Adventures in Montpellier: Trying to Soak It All In

This past week included the 1 month left mark in my time in France and although I am so excited to go home and see friends and family that I haven't seen for the most part since May it is very bittersweet because I still feel like there is so much more to do and see and that now every spare moment I have should be spent embracing some cultural aspect of Southern France or exploring a city in Europe. So this week I literally spent every night out trying to fit in everything that Montpellier has to offer. On Tuesday night I went to see the movie Intouchables with a few friends. It was a great movie and I am very proud to say that I understood everything without subtitles or anything! The movie describes the life of a handicapped man in Paris. For those of you who have been to France before you know that France is probably the least handicapped accessible country in Europe and this movie highlights those flaws and French attitudes towards the handicap in a funny and captivating way. I definitely recommend it! On Wednesday night we had our weekly apartment wide dinners and my apartment was in charge of cooking so we decided we would test out some new cheese that we had yet to try (there is no way I will be able to try every unknown cheese ever, and I have accepted that haha) After the dinner we have our weekly conversation night at a bar called the Vert Anglais. Every Wednesday our teachers, French Students and American students all come out and converse in a variety of languages it is always a good night! After the Vert Anglais we went to a bar called the Barberousse which is a pirate themed party that I had yet to try and happens to be only a few blocks from my apartment! (There are still so many other bars I need to try in the next month!)
Thursday night I went to another play for my theater class except this time it was actually in French thank God! The play was called Costa La Rouge which is about a boy who grows up being raised by his Grandfather and acting out stories until one day his grandfather disappears and he has to learn to be a man without him. The play showed me how I really am starting to be competent in French that I can sit down to a play and comprehend the story!

Morgane, Katy, Mary and I at the play

Mary loving the cider!

After the play Mary and I decided to grab a drink at Fitzpatrick's this Irish Bar in Montpellier which I had really wanted to try because they have cider on tap which I became obsessed with in London. The bar is also cool because it is a lot more local French people as opposed to the clubs we usually go to which have a lot of Americans and other foreign students. Now you may think wow so many activities you probably just relaxed for the weekend but no! Friday morning I woke up at 6:50 am to head off to Barcelona for the weekend with about 10 other people from our program! Yes I know I'm crazy!

Barcelona

So getting to Barcelona was quite hectic! Our bus was supposed to leave from Montpellier at 8:30 and arrive in Barcelona at 12:30 however we get to the bus terminal and 8:30 rolls around, there is no bus and the office wasn't even open! We weren't worried yet we were thinking okay its typical France the bus will be late. However around 9:15 we started to be concerned. After many phone calls to our program office, Eurolines (the bus company) and talking to other people waiting for the bus we discovered that our bus was still coming it was just very late. So we continued waiting and at 10:30 the bus finally arrived! Now of course since the bus came late we didn't get to Barcelona till 4pm because of traffic and transportation in France is evil but nonetheless we finally made it to beautiful and sunny Barcelona! We went to our hostel first (this was my first hostel experience and I was pleasantly surprised). Starved after being on a bus for 6 hours we went to indulge in some Spanish food and got tapas delicious! That night we just explored the city a little which is so beautiful at night!

Sam, Katy and I at our first dinner in Barcelona!

On Saturday morning Katy and I decided that we wanted to really see all of Barcelona so we got up early to go on a walking tour of Goudi's designs throughout Barcelona so while the rest of the group snoozed away we visited Goudi's amazing architecture throughout Barcelona including the Sagrada Familia. The Sagrada Familia is this amazing church that was started by Goudi and is still under construction today, it is the most amazing piece of architecture I have ever seen and ever facade is completely different it is currently supposed to be finished in 2026 but everyday that they build it it is the longest construction project ever in Spain. Our tour guide was great and told us how the church probably won't even be completely finished till 2050 or 2060 because once the church is built they can't charge people to go in so they are currently making a lot of money off the unfinished church and to work on the church you have to be Catalan born no one else. Here are some of Goudi's amazing designs:

Gaudi's first creation was this lamp post for the city of Barcelona but after this he vowed he would never build anything for the city ever again because they tried not to pay him for this lamp post and he had to sue them in order to eventually get paid.

Katy in front of Casa Batlo

Casa Mila: The Mila family sued Gaudi after this was built because they thought it was ugly and did not meet any of their specifications that they wanted for their house. Today it is currently an apartment building that costs between 20,000 and 30,000 euros per months

Sagrada Familia! The towers that are in the picture will be the shortest towers once the church is finished

After the tour we went to lunch and got Pinchos which are these little pieces of bread that have any assortment of things on top and you can eat as many as you want and they just count up the number of toothpicks that you have on your plate at the end and that's how much you pay and then we also got some sausage and eggs for lunch again traditionally Spanish before we hit up the Picasso museum! The Picasso museum was great although unfortunately you cannot take pictures inside but it was so cool to see so many actual Picasso paintings up close!

Matt and Katy loving the Pinchos!

Kat and I with our egg/potato/sausage lunch!

Saturday night was by far the best part of the entire trip! My friend Dan had the idea to buy tickets to an FC Barcelona game and Katy and I jumped at the opportunity to go as well! So Katy, Kat, Dan, Dan's brother Matt who is visiting him this week and myself went to see FC Barcelona vs. Real Zaragoza and it was one of the coolest experiences of my life. FC Barcelona was way better and they won 4-0 but it was so fun and such a great experience that I didn't even plan on until the day before!

Before the game enjoying some Spanish beer and Kebabs!

Dan, Kat and I repping the FC Barcelona scarves!

Matt, Katy, Kat, myself and Dan, you can see how huge the stadium was!

Sunday our bus home was at 1:30 so we tried to fit in as much as possible before we left! We woke up Sunday morning and went down to the water which was beautiful and it started to be a lot sunnier and warmer which was awesome because the forecast had predicted rain! Then we went up to Park Guell which was an entire Gaudi park and literally everything was so beautiful and amazing and it was up on a hill so there were amazing views of the whole city of Barcelona from the top. It was a great last morning to a jam packed trip!