bienvenue à ma vie montpellieriène

well, i've been convinced to start a blog. hopefully this will be more efficient than sending mass emails.
i'll give a quick summary of my trip so far:
i left rdu at 5:15 sunday evening, august 12, and caught my connection at dulles to dublin. the crossing was fairly enjoyable. i had room to spread out, some decent food, and was able to sleep for a couple of hours. the real adventure began when my plane touched down in ireland, 40 minutes behind schedule. by the time i got throught the passport control and found british airways to check in for my flight to london, the plane had been closed for 20 minutes. so i found the aer lingus service desk, where a very kind woman named kathleen found me a new connection to montpellier through paris later that day. she also gave me an €8 voucher so i could have a real breakfast. however, she couldn't transfer my checked bags, because they hadn't made it on the flight from DC. i was too tired to really care at that point, so i just enjoyed my eggs and toast. at charles de gaul i had a lengthy wait, so once i found my gate (by walking about half a mile, taking a bus, and riding never-ending moving sidewalks, i bought a heineken and let myself be exhausted for a while.
on the plane i found myself seated in the window seat of the emergency exit aisle, so the strapping young male flight attendant explained how to open the window in case of an emergency (no illustrated pamphlet on french planes..they believe in personal connections, apparently). i turned to the woman sitting next to me and remarked, in french, that an american flight attendant would never do that, or at least not in that manner. she said, oh! la la, you're not french? we should give you a test to make sure you understood everything... i had a comforting conversation with her before we took off (comforting that i could communicate clearly enough) - it turns out that she and her husband are citizens of gabon, and had just been on vacation in france. she seemed slightly envious that i'd be living in montpellier for a whole year. then i passed out and slept until the cheese sandwich came around.
once i landed in montpellier, after 8 pm, i had to report my lost baggage and find a taxi. the group from unc had left 4 hours before to go to sommieres for a few day-long un-jet laggin retreat, so i was to spend the night with my host mother and take the train to join them in the morning. the taxi driver couldn't take me to her door, because she lives in the labyrinthine medieval centre ville, where cars are not allowed. he dropped me off at the prefecture, which is very close, and showed me where it was on his map. unsurprisingly, i couldn't find it. i wound up at a pub called the shakespeare, where i got accurate directions. i found the street, but didn't see isabelle's name on the door that i supposed was hers, so i returned to the pub and used a nice british chap's cellphone to call isabelle. she came and collected me, and i was home at last.
the adventure continued the next morning on the train to lunel. i missed the stop because i couldn't figure out how to get off the train ( the doors didn't open automatically, the stop wasn't announced, and the only person who looked like they were going to exit was more confused than i was). so i got off at the next stop, nîmes, where i found a train going back the direction i had come. of course it was late, and changed platforms while i was waiting, but eventually i got off in lunel, found a taxi, and found my group in sommieres.
i went back to the shakespeare the night before last, and saw the two guys i had met there before. one of them is actually a bartender there; the other is a british journalist who just goes there a lot. it was the anniversary of elvis' death, so everyone was glum, and a brilliant wig was passed around as we sang his songs forlornly.
time's up, so à bientôt.
i hope everyone is doing well wherever you happen to be