Joyeuses Fetes and 50 cent Urinals

Snowman Selfie

Christmas is in the air, even here in the Mediterranean amidst the palm trees and flamingos. I will never understand how people in the southern hemisphere celebrate Christmas in the summertime. It just feels so wrong. Clearly I am not equipped to live in these places, or even in Florida or other warm states. But none the less Pere Noel is soon to come and people are busy getting prepared just like at home. And just like at home political correctness is always lurking around the corner to dampen the festivities. Joyeux Noel has sadly given way to Joyeuses Fetes on most signs, buildings, buses etc. just like the Happy Holiday epidemic back home.

With no classes I have had more time to explore the  Montpellier during the day and at night and work on more specific vocabulary sets. For example I went with a group of friends for a tour of a winery and wine tasting. We are not exactly wine experts and we picked Domaine Le Claud solely because it was nearish to a Tram line and not way off in the countryside in the middle of nowhere. We "chose" well as the 17th century winery was a real treat. It has been owned and run by this particular family for over 7 generations. They gave us a tour of the operation and educated us a bit while we tasted wine.

Barrel from 1891!

Big barrels of wine

The wine cave

 


 Rouge, Blanc, Rose, Forte, Sucre, Rond, Charpente, Fruite,  so many useful words learnt that day ;)

no big deal. we all live in houses like this in Canada too right?

However after a lovely afternoon at the winery I arrived at the train station to find my daily train back to Bailargues severely delayed. And I really had to go to the bathroom. While this wouldn't be a problem in north america, land of free toilets, you unfortunately have to pay to go to the bathrooms in most public places (malls, stations, airports etc.) in Europe. There is either a person sitting there collecting your money or some sort of automated collection system. It really irks me having to pay to to go to the bathroom and  I normally avoid them at all costs. I will also happily rant about the perceived injustice for a long time so you are lucky I restricted it to only a couple sentences here. But faced with an hour wait, I caved and begrudgingly paid my 50 centimes to pee. As I paid the attendant she directed me to use the first door on the right. When I turned the corner the first door was the men's room. Thinking I had misheard her I walked back and double checked where she calmly and unequivocally told me the same thing again -first door on the right, the other one is closed. Ummmmm???

I was pretty desperate at this point so I walked into the mens room thinking maybe there would be separate stalls or they would have it divided. Or not. I interupted a guy using a urinal who looked mightily surprised to see me come in. I wasn't really sure what french politeness dictated in this situation - do I say Bonjour? Desole? Air Kisses? I opted to say nothing and rush into a stall to hide. I then waited for him to leave, and for the next guy to leave and when the coast was finally clear I snuck out back past the smiling attendant.

While this sounds like just another failed attempt to understand directions I am actually one hundred percent sure that she told me to go into that room. And when I exited I could see that the Women's washroom was in fact blocked off for repairs. I guess I have to chalk this one up to differing views on the importance of privacy between French and Canadian culture. I'm pretty sure no one in Canada would knowlingly send a female in to use a male bathroom for fear of a lawsuit of some sort. But maybe France is just ahead of its time in offering gender neutral bathrooms?

Rain/wind 1: umbrella 0

I have also made one lone venture out into the Montpellier night club scene. Which considering I have only been here 3 months is actually a pretty good ratio for me. I think I have gone all of 1 time in the last 3 years in Vancouver.It is not my usual prefered past time, but it was nice to spend a night out with friends. We did however choose the worst night possible to go out - yet another red alert. Thunder, lightning, monsooning, and flooding... 4 very good reasons to stay in my jammies and in my warm bed. I was halfway into my pajamas and firmly committed to staying in instead. But oh whats that.... there is a spanish bar with massive (1 litre) glasses of sangria for  only 5 Euros...  Alright. where is my umbrella? 


Thankfully I also have more time to go to the gym now as it is necessary to help balance out the daily smorgasbord of French food and wine. I really am not exaggerating the amount of food we eat on a regular basis. I think my stomach has expanded quite substantially here because every once and a while I look at the size of the plate I just polished off and think there is no way I could have done that 3 months ago. Last weekend we went to a friend of my host families for "lunch" aka...  champagne,appetizers, more champagne, more appetizers, wine, dinner, more wine, cheese plate, even more champagne, cake, coffee, fruit platter.... and 7 hours later you roll downhill to your car and attempt to squeeze in.

 Crossfit Montpellier opened their second location on Dec 1st. It is massive, certainly the biggest crossfit gym I have ever been in. You can actually do your 100 and 200 meter runs indoors now - without turning! It is conveniently located 20 minutes from my house now instead of one hour and 20 minutes away. Plus, with 2 locations there are rarely any waiting lists for classes, I can pretty much go when ever I feel like it. Oh and there is all new equipment and nice fancy changing rooms with showers. Thankfully they are clearly marked and separated by gender unlike the train station. 


There are not a lot of Christmas lights up and on the houses around Montpellier because lets face it you just can't really string Christmas lights on Palm Trees. I mean its technically possible, and some people here have done it, but it just doesn't quite achieve the right look.  However the town is beautifully illuminated in the city center and there is a Christmas market to wonder through.

 

They even attempted a outdoor skating rink. Note the word attempted. My skates back home are crying just looking at the patches of ground that are coming through.





Also detailed christmas wish lists are being written by the kids in my host family. I was told that Pere Noel is more receptive when you add images. I will have to try that next time.

Christmas Nativity scenes are a whole lot more complicated down in southern France. They are very traditional about it and put lots of effort into creating ornate little villages with "Santons" - aka hand carved figurines.They even include  grass, snow, rivers, trees and rock piles. It is not just your traditonal Jesus, Mary, Joseph plus a few shepherds and wisemen. Every year they buy a new figurine to add to the various animals and towns people. Come one and all to Bethlehem. Well not quite all. Mathis tried to sneak a Dobby figurine from Harry Potter into the village but was unanimously vetoed. I did however enable his star wars obsession when I saw starwars snow flakes pop up on my facebook feed. We made these for one of his English lessons. They were a lot harder than I thought and we  had to make even the most simplest patterns online more simple. If any one wants to brave them you can find the patterns here.

Name those star wars characters if you can

Mathis' english teacher at school assigned the students a project where they had to take one of five english recipes and follow the instructions to create the English christmas specialty. Thankfully Mathis got assigned Gingerbread man so today we got to spend the day baking and decorating gingerbread men instead of spending 5 hours trying to make eggnog like Mathis' friend and friend's mother. Who knew making eggnog was that complicated. I guess there is a reason we always just buy it in a carton at the store.  Baking and decorating gingerbread is my usual christmas activity with my Grandma (aka she does all the hard part and  and I help decorate and eat afterwards) but this year Mathis and I tackled the English recipe on our own. You will notice there are no pictures of the final product;p