"The rain rain rain came down down down, in rushing, rising riv'lets"... Anyone would think I'm not even in the South of France!

So everybody thinks that soggy November days and countless flash floods are a curse that only befalls Britain. Well, I can officially now say with confidence that such an assumption is completely and utterly false.  To say that the past week in Montpellier has been 'damp' would be a giant understatement.  But before you start silently rejoicing and telling me that I am finally getting my comeuppance for my smugness during the thirty degree heat in October, hear me out on this one - this is no ordinary spot of rain.

Place de l'Europe.  Image taken from the BBC

On the 4th of November it was reported that over a year's worth of rain had fallen over the Hérault department of the Languedoc-Roussillon region since the start of November.  That's 700mm of rain, or for those of us still fervently sticking with imperial measurements, that's over 27 inches.  Predictably, Montpellier can be found in the aforementioned Hérault department.  What started out as "alerte orange" being announced on the local news and weather programmes, very quickly became "alerte rouge", and has remained at 'rouge' for several days.  "Alerte rouge" means an absolute vigilance is necessary; dangerous weather conditions of an exceptional intensity are expected.  During "alerte rouge", parents are expected to collect their children from school, and every one is advised to be very careful when travelling, avoid outside leisure activities, and take shelter away from wooded areas.  Its basically an equivalent of what everybody is advised to do if there is a particularly heavy snowfall forecast in Britain, minus the bit about going to the woods of course.


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

Having said that, one afternoon of showers and my British desire for a spot of rain had been quelled.  Sure enough, the sunshine did return for a little while after that.  What I wasn't expecting though, was for the sunshine to disappear just as quickly as it had re-appeared, only to be replaced by a week and a half of solid rain and thunderstorms.  I know I haven't been brilliant at keeping track of time since getting here, and time does have a nasty habit of dragging past at snail's pace, but when I say that I can't remember the last time we had a dry day, I really do mean it.  The rain has simply been relentless.  Every now and then it gives up leaving a small window of respite, but before you know it, it will be pouring again.  It's not just the rain though; its the thunder and lightening that goes with it.  I think everyone has become accustomed to the sound of rolling thunder in the afternoon, and flashes of sheet lightening that illuminate the night sky of an evening.


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

As it turns out, the entire of Montpellier is actually built on a flood plane, and to deal with this, there are aqueducts criss-crossing across the length and breadth of the city.  The fact that they have even built the aqueducts signals that flooding probably isn't entirely out of the question, yet it still feels as though this latest deluge of water has come as some sort of a surprise to the Southern French residents.  Perhaps it is uncommon for this time of year, but my housemate Marco has assured me that it does normally rain quite a lot in November.  Then again, when he says it normally rains quite a lot, he might mean once a week;  the French idea of 'quite a lot of rain' is probably pretty different to the English one.  For now, I think we're fairly safe where we are.  I may have accidentally stumbled into a few ankle deep puddles (it was dark and I did swear quite a bit about the fact that I would spend the rest of my evening wearing a soggy sock), and remarked that the water level of the near-by river is exceedingly high, but I don't think I'm in danger of floating away in my bed overnight.  Then again, this rain isn't due to give in until the middle of next week, so I may be needing a dinghy yet...


(For more of the BBC's images, go here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-15613133)

"Down by the riverside"... Down by the lakeside actually, with lots of fish!

Following our relatively unsuccessful trip to the beach, we decided that perhaps we needed to find a new sunbathing and paddling spot.  Liza had heard about a lake where both of these things were possible from a friend, so on a Thursday afternoon, Liza, Jenny and I embarked on a trip to find it.  Worryingly, Liza originally told us that it was at the very end of tram line two, but by Thursday had discovered that it was actually two stops before the end of the line at Via Domitia.  Nonetheless, Jenny and I didn't question Liza's mystery tour, and blindly followed her off of the tram at Via Domitia.  Following the instructions that Liza had received via text, we knew that we needed to cross a bridge from the tram stop, but after that we were a bit lost.  The instructions merely said that at the other side of the bridge, we needed to ask for directions!


The bridge was pretty easy to locate since it was the only one we could see and it was at the end of the tram station platform, directly in front of our faces.  The bridge brought us to a car park for a huge sports centre, that was full of cars but distinctly lacking in people to ask for directions.  Helpful.  We spotted a friendly looking lady not so far away, which sparked a thirty second debate that went a little like this;

"Shall we ask her?" "I don't know, we could ask her?" "But she might not know where the lake is!  She might just think we're strange English girls wandering around looking for a non-existent lake!"

Finally, Liza bit the bullet, marched over, and asked the friendly looking lady where the lake was.  It turned out that the lake definitely did exist, and she knew exactly where it was.  She explained that it was about a fifteen minute walk away and would be quite simple to find.  The friendly looking lady then became even more helpful than we had ever anticipated and offered us a lift!  Apparently she was heading that way anyway, and had three spare spaces in the car.  With a chorus of "merci beaucoup" and "vous êtes très gentille" we graciously accepted her offer and clambered into the little white three door car.  She explained that it was her husband's car and she didn't normally drive it which is why her driving might not be entirely up to scratch.  This filled me with the utmost confidence, given that the French aren't exactly known for their road safety, but I couldn't exactly complain - she had just offered us a free lift.  All in all, this mission to sunbathe was proving a lot more successful than our last trip to the beach.


A short, three minute journey and we arrived at the lake in one piece.  She pointed out where we would have been able to go into the park if we were on foot, and thus, where it would be possible to leave from.  As we were in a car, however, she dropped us off at a slightly more official, gravelled entrance to the park, with instructions that we needed to go "upstairs" to get to the lake.  She had attempted a little bit of English for our benefit which was sweet, and we could only assume that by "upstairs" she meant "up hill".  So, we headed off up the reasonably small hill that lay ahead of us, and sure enough, at the top we were greeted by a beautiful view that looked out across the lake and the park surrounding it.

Once we reached the water's edge, we decided to walk round around the lake to reach the grassy area on the other side.  We could just make out a few people sun bathing over there, and decided that they must have the right idea; the rest of the lake seemed to be edged with gravel which wouldn't exactly make for a comfortable sunbathing spot.  It probably took about less than ten minutes to walk to the other side of the lake, and although it wasn't exactly an unpleasant walk, I think we all breathed a joint sigh of relief as we settled ourselves onto our towels, bikinis on, facing the sun.


Liza had been told by her friend that it was absolutely fine to swim in the lake, and as a few of the other French sun seekers there seemed to be having no problems with diving in, we thought we would follow suit. Well, when I say swim, I of course mean paddle.  Jenny and Liza were aiming to swim, but swimming really isn't my thing.  I paddle, and that is all.  However, Liza and Jenny soon came round to the idea of paddling upon discovering that the lake is actually filled with fish!  Jenny had a definite aversion to the fish but Liza took a shining to them.  I remained fairly neutral in my feelings towards the fish; they were quite small, slim little things, but they did have a habit of getting a little close for comfort if you stood still for too long.  Liza was delighted by this and very quickly settled herself in the water, before proclaiming herself to be 'Liza, friend of the fishes' as they all started gathering around her.


Once Liza had satisfied her fish loving tendencies, and Jenny and I agreed that we were quite done with paddling, we dried off in the sun before gathering our things and heading back to the tram stop.  We guessed at which way we would need to walk to join the road, and decided to continue walking around the lake and then veer off into the park, rather than walking back the way we came.  This allowed us to stumble across a waterfall on our way out, and also discover that even when the weather doesn't allow for sunbathing, it really would be worth coming back simply to walk around the park.

Sure enough, the walk really did only take about fifteen minutes back to the tram, and from there it was only half a dozen stops back to my stop, Charles De Gaulle.  I must admit, the novelty of living in a city has fast worn off for me (I can handle small towns, like Egham, but you give me a population of more than about 20,000 and I start to get itchy feet), and it was comforting to discover that there's a little green patch of tranquillity a stone's throw away from all the concrete, for those days when the cars and quarter of a million people all start to get a bit much for this country bumpkin.

"Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world"... La première semaine

OK, so the list of things to do in my first week here was mostly taken up by 'find somewhere to live', amongst other smaller tasks like 'buy a French SIM card', 'find a supermarket' and 'meet my work experience co-ordinator'.  It all sounds relatively straightforward but those seven days were probably amongst the most stressful, emotional, scary and exhausting days of my life.  You might think I'm exaggerating (even I'm beginning to think I'm exaggerating), but I'm fairly certain I'm not.

On my first day I managed to buy a student tram card, buy a SIM card, and attend a meeting with my work experience co-ordinator.  Pretty productive!  And really not bad considering the fact that I was finding my way around by taking photos on my phone of Google maps, and then writing down the directions in my little purple filofax (<3 Google Maps so much). I might add though that this first day hadn't been without its hiccups.  I am beginning to discover that the French are technologically and organisationally quite backwards by comparison to the UK.  The tram card that I bought is very similar to an Oyster card in London, allowing you to travel on all of the trams and buses.  To obtain said card, I had to queue for over an hour and a half.  No, you can't buy it online.  Yes, you really can only purchase it from one office in the whole of Montpellier with six cashiers, of which only four were open.  My meeting with my work experience co-ordinator went reasonably well - he told me what my placement would entail, but he had no idea which twenty hours of the week I would be able to work.  We could sort that out next week.  I mean, its not like he'd been aware that I would be arriving in Montpellier in September for approximately six months or anything...


This brings me to apartment hunting.  I had read many blogs written by year abroad students that insisted that it would be so much more profitable to live with French people than to go into halls.  So, I dutifully followed their words of wisdom, and armed with nothing but grim determination, went on the hunt for a "colocation" (aka flat-share).  For the most part I relied on appartager.com - a website where those with rooms to let and those looking for rooms can create profiles and adverts.  Each profile consists of age, gender, occupation etc, and those wanting a room can narrow their searches based on those criteria.  Members are then able to message eachother and exchange contact details.


The first flat that I managed to organise a viewing for seemed fairly good on the face of things.  According to the profile, the guy was a twenty-five year old student named Pierre, living in a three bedroomed flat, of which one bedroom was available.  That was a lie.  Pierre was a sixty year old man with a two bedroomed flat, of which one bedroom was his.  Creepy doesn't even begin to cover it.  The whole place smelt weird.  He did some bizarre palm reading on me, and then refused to let go of my hand/arm after that.  Luckily, I had set up a 'get out of jail free card' and ten minutes after I had arrived at the apartment I got a phone call from England. Swiftly following that I was able to make an excuse that I really had to leave immediately; 

"Je suis désolée mais il y a une problème avec l’hôtel et il est nécessaire que je rentre à l’hôtel immédiatement!"  

Despite his pleas for me to stay for dinner I fought him off with the weak claim that I had already eaten, and got out of there sharpish.  Following that ordeal we repeated the precautions we'd taken when I'd gone off to meet Creepy-Pete each time I saw an new flat - I prank called my parents when I was just about to go in, they'd launch the offensive at Dover ready for 'D-Day Deux' should things not be quite as they seemed, and then they'd phone ten minutes later to check I was OK.


By Thursday I still didn't have anywhere to live, the ERASMUS office at the university had offered me a place in halls with lots of other UK year abroad students, and yet I remained downright stubborn/stupid and persevered.  By Friday afternoon it had paid off.  I had sent countless messages on appartager, to which only a handful had actually replied, and was really losing hope when I found myself messaging Marco - a 25 year old shop assistant living with his partner.  By this, I mean I was looking at living with two gay guys and their cat!  I went round to visit and he was just as his profile had said.  The room was perfectly adequate, they were lovely, and at €350 a month including all bills, it really was a steal!  Problem finally solved.  On Sunday, Marco's partner Francis came to collect me and my oversized suitcase from the hotel, and on Monday I arrived, key in hand, with the rest of my belongings.


One stressful week; bucket loads of tears; two parents who nearly flew to Montpellier to drag me home; many considerations that I should accept defeat and turn-tail back to Dorset; several microwave meals; countless emails; tens of photos of Google Maps; some well deserved Saturday night drinks with some RoHo girls who I didn't realise were here; a disturbing ordeal; and at least three sleepless nights later... I was finally somewhere I could call home.

Saturday night, out celebrating having somewhere to live!

"Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn"... Well, Best Hôtel and Etap.

The first week that I spent here in Montpellier wasn't exactly the stuff of dreams.  With nowhere to live, I stayed at the aforementioned Centre Millénaire Hôtel Etap from Tuesday night through until Saturday morning.  I moved to the rather ironically named Best Hôtel, also in the Millénaire area, on Saturday and stayed there until I finally moved into an apartment on Monday morning.


The Etap hotel, for my first 'home' in Montpellier, really wasn't too bad.  Freshly decorated, with a modest breakfast buffet and access to a microwave, things could have been worse.  I even managed to make friends with the cleaning lady after our run-in on my third morning there: I wanted to pay to stay for an extra night; she wanted me to leave so that she could clean my room.  After we finally straightened out the slight miscommunication, I was able to go downstairs and pay for another night. Having done so, she was quite happy to leave me to my own devices with my fresh towels and empty bin.  In fact, by my final morning there she was so accustomed to the slightly strange English girl who seemed to have taken up residence in room 226 that she left cleaning my room until last, and was most apologetic when she had to ask me to vacate at half past eleven.

Having lived off of nothing but pesto pasta from home (2 days), microwave meals (2 days), and eating anything that vaguely resembles dinner but can be eaten cold (1 day) I'd like to think I have some words of wisdom to share on Vegetarian hotel dining:

1. Pesto pasta keeps well for up to 3 days in a cool bag!
2. Goats cheese and spinach lasagne may sound yummy.  It is not.
3. Microwave tortellini is fairly horrid too.  On the other hand, microwave pizza is surprisingly good, if a little soggy.
4. Mozzarella and tomato pastries are yummy cold, even when the instructions say they should be eaten warm. Cous cous with extra vegetables is a good option when your body is screaming at you for some trace of vitamin C.

Best Hôtel was a little less impressive.  It was a little shabbier round the edges, with a distinct lack of lift (the look on the receptionist's face when he realised he had to carry my suitcase up the stairs more than made up for that though), and a faint smell of stale smoke meant it didn't quite live up to the Etap standards.  On the plus side, the bed was slightly more comfortable - less like the solid stone mattress of the Etap, and a little more like one made of pebbles... Still fairly solid, but with a little more give in it.  Moving between the two hotels was a most hellish walk, with all of my luggage, plus 5 litres of water that I thought I'd be really clever and buy cheaply from the supermarket the day before.  Buying the water was in fact very sensible, as bottled water from high street shops costs €2 for just your standard 500ml.  However, buying it the day before I moved hotels was less intelligent.

Both hotels were about a 10 minute walk away from the Millénaire tram stop on ligne 1.  There are two tram lines that create a kind of 'X' shape across the city, rather inspirationally named 'ligne 1' et 'ligne 2'.  They make travelling across the city simple, cheap and fairly quick.  Millénaire is on the east side of the city, and it only took about 10/12 minutes on the tram to get to the centre.  I was also a mere 5 minute tram ride from the huge shopping centre, Odysseum, that houses a 'Casino Géant'.  No, I haven't taken up gambling - it's the name for one of the French supermarkets.  As it happens, I also became the proud owner of a €1 Casino Géant re-usable shopping bag when I went off to purchase my microwaveable goods... I had completely forgotten that for the most part the French don't give out carrier bags in supermarkets, at all, ever.  Helpful.

Needless to say, I was pretty relieved when I finally arrived at my apartment on Monday morning (more on that later).  Nonetheless, I will probably spend the next few months looking at Millénaire with a certain sense of fondness when I pass the tram stop on my travels.