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
Just walking into the airport in Nimes to catch our $100 dollar flight to Morocco (why don't we have low cost airlines in Canada!?!?!)I had a feeling that we were going to be a little out of our element. The airport was puny and ours was the only flight out in the morning. There was a long line to check in and we were the only two non Arabic people in that line. The airport check in and security process was a terrible combination of French and Moroccan views on timeliness, ie. painfully slow, inefficient and not at all concerned about it. We didn't even make it through security until well after the time the plane was supposed to leave. But apparently that was normal and no one really seemed too fussed about the fact that the plane left over an hour and a half late.
You don't really realize how strictly regulated airplane behavior is by both spoken and unspoken social norms until there is a complete absence of them. This flight was a complete and utter free for all.
Pull out other people's carry on out to make space for yours..... sure
Refuse to move out of the way for the beverage cart ... yup that makes tons of sense.
Elbow your neighbor repeatedly all flight without an apology ....I guess we aren't in Canada anymore
Stand up while the plane is landing... go ahead, the flight attendants LOOOVEEE that.
And when the plane lands....it is like a bunch of gladiators entering the arena for a duel to the death. I wonder if everyone thought that the last person left on the plane was going to be killed or something. As a result it was apparently perfectly acceptable to crawl over and/or push through people all in the hopes of getting into the already full aisle or out past the still locked doors. I actually told off the 70 year old granny (in french) the third time she tried to physically assault me to get out into the aisle. She was surprisingly spry for her age as she tried to scale me.
While in-flight behavior was not really regimented, there were some strict rules outlined on safety instructions for an emergency landing. This is an important reminder for all that in case of emergency - leave your dentures on board. And don't forget to hold on tight to your skirt when exiting the plane. Modesty would definitely be first and foremost on my mind if I was lucky enough to survive a plane crash.
My half shocking, half amusing plane ride was a small preview of the massive culture shock that I would experience throughout my brief stay in Northern Africa. Perhaps the thing that made us the most uncomfortable was the attitude of men towards women, especially foreign women. It seems to be culturally acceptable... No... Culturally encouraged, for men to make lewd and sexist comments as you walk by. During the day it was a little less intrusive and if you stopped paying attention you could forget about the eyes blatantly staring at you and you could tune out the mutters as you walked around. But as soon as the sun began to set and the amount of men in the streets multiplied all bets were off and it became truly unnerving. Not unsafe or dangerous necessarily, but it certainly leaves you feeling frustrated and with a bad taste in your mouth. It is quite the experience to have a guy follow you for 200 meters walking behind you and bending over to get a better view of your ass so he can loudly comment 'nice, nice, nice' with every step you take. Or having a guy cut you off so he can circle around you with elevator eyes and give you a long drawn out sexually charged "okay' as if it was necessary for him to pass judgement on your appearance. I am soooo glad I passed the test ( insert extreme amounts of sarcasm here). Also despite there being cats everywhere in the Medina it was the men who hissed at us where ever we went. Check out the
video to get an idea of what it is like to walk around in some Arabic countries as a women.
Another creeper
However after about a day and a half of this you start to just laugh it off. Some of their comments are down right humorous... Aka calling us the Spice girls ( because naturally all white girls are just like the spice girls) or saying we have beautiful eyes ( not sure how they noticed cuz their view was a whole lot more down south) also we met a couple guys at the hostel and when we walked around with them they were hailed as princes and Muslim kings for having conquered us. While it is easy to laugh it off when you get to escape their behavior after the weekend it really saddens me to think of people growing up in that environment and being taught these attitudes and practices as a way of life. In talking with other travelers, apparently morocco is actually quite tame in comparison to some other Arabic nations like Egypt. Yikes.
It is a little sad that I have written this much of a blog post and not even gotten to talking about what we did or saw. By the second day in Morocco I had developed a thicker skin and was able to focus on enjoying the City. Fez (or Fes en Francais) is an amazing city that has largely remained unchanged by the times. If you stood up on the roof of the hostel the view is largely the same as it would have been 100, 200, and even thousands of years ago (minus the satalite dishes).
no cars allowed in the medinas. Donkeys are the transport
not a skyscraper in sight
Washing time at the fountain
A play ground
For me one of the most interesting things was to be in a city (and country) that is is so united and devoted to their religion. There are numerous mosques throughout the city including the third oldest one in the world. Sadly non Muslims are not allowed into the mosques but you can catch glimpses of their inner beauty when they open for prayer. The first time I heard the call to prayer echoing thoughout the medina I was in awe. The fact that almost everyone drops whatever they are doing to go to the mosque and worship 5 times a day in inspiring. I tried to catch the call to prayer rippling over the city at sunset but I am afraid it doesn't do it justice.
The Minarets of the mosque were the only landmarks in the Medina
The actual Medina of Fez is mind blowingly intricate. Mind blowing both the size and the frustration level. Maps literally don't work.
You just have to memorize your way around over 9500 tiny little streets filled with maze like markets, majestic mosques as well as houses, ha-mams and schools.
School
There are some streets that are so narrow you have to turn sideways to fit through and some alleyways so dark you can't see where you are going.
Every review and blog of the city said that you should try to lose yourself in the Medina. As if that is a choice!!! After three days we could figure out how to get to the market but once we took a few turns in the market we could never find our route back to the hostel again. We always ended up lost. I usually am pretty good at keeping a sense of where we came from, what direction to major landmarks but but time and time again after wondering for 2 hours and just getting deeper and deeper I just had to throw my hands up and laugh. They say you should just walk uphill to get out of the Medina... Simple enough. But that so does not work when you are staring at four different streets all of which will take you uphill and you haven't the faintest idea of which direction will take you home. It was a common occurrence to walk past a group of Moroccans sitting or standing and then a couple minutes later have to do a walk of shame back past them because we had reached a dead end or realized it was the wrong direction. Thankfully despite them rolling their eyes or laughing at us they did always point us in the right direction. But to give you a scope of just how lost we usually were we often had to ask more than ten different people to get us all the way back to an area we recognized.
Finally on the third day we succeeded in just walking long enough to get ourselves to a place we recognized. And we found this cool shop where this man whittles and carves wood using his feet. I call that a successful day.
One of the highlights of the Medina were the Tanneries. All the beautiful leather products sold in the market are produced in a section of the Medina using methods from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Surprisingly they somehow involve large vats of pigeon poop.
Unsurprisingly they don't smell very good.
The leather is then taken up onto the large nearby hill with some ruins and dried in the sun. We hiked up there to get some perspective on the Medina that we spend copious amounts of time lost within. It didnt really help out navigation much sadly.
Drying on tombs
Finished products
The food was fantastic. I cant emphasize that enough. All the couscous, Kebabs, Pastilla and Tangine that you could eat for the price of a coffee or tea in France. And free, delicious, warm mint tea to drink everywhere you go. Suffice to say I should probably go to the gym every day this week. Since it was the low season there were not a lot of tourists and all the restaurant owners went bananas when we walked by frantically trying to get us into their stalls. They would come across the market to block your path and shove a menu in your face. However we found a peaceful quiet restaurant with no crazy menu chasers and we ate there a couple of times. In fact the food was so good their and so inexpensive that on the last night I ordered two meals just because it was my last chance to try the different things. Luckily I was eating with a 6 foot five inch perpetually hungry new zealander so nothing went to waste.
When in doubt and in Morocco - order both!
As amazing as the city was, one of the highlights of this trip was actually the people we met at the hostel and got to experience the city with. We met fellow Canadians and fellow language assistants as well as some Americans, Australians and New Zealanders. There were several passionate travellers at the hostel who have been on some amazing adventures and had some interesting stories to tell everything from getting tear gassed in Isreal to swimming to Asia.Yes you read that right... Swimming to ASIA! That one was Sarah, an American who is in the process of a 4 year long trip around the world retracing the steps and adventures of Richard Halliburton, a famous world traveler and author from nearly 100 years ago. She is blogging and writing a book about her adventures - very interesting stuff. On our last night there everyone went out for a fantastic dinner at our favorite restaurant and the interesting and varied conversation ranged from how to load an AK-47 (thank you Americans) to nuclear fusion.
A nice relaxing end to the trip... well more of the calm before the storm that was trying to get to the airport in the morning. But I am not even going to try and recount all of that drama. Suffice to say we barely made it to the airport on time to catch our flight and after rushing onto the plane we then sat there for an hour and a half while they waited for the sun to melt the ice on the wings. I guess de-icing machines are not prevalent in Africa like they are in Canada. I settled in for a nice relaxing nap. Thump. Or not, my new neighbor was once again having some difficulty with the boundaries of the armrests. Time to get my elbows out I guess. Are there rules against elbowing elderly women back? Probably eh?
Random goats outside the Medina. Sadly not in trees as I was promised. I guess I will have to go back to a different part of Morocco to see that.
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.
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.
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.
