Welcome to Montpellier

Hi from France!

First, the end of the Netherlands. I think I need a new rule-no "going out for one drink." That has led several times to me getting home way later than I am equipped for. Also, no going out the night before traveling--I have now left both Uppsala and Groningen on an hour of sleep each. I am no good at that kind of thing! Particularly when carrying this much stuff (and note you can't see the backpack):

So after a late last night in Groningen, I headed to Amsterdam. I stayed in the A-Train hotel, mainly because it is right across from the train station and has an elevator (nearly impossible to find). It was actually nice though. Train themed (nothing obnoxious, just memorabilia on the walls), and included breakfast, all the various taxes, and internet in the breakfast area for cheap. I recommend it! They also had my room available when I checked in, which was awesome. After a power nap, I headed to the Anne Frank House, which was a great museum. Very well done. I bought her diary there, as I had been meaning to read it for a long time and was so impressed by the museum. I then went home and crashed early, because the next morning, I had to catch...

A train to France! Yippee! Most of us ended up traveling by train, as the planes were more expensive and come with weight and number of bag restrictions, and buses were not good for getting here either. The train though, goes several times a day and has no baggage restrictions--if you can get it into the train, you can take it. So here's how I moved to France: Amsterdam-->Paris Nord (around 3 hours), metro to Paris Gare de Lyon-->Montpellier (3.5 hours), tram to dorm. No taxis! I impress myself :)  I had window seats the whole way and did nothing but stare out the window! It got sunny just south of Paris, and the ride from Paris to Montpellier was absolutely gorgeous. Mountains, hills, forests, ravines with streams, all things I hadn't seen in a while. And there were beautiful chateaus, villas, and a few small vineyards. Just beautiful! I was quite excited. By the time I arrived in my dorm, however, I was utterly exhausted from moving all my stuff!

The dorm room is definitely small. 100sq feet, which includes the bathroom, and most of it is built into shelves and the desk and bed, which is nice, but leaves not much floor space at all. The bathroom is tiny and the shower involves pressing a button every few seconds for the pleasure of an often cold stream of water. And the "kitchen?" It includes 2 sinks and a stove that apparently never works. So while I was complaining about not having an oven in the Netherlands, I at least had things like a microwave, or even say, a trashcan, in the kitchen. Yikes. There is a mini-fridge in my room (phew) but I am still deciding how to go about eating this semester... And my internet is awful! Even with no video, I can barely hear the other person while Skyping. This is going to be less than ideal, definitely. [A side note: I recommend never living in a dorm again once you've had a place of your own. It's not the correct progression of things! I'm already excited for the day I live in a "real place" again. So why live in the dorms you ask? Because it is impossible to find housing in Europe, and so when someone offers to deal with the foreign language and housing market and find you a place to live so you don't show up in town carrying everything you own and go "Now what," you take the offer.]

But the city is amazing. Absolutely the picture of a Mediterranean city. Lots of sandstone-colored buildings, small windy hilly streets, cafes everywhere, tons to see and do, and great vistas. It really is beautiful. Not particularly warm right now (in the 40s during the day, 30s at night) but lovely when the sun shines!

This is a huge hilltop area where I was told the king used to hunt. Great views of the city on almost all sides, and then you can walk through an Arc (de something I can't remember) and head down into the main part of the city. I spent all day Sunday walking around and realized that this place is so big I could never see it all. It should be fun!

The food in France is so much better than the Netherlands! Even just the sandwiches are great. Ahhhhh. And I had amazing lamb the other night, then mussels with fries (actually a Belgian thing) last night. Delicious!

It is also different from Holland in other ways of course. Whereas Holland is kind of unbelievably safe and self-regulated, I had been in town a mere 4 days when I was pickpocketed on the tram yesterday. Lovely. I was, however, filling out paperwork in the police station when someone handed in my wallet, missing only the cash, so I consider myself incredibly lucky. And now to be much more careful!  Haha, but since I had already canceled all my cards, I am now having to borrow money until I get my French card and can transfer money to it, so I'll be able to give anyone who wants it the super-cheap guide to Montpellier!

So, that's my first few days here in a nutshell! A bit of a whirlwind. I'm still trying to catch up on sleep from just finishing the previous semester before we start the next one on Monday. I am finished with all the administrative stuff now (new student card, bank account, phone number, etc.) and so plan to just relax a bit. I'm decorating the dorm room today, which will make it much more "mine" and nicer to be in!

My early times in Groningen

Hi! Sorry I've been slow to update. Starting the semester has been a bit crazy! We're hearing lectures from all the different units within the Center for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies to see what's going on and to pick a mentor. Lectures from 9-5 every day! I'm totally worn out (this may also have something to do with the fact that my ONE WAY commute to class is a 45 minute bike ride). Some of the lectures were very interesting, but of course depending on individual interests, a morning spent hearing lectures on plant physiology or microbial ecology can get quite long.  Next week though, we're going to Schiermonnikoog, a research island in the Wadden Sea. We'll be doing daily mini-projects on the mud flats and in the salt marsh, so it should be interesting, although we've been warned of very cold, wet weather and 6 AM starts to catch the tides... I'll let you know how it goes! And yeah, I can sort of say the name of the island, although my production of the hacking sound is not up to par. And yes, it's a sound, not a noise, as I was told quite pointedly by some Dutch people when I made the mistake.

While we're on the subject, Dutch is a crazy language. I'm usually pretty good with languages but am absolutely baffled by this one. I can see something written down and not even come CLOSE to pronouncing it right. And then I can hear it pronounced and not be able to reproduce the word 30 seconds later. It just makes no sense to me at all yet. I had hoped that when I trying to learn it from a book in the States that it would be a lot easier once I arrived here, but no. I hope we get our Dutch lessons sorted out soon. When I was coming here, everyone said "Oh, all Dutch people speak English, you won't have any trouble." Not the case. While most people speak at least some English, they assume you speak Dutch and often seem uncomfortable with speaking English. And sometimes a bit peeved being asked to do so. Which I understand-I'm in their country asking them to speak my language. It's just weird I was told several times that it wasn't an issue. Oh, and ALL signs are in Dutch.

As for adjusting--hmm. I think in some respects I'm getting there, although there's certainly a LONG way to go. The most immediately important thing is biking everywhere. In traffic. Groningen is apparently the biking capital of Europe, with something like 57% of people using a bike as their primary transportation. It's nice to be able to get places, but also really scary to see a bus flying towards you on a narrow street... Especially when you have only a vague handle on what the road signs mean. Yikes. Bikes are allowed on most streets, even going against one-way traffic, and there are bike lanes almost everywhere, so it's really nicely set up for biking, it's just odd to go from not having ridden a bike in probably 10 years to suddenly riding one everywhere.

As for the food, I'll save that update for later. No scholarship money yet and no time has led to eating lots of sandwiches. I have eaten from the vending machine walls though. You can get a hamburger, kroket (a fried tube of "you don't want to know what's in there" delicious meaty spicy maybe mashed potato goodness) and various other things from these walls, which are columns of individual doors. with the food in them. Awesome. Picture to follow.

I've also found the Belgian bar, De Pintelier. Amazing. I've only been once, but that will change tomorrow. They have a huge list of Belgian beers of all types. And Belgians are some of my favorites. The one below is called Kwak, which comes from the noise the special glass makes when you reach the bell at the bottom (which is rounded, hence the stand).

 
We had the international student intro week as well. it was fun! Nice to meet a different group of people than my classmates. I got really lucky and had a group I liked a lot. Some of the people are in the background of the above beer picture. Totally random: the guy in the middle spent part of this past summer in Athens! He did a study abroad in Spain at the same university as some UGA students and came to Athens to visit. Small world, as always. Intro week activities included a pub crawl, during which we visited several good bars, as well as an Orange party (the Dutch wear orange as their national color due to the historical ruling by the House of Orange), and a sports day, which was funny because several of the girls mentioned that they didn't have workout clothes, but I clearly didn't understand the magnitude of what they were saying until they showed up to play sports in dresses and heeled boots.

Living situation. Holy cow, I'm living in a dorm again. In case any of you don't know, I'm a person who absolutely requires time and space to myself in order to avoid insanity or harm to others. So far, I'm ok. We'll see how this goes! I'm on the 8th floor and so have a nice view-city to the right, cows to the left. So strange having to get dressed to go to the bathroom or kitchen though. And my building is apparently one of three recommended by the Chinese student underground (yes, I swear), which is very obvious in my floor's makeup. It's a bit unfortunate in that I am not part of the group and so have a tough time getting most of my floormates to talk to me. Oh, and strangest thing? We have separate elevators for the odd and even numbered floors... And they're such ghetto old elevators. The actual box you stand in is only closed on 3 sides--the side that opens is just...open, so you watch the wall in front of you move as the elevator moves. There is a metal door on each floor that you have to push open when you get there. And close again, or the elevator won't move, which sucks since I'm in this building with clueless/careless undergraduates who leave it open frequently. But overall, my room is clean, nicely sized and fine for me. One thing I like is that based on all the rooms I've seen, the Dutch are big on shelves running under windows. Nice in a dorm room with limited furniture.

Shops here are never open! On normal nights, they close at 6, so since I'm way south for class until at least 5, I can barely get anywhere. The only night they're open (and only until 9) is Thursday. Random. The stores are then all closed on Sunday and until at least 1pm on Monday. It's impossible!

Ok, this is a huge post. Last thing. The packaged cookies and store-bakery goods here are delicious. So many types, many involving good chocolate...