
-People that know how to mount and dismount public transportation. Lesson: let the people get off first, the the people that are standing closest go first, then you offer the seats to women, children, and elderly.
-Things not being monopolized. I know France is smaller than Texas and they don’t have the amount of people to output products, but I appreciate my CHOICE in America. Between suntan lotions, bookstores… the grocery store is even called MONOprix. prix meaning price. Quelle originalité mecs.

I’m looking forward to…
#1. Visiting Paris! vacation from stay-cation

Then when I hop back across the crick (insert redneck accent I miss dearly) I’ll be excited to…
-Text.. shocker- french phone be crazy.
-Drive my car…Shocker
-Paint my toenails (sounds high maintenance, but when your toenails are always a certain shade of pink and you look down at a blank toe, you’d be freaked out too. All I’m saying)
-Decorate my apartment!!! with my large posters of Paris I bought last spring and allllllllll my new pictures I’ve taken here! … that’s gonna be expensive.

My plan, as of yet, is to renter the United States on the 28th of July.

C’est tout. À Bientôt tout le monde.

You’ve already seen Monday and Tuesday, (St. Guilhem/ Cliff Jumping then Tour de France) Get ready for an overload of pictures in attempts to summarize the following:

Wednesday: Class trip to Arles
Thursday: Jason Mraz Concert in Nîmes!
Friday: Beach day
Saturday: Marseille

Les Alyscamps (ancient cemetery) in Arles

Van Gough’s Café Terrace à Nuit… seem familiar? It’s a little modernized now.


Typical French family I had to creep on they were so adorable

Van Gough’s La Nuit Etoilée, copy of painting by my feet

Ancient Roman Bridge. Sarah and I convinced Lydia that it collapsed when there was a parade on it two years after it was built, literally made up the story on the spot and she never questioned us

Getting ready for the Course Camarguaise

The man tries to take a ribbon from the head of the bull with the prongs on his hand… when he’s not running from it of course

Bull jumping the fence! This one llllovved jumping the fence

Bull trampling a guy!

When the one bull wouldn’t go back out of the Arena, his friend bulls with bells had to come fetch him. It was so funny to watch.

You couldn’t pay me to be that close!

Jason! Be prepared for my obsession with him because Jmraz live… I probably won’t go to a better concert for the rest of my life.

We took the 5 o’clock train to Nîmes, checked in the hotel which was literally across from the station, got ready, and walked 5 minutes (so close!) to the Arena. The Nîmes arena looks like the coliseum in Rome, just a little bit smaller. It was so cool to be watching a concert where gladiators fought! We bought the cheapest tickets to the concert, which were 35,50€, and it was the standing section in front of the stage!!! I would’ve been soo mad if I’d paid more to be even farther away?!  The first girl that opened was Alela Diane really folk like had a mountain feel, and we all swore the girl that harmonized with her looked familiar. After I told Sarah it was mountainy, the french girl turns to her other friend who spoke a little english and asked her what “mountainy” meant!

Then Justin Nozuka played and I really liked him, but he didn’t have a lot of stage presence.

Then Jason came on! We were all referring to him like he was our best friend by the end of the night. He made us do a little dance and made stuff up on stage and attempted spoke some short phrases in French which the audience Loved!

Then! Afterwards, the trumpet, sax, and trombone players were walking out the same way that we were! They were really really good. The trumpet player hit notes I’d never heard. Every time they popped up I had no idea where they were. Like one time they were on the side of the arena! You had to look around for them. So since we were some of the last people out anyways, we took our picture with them and since we spoke english, they asked us where we were from and ended up talking to the 3 of them for like 20 minutes! Their Europe tour is over in a week, but they’re coming to the south soon, so they told us to email them and they’d get us passes!!! We were like “ok cool just, ya know, tell Jason the girls from Georgia said hey”
We stayed in a hotel in Nîmes, that Sarah found and I booked. I slept like a rock for 6 hours, got up, we caught the train to class at 7, read my homework on the train, bought a chocolate croissant, slept on my book bag on the street outside our classroom building till class started (probably looked homeless) went to class, ate lunch at my apartement, and spent the day at the beach, reading my homework and tanning! I love it here. I never want to leave…

Kim NOT wanting to do her homework in anticipation for Jason Mraz

Coolest venue ever, ancient Roman Arena where gladiators fought!

Justin Nozuka. You may know him from his song “After Tonight”

JASON!

The whole band at the end of the show

Encore Encore Encore!

Our friends from Texas!
Homework on the beach. This is the best study abroad program ever

And what a beautiful beach it is

I had a good time in Marseille although the day trip to France’s second largest city was a bit rushed. The city is spread out too, which didn’t help. Not my absolute favorite place we’ve gone, but has some cool monuments! After we ate our Monoprix lunches by the old port, we visited the Palais Longchamps! That was definitely the highlight of the day. The rest of the city surrounding the monuments is not much to look at…at all. I felt like I was in the sketchy part of town the whole time (even though we weren’t) and it was super dirty in general. Sarah, Ramasy, and I left the tired and hungry behind to visit a cathedral sitting on the Mediterranean bay where there were these big cruise ships and in doing so we got to see Château d’Îf from the bay, the setting for Alexandre Dumas’ novel The Count of Monty Cristo, and stumbled across Marseille’s Arc de Triomphe! Sorry that was such a long sentence. Anyways, we walked everywhere and I slept the whole hour and 45 min train ride back.

At the Old Port

Daddy would’ve loved this

So gorgeous

Palais Longchamps!

Cheesin’ with my Longchamp bag…

Flowers and Fountain

It was all so extravagant and detailed!

Statue’s view looking out onto Marseille

Whoops! Dropped my toga

Notre Dame de la Garde

Cruise ship on Mediterranean

Cathedral

Stripped stone

Stripped red stone inside with flags of all the regions in France

I love ceilings of churches, just walking in and looking up in awe

Schweppes and Cookies= perfection

Its been a really long week, but today (Sunday) relaxing on the beach once again was a great end to it all and start for the week to come. Bastille day (France’s 4th of July) is Tuesday which means… no class! I still have a final project, final paper, and presentation looming over me on top of all my other homework every night… but I love it too much here for that to bother me.

Yesterday after class, Lydia, Kim, and I went to St. Guilhem, for real this time, and had a blast! It was gorgeous with little fountains and winding small streets and gardens, all situated in a valley of mountains… I could give up my convenient American lifestyle to wake up to that beauty every morning.
Then we went cliff jumping again and made it home in time for dinner!

I think I could’ve sat by this stream all day

L’eau frais!

I’ve been waiting to take this photo since I stole the UGA en France study abroad poster with this picture on it from the 2nd floor of the SLC and hung it in my dorm room

Organ photo of the day! Look at the little cherub babies!

Papillon sur la lavande

et quelques autres

“We’re mooses, we’re mices, you love us to pieces!”
Oh my silly friends…

We tried out a new home base today, on the rocky beach.

This guy jumped before we got up here, then he came up to the bigger bridge we were standing on after this, put one leg over, and we offered him cookies not to jump and told him he would die. He just walked away. SUCCESS! Life Saved? … check

The decorated Place de la Comedie

The perfect viewpoint

Start of the Caravan!

Kentucky Derby?.. that’s not the only KY reference of this post…

Kinda like floats, but I needed the sport setting even for this

Gangsta Haley sportin her jersey, Carrefour hat, and tourdefrance keychain on her chain. Holla!

The perfect picnic, of which we ate allllllll ughhh. That’s what happens when you sit around all day. We were literally there from noon to 6:30, all for the love of the sport (and to see Lance… and say we were there)

Hahahahahhahahahahahahaaaaa WIPE OUT!

Speeding by!

They forgot the R in Armstrong at first haha

That’s for you mom and bro, the second ky reference. It ended up saying Western Front. An Australian man drew it so don’t ask me..

Note the fan literally RUNNING along beside them cheering!

Now that’s dedication

Lance reading his tribute like, yeah I am wearing yellow…

Allez! Allez!

Kim and me

My favorite

Looks like a job for Daniel, filming on a motorcycle, except he’d be driving it at the same time

LoVeD iT!

Well, we found it and got off. The bus driver was like, this isn’t St. G yet. we’re like, we know we changed our minds! We got off at Pont de Diable, bridge of the devil, and changed into our suits. It was a perfect 4th of July. We spent the whole day cliff jumping, swimming, and exploring. Some of us swam to where the river got smaller and the current was so strong but it wasn’t deep at all and it carried us down the river! Our butts were hitting the rocks and it was really funny because this one older lady got caught in it and was laughing to her husband saying, J’ai mal a la cul! Which means my ass hurts! We swam around a lot, got a lot of sun, and jumped again and again. I have some pretty cool pictures and put a video up on facebook if you wanna check that out. I also have some other catch up pictures from Paris and some of week 4 of Montpell’yeah! Enjoy and comment!

Here’s what’s coming up this week

Monday: Actually visit St. Guilhem and probably revisit Pont du Diable
Tuesday: Tour de France comes through Montpellier!
Wednesday: Group EXCURSION- that word sounds so intense to me- to Arles to watch a Course Camarguaise, like a bull fight but the bull doesn’t die, in the Arenas there.
Thursday: JASON MRAZ CONCERT in the Arenas at Nîmes!
Friday: Whatever we come up with between now and then

Change of plans

I’m not sure this would fly in the states

The adventure seekers

Sarah and me

Get ready

Does this picture capture the beauty? Maybe you had to be there.

The Pont and its cliffs

Sarah preparing for the jump

AIR!

Splash

Best day ever… well they just keep getting better and better really

Ensemble

Sunset view from my apartment window

Saying bye to Yuri, my Brazilian roommate

Sarah in the Musée Fabre. You weren’t really allowed to take pictures of course…

Flashback! Some of Paris for ya..

Arc de Triomphe

Storm coming our way

Group (with no flash) in front of the Sacre Coeur at night

and with flash!

On the Sacre Coeur steps with Paris in the background

Chandelier inside the Opera house

Sorry for the random pictures, but I do what I have time for. Second month… ready go!

Falling in love with Paris makes you get crazy ideas. Now, I want to expand my boundaries even more. Coming into this I said I could live abroad. Now I want to! I still love America, but to me there’s no thrill greater than exploration. We took a bike tour on Saturday, Sarah, Ramasy, and I. I found out so much about Paris that I never knew! I added so much to my to-do list I want to come back with some of the girls for the weekend after our program is over. I CAN’T conquer it all in this amount of time. We did soooo much in the amount of time that we were there though. I took 2BG of pictures. Unfortunately, I don’t have any good ones of me on my camera because nobody knows how to work it really. They get this real scared look on their face when I hand it to them like “Where’s the button, I can’t drop it, she never parts with this thing.” Then they focus it wrong so you can’t see my face etc So! you’ll have to do some facebook stalking to see me in the photos, but…

Lydia with the 13 packages of cookies for all of us on the train!


It was supposed to rain all weekend, but this was the closest thing to rain we saw in Paris.

Notre Dame at night. It was right by our hotel so we were on our way to get ice cream when I took this

Napoleon’s room in Compiègne. Since my group was studying him, we made a day trip on Friday.

My favorite room in the château, the library. The door looks like books!

Friday night after some shopping we headed up to the Sacre Coeur, dinner in hand getting ready to mount beaucoup de stairs!

Sacre Coeur

When I came out it was dark because I was fascinated with the inside! Normally its very dark, but there was a service of sorts going on so the dome was all lit up! A woman was singing beautifully and then they told the story of Sarah and Abraham which I understood… probably one of my favorite moments in Paris. So beautiful.

We sat on the stairs for a bit and watched people dance to Michael Jackson and attempt to sing the wrong words. Pretty entertaining.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

“Class” at the Arc de Triomphe

My group at the top of the Arc de Triomphe!


After sitting in the Tuileries Gardens for the rest of class, we saw the Louvre Pyramids and then went on our…

BIKE RIDE! I highly recommend the Fat Tire Bike Tour if you ever visit Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, or London.

And it was supposed to rain that day

Hanging out in our (Sarah, Taryn, and moi) hotel room

The next day, Sunday, was a reallllly long day. Lydia, Sarah, et moi attended Mass at the Notre Dame. Then for class, I would’ve never put visiting the Opera house on the list, but it was incredible!

The inside… Phantom of the Opera anyone? Ramsay was singing (as usual) the soundtrack the whole time so I felt like I was living it

From inside the Louvre, visiting the apartments de Napoleon III

just the ceiling, no big deal

During class still, we headed over to the Musée d’Orsay to see Déjuner sur l’herbe. Look familiar?

If so, maybe this does too. Van Gough’s Starry Night Over the Rhône

Or his, Noon- Rest from Work. Gotta love paintings of Arles. We’re going there soon!

Then Quiche from a stand because it’s Paris and its the only thing we could afford, but it was vachement delicious

From the right, Sarah, Rachael, et Moi in front of Les Invalides

Napolean’s Tomb! A military genius obsessed with Egyptians was buried in a Babushka doll fashion on the bottom floor of the church, making visitors bow to see his unusually large sarcophagus.


Still don’t know how to flip it, but this is me thinking… with the Thinker in the Musée Rodin!

The Gates of Hell- never meant to be opened, were never finished… for a museum that was never built, but Dante inspired Rodin, so he went with it.

An excerpt of the Gates of Hell, Ugolino crouches in prison over his kids when, driven by famine he ate their corpses. Sad story makes for an intriguing sculpture.

Courtyard of the Rodin Museum

View of the Pont de Alexandre from the Bateaux Mouche ride.

The Tour Eiffel all lit up!

We went up again! I know its supper blurry, but you just should’ve been there. If the stairs didn’t take you’re breath away, this sure would.
P.S. This is still the same day we went to the Opera.

And I never get tired of it…

The light show happens at the top of every hour when it gets dark. I love it!

After passing out, we had class outside the Notre Dame the next day.

Then on to the Pantheon and its pendulum!

Under the center statue it reads (in french of course) “Live free or die”

Voltaire is buried in the Crypt of the Pantheon!

So is Rousseau!

On the train back to Montpellier and I felt like I was headed back home, then I fell asleep so hard my mascara rubbed off onto my arm. I’m so excited that we still have a month left! But then, we only have a month left?! I don’t think I’m going to get sick of being here. The only thing that’s going to make we want to leave is loving Athens too! Even though I’ve been speaking english the past few days, I feel like I’ve learned a lot. Not about French, but about myself. After navigating the Paris metro, planning, and accomplishing everything we wanted to do in a day, I feel like I can do anything! haha Its an awesome feeling though-loving the past, the living moment, and not knowing what the future has in store! I don’t think I’ve ever felt this fulfilled. Now I have to start speaking French again! Ahh

Final tomorrow, picnic on the beach, and seeing our friend from Switzerland sing that night.

I apologize again for overwhelming you with pictures that don’t even begin to summarize everything we saw, how much we walked, how many times we took the metro, or the fun we had. Hopefully you get the idea, and trust me that we had a blast!

Can’t forget the quote section:
My brain gets really confused in english sometimes and I was trying to talk about the shower in the hotel room, but instead i said “The bed here doesn’t look very difficult to use” … and got crap about it the rest of the trip

“The cleaning ladies moved our cookie table!”

“Aladdin!”

…. yeah that’s all I got, time for bed- hopefully its not difficult to use.

Cher París,
J’ai t’aimé, je t’aime, et je t’aimerai

À bientôt,
Moi

Bon, Paris tomorrow!

Erin “I really want to backpack all over France”
Omar “Do you have the time?”
Erin “I don’t have the backpack”

Rachael after Ramsay literally runs into a pole “At least your day can’t get any worse”
Ramsay “I thought that yesterday, then a pigeon shat on me”

Kim on the phone with her pregnant sister “I saw all this cute stuff I wanted to buy Ryder today, but then I remembered I couldn’t because he isn’t born yet”

Ever day I’m amazed at how well our group gets along. We’re the perfect number because we can split up easily, but aren’t too much of a problem when we go places together. We have so many stories that I don’t think anyone sauf us can comprend

In procrastinating our worksheet on the train ride back, Sarah, Kim, and I made a little remix I’ll give you a taste of it…

Never thought I’d be on a train
got this rail pass under my name
you don’t have eyes how can you look at me
Never thought I’d see the day
there’s be another train speedin’ my way
believe me when I say I composted my billet

there’s more, but you’ll have to wait for the music video

Enough about how much I love my friends, I know yall just want to see the pics

Sadly I had to say à bientôt to Mary Kate Saturday, but Sunday we got a Brazilian boy to replace her. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him much yet though.

The beautiful countryside

Rachael thinking pensively encore

The matching couple and their child they don’t love… Sorry Georgia

Sarah and I in front of the Medieval city of Carcassonne!

Fortress

Working on our worksheet in the Basilique St. Nazaire

Erin, Ramsay, and Sarah inside the castle walls

Way up there on the list of the oldest things I’ve ever seen

Looking down to the new city

Carcassonne is the castle you pretended you ruled on the playground as a child

Hanging out in the castle grounds

Carcassonne is very touristy, I heard more english there than I have in the past month combined

The little street

Armored soldier figures in the window

… and the real armored soldiers battling in the streets

The a-typical mote, no water, no alligators…

Me on the drawbridge

From the Old Bridge

and again because its so cool

Sarah and I riding on the train…cuz this aint marta, this is as real as it gets

Waiting for the bus to go to Lydia’s BBQ like true french people, baguettes and wine in hand

Some of us with our new friends! Most of you know I absolutely LOVE meeting new people. One of my favorite things about being in a university city is that we’re meeting people from everywhere: Ireland, Brazil, Switzerland, Italy, Iceland… the list goes on and on.

…but Andreas is just from Cali

Fête means party and the Europeans find a reason to celebrate just about everything, including the summer solstice which they kick off with the biggest music festival you’ve ever seen- literally all over the city, different bands, every genre, DJs, live groups, brass bands… everything. That would never happen in the states, especially on a Sunday. After hanging out on top of the Corum, the rooftop which overlooks the whole city, we wound up in a rave inside Montpellier’s oldest standing wall, the Tour de la Babote. There were sooooo many people and flashing lights and a music video projecting on the wall.

Sorry for overwhelming you with so many pictures at once… just embrace it.

Paris on Thursday!