Places In Montpellier That We Like

Place De La Comedie - A beautiful area in historic Montpellier where the tram stops!  The tram picks us up about two blocks from our house, we ride for 10 minutes and get off at La Comedie - Wa lah!! We are in the middle of a lot of young/old/middle aged people who are there to shop, relax, have coffee/beer/wine/food (there is a McD's too :( ).  It is a great spot to "people watch" and hang out.  The Opera house is there as well as the Office De Tourisma (tourism office).  On Thurs/Fri/Sat. there is an open market where people sell leather purses, clothes, hats/berets, food, flowers, sweaters etc....  Today, as we walked through the center of La Comedie, a gentleman playing the accordian was accompanied by a singer while folks enjoyed a mid-afternoon snack or beverage.  The sun was shining and the temp was about 58 degrees - a wonderful and relaxing time with my boys (Emma stayed home to read a book on the terrace!). We walked up through the old historic area to a bookstore that we had visited one of our first days here and enjoyed some browsing time. We also explored little alleyways which contained numerous little shops, bars, beauty salons etc... - there is truly something in every little nook and cranny!  I found the link to a youtube video that someone took so you can see where we are hanging these days - the buffer was a little slow but you'll get the idea.  Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9PSsqpf37A

The Odysseum: A HUGE outdoor shopping mall at the end of our Tram line (line 1).  The big grocery store called Geant is also there so we have walked to our tram stop with our many recycle bags, hopped on the tram, loaded up on groceries and other various necessities and then returned home, several times already.  The Centre Commercial (shopping mall) is designed to be very modern and really IS very modern and open - very chic and cool.  Emma has gone by herself one time and she and Adam went alone on Wednesday just to look around and see what they could find.  Andy and I are very comfortable with letting them go since they just hop on and off of the tram - no way to get lost! (only in daylight hours though!)  The link I've included had the best pictures to give the best idea but I think it's from a company affiliated with the construction/architecture of the area.
http://www.archello.com/en/project/shopping-centre-odysseum

Montpellier itself is very interesting.  The city is soooo old and yet, many of the people here (25%) are under 25 yrs. old! There are two tram lines right now and a third is in the construction phase.  When the tram lines were constructed, the rails were built into the pavement of the street, so when walking around the city, you are able to walk right across the rails as if they weren't there (unless of course, the Tram itself is coming around the corner!) The buildings are old, the people are new and the mix is fantastic. This link will give you a good overview of the area itself and probably includes both places above :)  Enjoy this too!
http://www.ot-montpellier.fr/en/
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Montpellier#4.

Just a little peak into our new, temporary world!  OH - YEA - I just got a phone call confirming that I will officially be taking French lessons - In France!  Wa hoooo!  We are also working on getting the kids into a school and made good progress with that today as well!

Finally!

Marie, our relocation specialist (and I don't use the word "specialist" lightly!) has been very helpful this week.  She was invaluable in finding the right package re: internet/phone/tv for us, coming over and trying to help us connect it (we had all of the wires correct but couldn't read the web site for further instructions) and when she ran into a snag - she called her cousin William (pronounced: Weeham) who ended up coming to our house to get things going - now, we are crankin!  We have a faster modem, a phone that will call the States, and a TV that gets about 400 channels - 4, of which, are in English: CNN, Fox News, France (in English), and Boomerang (a kids channel that is sometimes broadcast in English).  Emma was disappointed that ABC Family isn't included as she is truly missing Pretty Little Liars, but she, and all of us, were thrilled with the upgraded Wifi (pronounced weefee here).

In addition to the technology, Marie took us car shopping - maybe it was more like car looking since there was only one to look at! She works with a mechanic who fixes cars up to sell.  This one is a Peugot (sp?) station wagon (only one that would seat 5 of us comfortably) and had 250,000 miles on it until Sam from Moracco, rebuilt the engine, changed the brakes and tires, fixed whatever else had to be done mechanically, AND took the car to Moracco for a nice new paint job!  So, as long as our wire transfer from the states comes through, we will probably buy it on Saturday.  Sam has been using it as his family car, so needs to clean it WELL - he also agreed to fix anything that goes wrong with it and Marie agreed to buy it at the end of our stay - so, it's a win/win for us! We are NOT looking forward to driving in Montpellier, but are looking forward to heading out of town to wineries and various other places that we can't get to by train.

Andrew's work is going well - he has been waiting for samples to arrive and has been working on the talk that he is giving to the INRA folks today re: Vibrational Spectroscopy - big talk!  The poor guy was sick for the last two days (he doesn't get sick!) with a fever - thankfully, it broke last night and he is better today!

The kids are doing o.k. - Nathan really needs to get into a school, Adam really needs to find a soccer/football field and friends, and Emma needs to go shopping and find friends!  That will make everyone happy so, we will work on it!

More later - B

Aigues-Mortes and the Pink Flamingos! - 1-23-11



Hunting For Pink Flamingos!!

Ah-Ha!  Here they are!



Aigues-Mortes from the outside

Heading into the walled city of Aigues-Mortes

The Church in Aigues-Mortes

Nathan and Adam climbed the wall but the door to the top was locked!

Very Cute Cafe in Aigues-Mortes

 

 

 

Our landlord suggested that we drive south after seeing Nimes and Pont Du Gard to take a look at Aigues-Mortes, the "Place of Dead Water" which was constructed in the 1200's by Louis XI to protect important people such as Popes, Kings etc...  The sea was much closer back then and  has now subsided 3 miles - the salt marshes are the only things that remain between this walled city and the sea.  The walls were amazingly constucted and truly surrounded an entire city which is still functioning today.  There are shops, bakeries, patiseries, residences, an area where old French men play Bocci (and were playing - my camera battery died though so I didn't get any pix of that!) Although we drove by it on Saturday, the sun was setting and we wouldn't have been able to tour it much, so, we went back on Sunday to look around.  Unfortunately, however, a lot of the shops were closed on Sunday - bummer.  Some of the more touristy ones were open AND one shoe store!  Guess who got some new black boots --- Italian boots to wear in France :)  The rest of the family was very patient as I tried to converse with the sales lady to determine just the right pair and the right size (size 8.5 in the U.S. is size 38 in Europe!) At another shop, we had fun trying on various hats/berets etc....-Nathan and Andy looked very nice in a couple of them but refused to be photographed or to buy the hats!

On the way to Aigues-Mortes, and the surrounding areas along the sea, we pass lagoonas (as pronounced by Mr. and Mrs. Boisson) where Pink Flamingos are wondering about!  I don't think I've ever seen one live and in person aside from maybe a couple at the zoo - so this was very exciting for all of us - we were thinking about Annie Mallamaci who had loved Flamingos since she was born, during our hunt for pictures!  Right now, they are not very pink as the shrimp that they eat give them their pink color.  Since it is winter, shrimp is not easy to come by for the poor flamings so their vibrant pink color is a little muted right now, we hope to see more of them when they are full of shrimp --- and Pink again!

We are hoping to receive our modem today or tomorrow - it took me this long - 3 days, to be able to post pix on this blog due to the slow or non-existant internet connection.  The kids' Dell computers seem to do better with the WIFI here, not great, but better than my Toshiba!  - More later - B

Nimes, Pont Du Gard and Aigues-Mortes - A Great Weekend!

Outside the Arena in Nimes

The Arena in Nimes-Still used today!

Hallway inside the Arena in Nimes

Pont Du Gard

Pont Du Gard from the other side

French Grape Vines !!

We made the most of this weekend by renting our first rental car which was a feat all in itself!  Although our new found friend and relocation specialist, Marie, reserved the car for us, we still had to find the rental office, pick up the car and figure out how to get home with it - not an easy task in Montpellier - have any of you checked out a map of our wonderful little city?  Everyone tells us to just go "straight, straight, straight" - that must be the big town joke since all of the roads curve, most of them are one way AND there are no street signs that make any sense!  However,  by the grace of God, somehow, we did find home.

We were invited to a movie night at the International Chapel by Marie and the couple who run the Chapel who are from the Chicago area - of course, we got lost trying to find the place so Marie (our new 9-1-1 service!) hopped into her car and came to lead the way - everyone else waited for us to arrive before starting the movie: How To Tame Your Dragon, which they showed in English with French sub-titles.  I really tried to follow the sub titles but I'm getting more discouraged with my hope of trying to learn this language while we are here - Ms Schilling - HELP!!!  The people at the Chapel were very welcoming, friendly and willing to help us in any way so we now have more than two phone numbers to reference in case of emergency! Whew!

Saturday was sunny and frigid but we braved the temperatures (1 degree celcius-no, it was NOT warmer in the sun! - and the wind was whipping!) and made the most of the day.  In the morning, I joined Mrs. Boisson on her trip to the Open Market (Farmers Market), where we found fresh veggies, fruits, LOTS of cheese, herbs, hot food (Asian!), bread, some clothing, and some very cool bags/purses from Madagascar!  Thankfully Mrs. Boison translated things for me so I was able to purchase some lettuce (Mash) of two varieties that we have never had, an onion, some funky looking green cauliflower-like stuff with pointy shapes (hard to explain!) and some FANTASTIC homemade jelly - Strawberry mint, Rhubarb, and Clementine - I am in love with the Strawberry Mint ( Fraise-Menthe).  We then came home and the whole family jumped in our rental and ventured to Nimes (Mr. Boisson, led us to the motorway -A9).  Finding Nimes was easy, finding the Arena in Nimes, was not so easy, but less difficult than finding our way around Montpellier in a car!  After asking for directions once - we made it, found a parking spot, bundled up, and started to walk, not knowing how far we'd have to go.  Suddenly, Nathan turned around to look at the rest of us and laughed - then said "Hey Mom -- Turn around!" And there it was - right behind us!  Sort of like not being able to find the Empire State Building in NYC!

The Arena was truly facinating!  According to our audio tour, it was built around the year 50 AD for entertainment for the townspeople - Gladiators came to fight there, large animals fought in it, sand covered the floor of the Arena to soak up the blood....and other stuff :( , Criminals were fed to the big beasts while people watched them get torn apart. The cream of society got to sit in the front rows to get a good look at the "games" while the slaves and poorer folks sat in the top part of the arena.  I am always amazed at the time, energy, and skill it took to create structures such as the arena so long ago with such limited resources - of course, they didn't know that they were so limited, it's only in looking back and realizing how far we have come, that we understand that I suppose.

This Arena is one of the best preserved of the Roman world.  It measures 133 by 101 meters and is in the shape of an elipse as you can see.  We saw the doors where the animals entered and were kept until their time in the performance, where the gladiators went to prepare for their part, and all of the internal parts of the arena - there were no limitation with the exception of safety guidlines.  Ther Arena is still used today for Spanish bullfighting and some other performance type things.  I will try to post more pix on facebook as they are easier to upload there, if you are interested!

Our next stop of the day was Pont Du Guard - A phenominally huge Aquaduct that was built by the Romanss 2000 years ago to provide water to Nimes.  The wind was frigid as we walked around the huge open structure - the boys were tough and stayed out longer than Emma and me (we took our pix for as long as we could and then headed back to the museum area to get warm in the coffee shop!). I'd love to go back when it is warmer. 

We had dinner with Andrew's boss (Veronique)on Saturday night - in a town about 15 min. away from us, outside of Montpellier - with good direction (and since it was not in Montpellier!) we found her home!  She and her husband, Phillipe, were very welcoming!  We enjoyed a beverage in the front room of their upstairs home in the center of Cournonterral.  Andrew had white wine that was made from INRA grapes (the lab where he is working), and I had a traditional drink from Marseilles - Pastisse-which is a black licorice tasting drink that is mixed (dilouted) with water.  The kids had O.J. - Tropicanna from Florida! We also enjoyed snacking on Pistaccio nuts and olives.

The dinner was traditional - the first course was Duck (everyone loved it!), turnips and little potatos, the next course was salad - very simple, just  lettuce, then the cheese course, 5 or 6 different kinds of cheese, with bread, were passed around for us to take what we would like to try, the last course was a traditional Galette (sp?) which is eaten here for he Epiphany on Jan. 6 - it is a big tart type of dessert that is filled with an almond filling and a toy is hidden within - usually a figureen of one of the three wisemen, Mary, Joseph or Jesus.  The younges child (Adam) is told to go under the table when the Galette is being cut, and when the server is ready, the child (Adam) tells who will get the next slice until it is all distributed!  It was delicious and there was one slice left after serving the 7 of us - of course, that is the slice that contained the toy - one of the wisemen!  We arrived at Veronique's home at 8:05pm and left at 11:20 pm (stood up from dinner at about 11:00!)

That was it for Saturday -we found our way home (after getting lost of course) and hit the sack!  I'll add Sunday's adventures soon - I HAVE to clean this house now!

Notre Premier Vin! (Our First Wine)

We finished our first two bottles of French wine - both of them were from this region - the Languedoc-Roussillon Region

Andy purchased the bottle on the right the first day we arrived - he just checked out the bottles on the shelf and picked one - it was o.k.  The bottle on the left was given to us by Mrs. Boisson when we invited her to have pizza with us on Wednesday evening since Mr. Boisson left for a meeting in Brussels where he would be for the rest of the week.  That bottle was FANTASTIC!  The wines in this area are blends of various grapes. According to Mrs. B, Mr. B is quite the wine expert so we are excited to discuss things with him when he returns!! 

It's not very easy to shop for groceries here - I don't think I've addressed this in my other posts.  All of the measurements are in metric units (I should have studied that more!) and finding more than 4 slices of lunch meat in a package is unheard of!  They do not measure the lunch meat by weight, but by number of slices - 2 or 4 and it isn't cheap!  Brie, on the other hand, is only about $4.00 a wheel (normally about $10 at Acme!) - there is something to be said for eating local foods :)  When I made a shopping list, I listed the English word in the left column and the French word in the right column - AND took the French dictionary to the store!  Trying to determine laundry soap from fabric softener was fun and so was trying to figure out the cooking instructions on some of our food since the temperatures are in Celsius and the dial on our oven is 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 - I don't know which number is equivalent to 350 let alone whatever that is in Celsius!  I know that we have to multiply by 9/5 and then add 32 but I'm not very quick with the calculation (I need a prepared table!)

That's it for now - I need to go pay our rent, talk to Mrs. Boisson about how to take our dishwasher off of a 12 hour delay and ask her why Emma's beds (she has 2!) keep breaking!

Take care everyone!

Notre Maison!

Studying in France - outside to get the wifi signal - the pup's name is "Cool"

The main house - ours is the door to the left

This is our wing :) - the door is just to the right of the little tree

Emma made the first non-food purchase!  What else? A BERET!

Well,  I think my dad jinxed us last night when he asked if it is windy here - it hadn't been until today and then the wind brought cold with it!  The kids studied all morning, we had some lunch and then decided to go for a walk to the French/American Center to see what activities are available - although the sun was shining beautifully, il fait froise! (it was cold!)  We went to the Office de Tourisma (sp?) - tourism office and gathered pamphlets to bring home and interpret because, of course, they are all written in French! Next to the tourism office was an open air market (open Thurs/Fri/Sat) that included shoes/boots, hats, coats, purses/bags, flowers etc... - it was wonderful and is where Emma found her very cute beret!  I wish that it had been a little warmer so we could have enjoyed browsing a little more (Emma and I will certainly go back!)  Yesterday, the kids and I took a tram ride to the end of the line where the BIG grocery store is - similar to a Super Wal Mart or Meijer (for those of you who know Meijer) - in addition to the grocery store, the tram dropped us in the middle of an outdoor mall - very chic and modern, however, it was evening and cold - none of us were dressed properly since we had been out since noon when it was in the middle 60's! so we got our four bags of groceries and hopped back on the tram to the house. 
We have rented a car for the weekend and will explore Nimes on Saturday (Samedi) and who knows where on Sunday (Dimanche). Thanks to all of you for the comments to the blog postings and the facebook comments as well! A demain (until tomorrow!) - Take care - The Burns Fam

Walking through Montpellier-1-18-11

The kids and I took a lovely walk to center of the "old" downtown Montpellier on 1/17/11 and thought it was so beautiful and cool that we had to go back on the 18th to take pictures!  Here is one of the pix - you can find some of the others on our facebook sites, it takes a VERY LONG time to upload them to this site and a lot of times I get a security message and the pix doesn't load at all.  Adam asked me the other day why the sidewalks don't have squares like ours do - I told him it's because they are hundreds of years old - people didn't use "square concrete" back then!  The red stone and cobblestone just verify how truly old this part of France is.  The only familiar store we've seen here is...of course McDonalds - I told the kids that there is no way we were buying Grande Macs in France! On our walk, we encountered a nice pile of dog *&^% and Emma said "look out for the dog crap!" - a few seconds later, a nice young man (who looked very french in his multi colored beret type hat) said "are you American French students?" -- since we have heard very little english here, I whirled around and said - "no, we are visiting! are you a student??" and we had a nice talk with him - he is here for three weeks from Baltimore, Maryland studying linguistics. He took us down to the Place de la Comedie - where a lot of the pictures were taken.
I must say, I am truly out of fashion and feel like a real dowdy person here.  Everyone is dressed in black tights, black pantyhose, or cool jeans with boots.  Our friend, Katie, who took us to the airport in North Canton, made a comment about our new white sneakers that we bought since we knew we would be doing a lot of walking, and how they were going to scream "we are American!!!" in Europe - She was absolutely correct!  I see very few people with sneakers on, however, the only other pairs of shoes I brought are my black dress shoes and black dress boots - my sneakers are the most comfy to walk in - so, I guess I will look like a dowdy American tourist - ugh. More later!!

Barcelona Pictures

Downtown Barcelona

REALLY good seafood platter



Casa Martelo



Old Castle/Museum

Castle/Museum by the Magic Fountain

Barcelona skyline at night

We Made it!-Posted 1-17-11 @ 8:00 pm

After some glitchy internet issues and a  little bit of a language barrier on our blog account, I am finally able to update our site! 
Our trip to Montpellier was wonderful!  Granted, we were all a bit tired after traveling so far and for such a long time.  Adam is the only one that was able to sleep on the plane ride from Charlotte, North Carolina to Frankfurt Germany - and he slept mostly in my lap so my legs fell asleep for awhile, but that was about the worst part of the trip.
Within approximately 16 hours, we said "hello" and "thank you" in four different languages - English, German, Spanish and French-people tolerated our American accent pretty well!
The approach into Barcelona was absolutely breathtaking with a view of the mountains, the sea shore and the villages around - I wish that my camera had been within reach!  Once in Barcelona, we took a bus to the 2nd airport terminal in order to catch the train (subway like) to the downtown train station.  While entering the train at the 2nd airport terminal, we were almost seperated from Adam and Emma because while heaving our luggage onto the train, the doors began to close!  Andrew shouted at Nathan and me to run to another door and get on so we did, just in time to watch Emma find the button to re-open her door and let Andrew on! Whew! That was close and I was very nervous since we do not have cell phones and do have a BIG language barrier!  The trip on this train was a bit tight - a lot of people wanted to go to the Barcelona Sants station!
Thanks to our friend, Brian Bowers' cousin's help, we booked rooms at a hotel for the night which was directly across the street from the station - it was a gorgeous hotel with a wonderful view of Barcelona.

Upon a suggestion from the front desk lady, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner at a local restaurant - upon our waitresses suggestion, we ordered a large seafood platter that Nathan, Andrew and I shared (Adam and Emma chose pasta) - the bill came and we realized just how much we REALLY enjoyed that meal! 105 euros (approx. $130!!!) for the seafood platter alone!  It was worth it!  Everyone except Emma then took a walk down to the magic fountain - (pictures to follow soon!) and a large castle which is now a museum. The water in the fountain was beautifully synchronized to opera music - wonderful!
For breakfast the following morning, we enjoyed memories of our dinner from Friday night - we didn't have time to get food and the train didn't have any available!

The train ride to Montpellier was very nice as we enjoyed seeing the beautiful countryside with the old spanish architecture, beautiful mountains etc... Interestingly though, there is  graffiti everywhere which is a shame.
Marie, our relocation agent, was at the Montpellier train station to greet us and pick us up along with our landlord, Jean Marie Boisson since one car here in France would not accomodate all of our luggage and our bodies! Marie had a third person on stand-by just in case she was needed and it turns out that the third person is an American teacher from Ohio! We hope to meet her soon.

Our house is very nice and has plenty of room for us.  We are having an interesting time learning to use the oven with the temperatures in celcius (I don't even know how to spell it!) and the toilets with pull chains! Our landlords are wonderful and took us on a car tour of the city on Sunday (it was overcast and cool) and down to the Mediterranean sea shore.  On the way to the sea, we passed some Lagoons where we saw REAL Flamingos (did you know that they are not very pink in the winter due to a lack of available shrimp for consumption?? The consumption of shrimp is the reason the Flamingos are pink)! We then came back to Le Maison and collected the deux chiens (two dogs) for a nice walk along along a river by the Montpellier zoo.

So far we are enjoying a lot of french bread, french cheese, french WINE etc... and it is all delicious!

Andrew began his job today and met his colleagues who were very welcoming. We opened our banc compt (bank account) and purchased cell phones today also.  The kids and I took a walk into downtown Montpellier which is MUCH MUCH more beautiful than I had anticipated! I will try to get pictures on here soon!  That's all for now! Au revoir from la Famille Burns!

Less than 24 hours!

Our bags are packed, I think we are in good shape to go.  Thanks to our good friend, Brian Bowers and his cousin who lives in Spain, we have hotel accommodations in Barcelona and several recommendations for good restaurants. I'm a little nervous about our little family trudging through Barcelona with 5 suitcases and several carry-ons in tow after hearing all of the warnings about thieves - I guess that comes with any big city huh?!  In 24 hours, we will be crossing the big sky above the Atlantic ocean on our way to Frankfurt Germany and then on to Barcelona.  We will miss our friends, family, pets and home but are looking forward to a lot of great adventures and experiencing this next exciting chapter of our lives.

10 Days and Counting!!

The holidays are over and we are really gearing up for the big trip now!  The Ohio house is slowly getting into order and our lists of things to do are made!  Our  house in France is confirmed as are our train tickets!  We will be flying out of Akron-Canton on Jan. 13, Arriving in Barcelona Spain on Jan. 14 and heading (by train) to Montpellier on Jan. 15!  Train tickets should be arriving any day now! The pix I've added are of the house that we will be living in while in Montpellier - The pix of the outside of the house is the "Main" house where the owners live, the "door" pix is our door into our house. Enjoy!