Montpellier and Reconnecting with My Roots

Last week I started feeling kind of down. Fall is officially here, and since I'm not one for the cold, this is not my favorite time of year. The weather was getting dreary, and I was feeling tired - tired of spending money, of being a tourist, of the metro, of getting "Englished" (when French people respond to you in English even though you speak to them in French. They can do this to be nice, because they're enthusiastic about speaking English, to show their scorn for your language skills, or some combination of all of the above.)

After our weekday ritual of watching Plus belle la vie at 20h10 (8:10 PM) My Mère d'accueil, who is wonderful and wise, asked me how things were going. I told her how I was frustrated with my speaking skills - I was really starting to feel like I was regressing instead of improving - and she told me about her time studying Chinese in Peking, and how it's normal to improve, then plateau, then improve more, which was very encouraging. She also used a phrase, "Coupé des racines," which means "cut from the roots" to describe the kind of unsteady feeling that comes from leaving home in such a big way. It was comforting, but I was still spending too much time on Facebook, and I was scared my funk would turn into a depression.

Le Jumeau was in a similar funk. He hadn't been feeling well, and was getting homesick. So I took the 150 euros that were meant to get me through the next three weeks (yes, it hurt) and hopped the next high speed train to Montpellier. It was so worth it.

Not only was Le Jumeau a sight for sore eyes (and life in France is agreeing with him, he looks better than he has in years!) but Montpellier also turned out to bear some striking resemblances to New Orleans! There was a streetcar (le Tram) and an old-school carousel, lots of street musicians and young hippy/artist types, and there was even a brass band in one of the squares!

Besides feeling a little like home, the city offered beautiful views of the mountains, an ancient aquaduct, statues and an Arc de Triomphe commissioned by Louis XIV:





Last but not least, the TGV (train de grande vitesse, literally "high-speed train" back to Paris offered some beautiful views of the french countryside. Things are good again.