Place de l'Europe. Image taken from the BBC |
Ironically, I can still remember when the rain first made an appearance a couple of weeks ago. I was walking from the centre of Montpellier back to the flat when it started spitting, and as I hadn't seen any rain since I moved to Montpellier on the 20th of September, I hadn't anticipated it and therefore found myself brolly-less. Nonetheless, it would seem that you can take the girl out of England, but you can't quite take the English out of the girl; I actually enjoyed walking along in the rain with my iPod on. The French who were all scurrying past, hoods up and heads down, seemed to look at me with a particularly incredulous look as I practically skipped past smiling to myself. There's something comforting about a spot of rain after four, maybe even five weeks, of solid sunshine. Particularly when you're in one of those moods when everything doesn't quite seem to be going your way; the constant sunshine sometimes felt as though it was mocking me somewhat, but the rain seemed to put Montpellier into a bit of a grump, much to my satisfaction.
Tram ploughing through the water |
From a day-to-day point of view for me it has provided some minor inconveniences; getting to the supermarket has become quite the effort, going to the pub in the evenings is pretty much impossible without risking life and limb, and given that I only have one pair of waterproof shoes with me, outfit choices have been somewhat narrowed (there's only so many items of clothing that will go with bright pink patent Dr Marten's). That's not exactly much to grumble over when you consider that many of the towns surrounding Montpellier are currently flooded and without power, whilst school transport has been cancelled and roads have been blocked by falling trees. This might sound like a fairly standard week for a village in the South West of England, but it would seem that its not entirely normal for Montpellier.
Aqueducts pre-flooding |
(For more of the BBC's images, go here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-15613133)
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