Nimes to Party!

So the train to Nimes took about 45 minutes or so, which I spent listening to my favourite classical music on my Ipod. That and the beauty of the countryside rushing past my window made me feel relaxed and content, if a bit melancholic...
In Nimes we met Françoise who drove us up to Alix's grandma's house on one of the 7 hills of Nimes. The house is old and has some beautiful features like the door handles, the doors of the kitchen cupboards, the fireplace and the study of Alix's grandpa with the many small Egyptian artefacts and a collection of glass eggs, among other things.
Alix's grandma served us lunch, which was chicken (i think) and salad and for dessert a apricot jam rolled cake that Françoise made. It was all very yummy! Also the clementines and mandarins are incredible here! They are always juicy and supple and perfectly ripe and there is rarely any pips! I have a couple after most meals now!
After lunch Alix's aunt came round (she lives in a house on the same property...i also met Alix's uncle and their black lab Samy!) and talked to Alix for around an hour about a project Alix has to do for school on bipolar disorder I think...in the meantime the rest of us had coffee and chocolate!
Once Alix was done we left. I thought we'd be going straight back to Montpellier because it was around 3:30 at least by then but on the way we stopped at a little town called Sommière. It's a very cute old French town and I'd post photos but they're not on this computer! We walked up to the chateau at the top of the hill. It was closed but we walked around it and had a magnificent view of the town and the valley beyond. We then walked down and visited the church. It was unlocked but there was no one there...how very trusting they are. We turned on the lights and went inside. It was small but very beautiful, with painted walls and ceilings and my favourite arches!
By the time we left there it was starting to get dark outside so we found a little cafe to have a hot chocolate. Alix and I had hot chocolates, Alix had a meringue (which tasted ok crumbled in the hot chocolate) and Françoise had an African tea! The sugar cubes that came with the drinks were all seperately wrapped in the cutest wrappers with phrases like 'Je t'aime' (I love you), 'Your email address?' and 'un autre café?' (another coffee?)...I kept them.
We returned to the car and commenced the 45 to 60 minute drive back to Montpellier.
Monday and Tuesday (18th and 19th):
These days were just your average days. One of the mronings Alix and I walked to school after missing the bus. Turned out to be not that far, taking us around 30 minutes when it's 20 minutes if we catch the bus (bus for 10, walk for 10). It was a nice walk to, past the arches of the Arceaux (the aquaduct) and through the garden in front of the Arc de Triomphe.
One of the afternoons Jacques and I (we are in the same class) had 4 hours to kill and nothing to do, so we just kind of wondered for a few hours before meeting some of the others. On Monday there was a teachers strike so a lot of the classes were cancelled which meant more shopping for us. In general we spent a fair bit of Monday and Tuesday shopping because Alix had a lot of long science classes and tests (because it was the last week before the holidays they had tests almost every day).
On Wednesday Alix only had one hour-long class, just before lunch, so we got to sleep in!!!
The class was French, which is ok but not great because they are discussing a novel in great grammatical depth so I don't understand a lot of it. Although I do recognise the passé composé better than them! Yah!
After the class Alix had arranged for me to have lunch with Chloé, Kate's correspondent, who stayed with us in Australia last year (2005). So I met her, Laure and Alice (australian) at school. Enzo couldn't come because he was working but we met Chloé's boyfriend and another one of her friends outside the Polygone. We bought baguettes for lunch from Louis', the best bakery ever, and ate them on the steps of the Opera/Comedie. It was nice in the sun but in the shade on the steps it was cold!
Chloé had bought her album of photos from her time in Australia with her and showed it to Laure and us. It was about time for Alice and I, the foreigners, to find some dessert! Alice bought a tart from Louis' then took us to another bakery so I could get a good lemon tart. It was a big slice of lemon tart and it was absolutely magnificent. The pastry was perfect - a good distraction from the lemon taste without being too sweet, too rich or too thin - and the lemony bit was i think the best I've ever tasted, tart and bitter but perfectly balanced. I managed to eat the whole big slice it was that good! I have to go back there!
After that we did some shopping. Chloé was looking for a toy or something for her male 4-year-old cousin but she didn't end up finding anything. At around 3:15 we went back to the Lycée where they left me to go back to Chloé's place. I went looking for some other Australian's to spend the afternoon with because Alix had lots of work to do but I couldn't find anyone at school or in the Polygone. I was just on my way home when I bumped into Jacques, Issy and Mia marching speedily towards school. They were late for a rendez-vous with their correspondents. From what I remember they didn't meet them anyway and we did some more shopping but I really can't remember.
Thursday 21st:
I didn't go to class in the morning because Alix had sciences. I spent the morning shopping with the others! something we are getting very good at! We should do a little bit more looking around in the next few weeks and less shopping hopefully. I went to class in the afternoon though. Jacques wasn't at school because he had killed his knee at rugby training but it was alright because I talked to some of Alix's classmates. We had lunch at the Cantine but then Alix went to do some French work so I went into town. I was too late back for the next class but came back for history and italian after that.
Sometime during this week Michel (Alix's dad) bought a Christmas tree (one of the branch ones that die after a while) from Ikea for the house. Alix and I found the decorations in the garage and put up the tree and decorated it, which was hard because it kept falling over. We finally managed to get it decorated and Alix also put up lights around the living room. It was all very cute!
Friday 22nd:
Last day of school for the term (except for Saturday morning) and the last day of all the Australians being in Montpellier together (Cynthia would be away until the day before she leaves and some of the others were going away for two weeks!) so we spent the whole day together. In the morning a trip had been organised for us. First we were driven to the in-construction rugby stadium by Madame Blanc and Isabelle's host dad. It was absolutely freezing there (later someone told me it was -2 degrees). It was a construction site so there was no inside and at the top of the stands it felt like Antarctica! It wasn't that interesting but that was probably because I was practically falling asleep because I was so tired. I think that was because I'd stayed up until 12 or something watching Vanilla Sky (which was quite good if creepy).
We returned to school and met another English teacher whose name I can't say who took us down to get hot chocolates at the cafeteria before taking us for a walk through the Antigone, the newest quarter of Montpellier. This was heaps of fun because, after the town hall (where there are massive 3D maps of Montpellier) it largely consisted of us walking down one massive boulevard (all the buildings were built symetrically down this boulevard so you can follow it from the Polygone all the way down to the river Le Lez) and taking heaps of photos of each other. At the end we said goodbye to our guide, who had to go, and decided what to do for lunch. We walked all the way back up and bought panini's from La Brioche Dorée. We ate them at the big chess set near the Lycée. We returned to the Polygone for the afternoon. More shopping, believe it or not. I bought a pair of socks (simone bought three but one was mine!) and I bought my boots!!! I had called home that morning to say hi but largely to ask if it was ok if I bought the boots. Mum and Kate were the only ones home and they were all for it! The boots are flat, black, round-toed and a bit scrunched. I like them, a lot.
That night I had an opportunity to wear them as Alix and I were going to a party! It was all a bit confusing for me because Alix had been invited by someone who had been invited by someone else who had been invited by a friend of the host or something so we weren't really invited. We went to the party anyway. Mia's host mum drove Mia, Charlotte (Mia's host sister), Alix and I to the party but it took us (and about 4 other cars) about half and hour to find where it actually was! Eventually we found it! It was supposed to be 40 or 50 people but it was only around 20 or 30. I didn't know anyone else except Mia and her host and a few of their classmates. The party was ok but most of the music was really hard to dance to and it was very cold!
We got to bed around 3 or 3:30am and had to get up around 7am to catch the bus at 7:20 for school! We were totally dead but we managed it!

Got to go to bed now in fact so more about the weekend, Christmas and the aftermath another time! and photos hopefully!