More Fun Activities!

Le Parc Zoologique de Henri de Lunaret
Last Saturday I went to an awesome and FREE zoo in Montpellier with three other girls in my program. The zoo is actually a short walk away from the Paul Valéry campus, so we all planned to meet there at noon and walk together. Well of course there was bus strikes going on that day, so I had to wait a while for the bus and was a little. Wasn’t a big deal or anything, it’s just annoying that there are strikes practically every Saturday! This zoo is mainly outdoors except for a building that has a mini-rainforest in it (this is not free so we didn’t go in). The weather that day was sunny and perfect for walking around the large, wooded paths of the park…I didn’t even wear my jacket! Sorry, to brag friends and family back in MN, but it was super nice. The zoo was a lot bigger than I imagined, it took a while to walk from each animal habitat to the next and the paths/signs were kind of confusing. This of course didn’t bother us because we had fun just wandering around and running into whatever exhibit was hidden up ahead. One of our favorite exhibits that we saw was the Lemur house because lemurs are just so darn cute! I liked the turquoise-eyed lemurs, but the all around favorite had to be the classic ring-tailed lemur. These guys were the most active, jumping all around and SUN BATHING! Also, there was one that was missing an arm.

It’s kind of hard to make out, but this guy and others were sitting upright with their tummies facing the sun and their arms outstretched! So cute.

Turquoise-eyed lemur resting/being pensive.

Another favorite animal of ours was this guy right here. When we first walked up to the enclosure he ran in front of the window quickly and we were like “Oh it’s a fox!” but after about 5 seconds we were like “what is going on, this fox is not normal…he’s too tall and big!”

Well, upon reading the placard, which was in French, we found out that it was actually a maned wolf that has many foxlike attributes.

Besides animals the park also had some awesome wood sculptures that I took tons of pictures of and climbed atop. Here is a rhino, which was my favorite. I took a carving and construction class last semester, so that is probably why this was so interesting to me. Such a charming and grand sculpture!

Here is a curious looking baby bear.

This is me on top of mama bear. A list of animals we saw: exotic birds, a European otter, lemurs, too many hooved animals, the fox-wolf, macaques, a wolf, lions, bears, a cheetah, ostriches, giraffes, caracals, painted dogs, and zebras. That isn’t even all of the animals that they have! We got tired so we decided skipped over the Asian and oceanic animals. Afterwards, I went to the Quick near campus with Merrill to get a burger. Quick is the French version of McDonalds, but it’s not as good.

La Pantinoire
Later that night my host brother and his friend took me to the relatively new indoor ice rink near Odysseum. One part of the complex has a normal indoor ice rink and plays music. The other part of the complex is a “night club” with a dj, fog machine, strobe lights, colored lights, with ramps, tunnels, and “dance floors”. Think of a place like roller garden, but on ice! It was cool but strobe lights and fog machines make ice-skating difficult. I only fell down once! That’s pretty good for not skating since last winter.

That’s all for now! This weekend I’m going skiing in the alps with my program…another winter sport I haven’t done in a long long time. I will definitely be starting out in the jardin des enfants (bunny hill) and green slopes. Skiing is one of those things you never forget how to do, like riding a bike, right? Wish me luck!
p.s. I believe this is a map of the mountain we will be at. http://www.skimap.org/data/686/1/1258054216.jpg
p.p.s I thought this sign from the zoo was funny.

No feeding the lemurs bananas or baguettes! Only in France!

The Ruins of Chateau de Montferrand

Last weekend on Sunday, I went on a little excursion to the ruins of Château de Montferrand with my host dad, host brother, and Merrill (a friend in my program that I’ve know since freshman year). Merrill and I were very excited to finally see a castle, even though it is in ruins. This castle in particular dates back to the middle ages and is situated on what I call a “mini-mountain” next to Pic Saint Loup and les falaises d’Hortus (falaises = cliffs). Here is a good website showing the location and other pictures of the castle. http://jean-francois.mangin.pagesperso-orange.fr/capetiens/fenetres_filles/chateau_montferrand.htm This castle, like many in the region, was destroyed during the Albigensian crusades to eradicate the Cathars.

As I said this castle was on top of what looked like a mini-mountain, so we had to hike up to it. The path was not extremely steep but it was full of rocks to you had to watch your feet the whole time as you went up. There were some particularly athletic people running up and down the path. We thought they were crazy! The path we took actually was used in the middle ages and in the areas that were more preserved you could see where the wheel of the carts had made indents into the stone from lots of use. The hike to the top only took about 45 minutes, but at the begging Merrill and I thought we were going to die because we were tired from the night before and we are both clumsy when it comes to walking on large, loose rocks!

Once we got to the top we were definitely happy we went through with the hike! The view of the surrounding lands was amazing! It was a little hazy because it was rainy the night before, so unfortunately my photos don’t look as good as the real thing did.

Falaises

Pic Saint Loup in the hazy background

Me entering a little door

Inside the ruins

An opening that looked out onto the country side. We all had such a good time exploring the ruins! The cliffs were a little vertigo inducing at times, but it was just so cool to walk around a building that old and with such an interesting history. We also found many random holes and some underground rooms that were safe enough to go into.

Here is a snapshot of my brother posing on the ruins...on the other side there is a cliff! Scary! Anyway, at the beginning he was complaining about the hike once he saw how long it would take to get up there and that his dad has dragged him to too many castles. However, once we got up there he would run ahead of us and climb up ruins and all we would hear was "WHOA" or "C'est magnifique!". So, even those not fond of history...or hiking should definitely visit this castle, or another in the region, if they get the chance.

"Minnesota Princesses" as my host dad called us

Now for just a few random updates. My second week of classes went well, except for the having to do homework part. This Monday or Tuesday we have to go into the office and finalize our registration slips. So, I will for sure be taking the classes I described in the previous. The weather at the end of the week and this weekend has been fabulous! about 60 degrees and sunny! Its really weird to think that it's still super cold in MN and that many other states are getting ridiculous amounts of snow. This last bit of info is mainly for my mom, but last night my host family and I had raclette for dinner! For those of you who don't know, raclette is cheese but also a dish where you melt the cheese and eat it alongside potatoes, cornichons, pickled onions, sour cream, and different dried meats. My host family must really like this meal because they have a big oval hotplate like appliance where everyone has a place to put their own individual pan of cheese in! Much more extravagant then when my mom makes it, but it still made me miss home a little bit. That's all for now! Bisous!

The studying part in 'studying abroad in Monpellier'

I have already commenced the actually studying in ‘studying abroad’ and wanted to share what I have to do for my program, the process of enrollment, and my early opinions of my classes/professors.

I’m taking the integrated track of the U of M program. In this track I have to take at least one 3 credit integrated course at the University of Paul Valéry (a class with a real French prof and students), a 3 credit grammar course, and a 3 credit phonetics course. I can also pick from special classes given by my program and some courses given by Paul Valery for international students. Overall, the minimum amount of credits I need to take is 15.

Registering for classes at Paul Valery is a lot different than registering for classes at the U of M. Typically, when a student wants to register for a course they have to go to the building of whatever department they are taking the class from and try to find information or course guides on classes that are posted randomly on bulletin boards. Also, in France students mainly only take classes in their field of study, and in each field many classes are offered at three different levels (licence1, licence 2, and licence 3). Licence 1 classes are typically introduction classes, and with each level the classes get harder or more specific. This system poses a problem for us American exchange students because we take classes in many different fields and are used to looking at an online catalogue of classes. Luckily, our program put together a hard copy course guide of all the classes offered for us to look at. So, one day of registration was solely going through the course guide, talking to our advisors, and choosing at least 3 classes we might be interested in. Then the next day we met with the advisors and filled out a sheet with the courses we wanted to take and their registration numbers. They advised us to take more than one integrated class because like at the U of M there is an add/drop period at the beginning of the semester. So, if one of the integrated classes doesn’t work out for any reason we can drop it and have another one to fall back on. After that simple meeting of figuring out working schedules and registering for classes we were all set. Now I can talk a little bit about each class I’m taking.

Phonetics
I have already taken a basic phonetics class at the U of M, so unfortunately this class will just be more practice because I won’t get more credits. This is kind of ok with me because I still definitely need to work on my pronunciation of the language because it is very hard and I enjoyed phonetics the first time I took it. Also, the professor provides us with the course materials, so I don’t need to spend extra money on the class. I really like the professor for this class; she has a lot of energy and is nice. I find that professors who teach or specialize in phonetics or phonology are always very laid back and kind of silly in their teaching methods.

Civilization of the South of France
This class is one of those special classes for Americans and is all about the civilization and culture of the south of France. France may be a small country but its different regions do vary. I wanted to take this class because I’m going to be living in the region for 4 months, so I think it will be interesting and helpful. It will also give me topics to talk with my host father about. Oh and I know for a fact that I will actually get credit for it when I return back to the U of M! For this class I only had to buy a cheap course packet.

Methods and Tools in Contemporary Art
This is an integrated class…a licence 3 class at that. The first day actually wasn’t that bad. Before the lecture I introduced myself to the professor and told her I was an American student, like our program told us to do, and she was welcoming. During the lecture she talked really fast and it was hard to understand her at times, but I found the course very interesting. I’m a little worried that it is a license 3 course, but I have taken art history courses before and I want to try to get this course to count for a credit back at the U of M. I need to take one 5000 level course to complete my minor, so maybe this will count. This class has two parts; a large lecture class and a smaller discussion section. This is very similar to many classes at the U of M. However, like most classes at Paul Valéry and French universities in general you only get one or two grades for the entire semester! This class has an oral exam and a final written exam, each worth half of our grade. The professor said that I didn’t have to do the oral exam because it would be too hard which I’m very happy for. Instead, I think I will have to keep a notebook of work or something. This makes me less nervous about passing the class. Also, if we are super worried about passing an integrated course our program can usually work out with the professor for us to write an additional research paper that would be graded if we did failed the class…which has happened to some students. I will see how it goes, but will probably end up writing a paper just in case later on. Another difficulty with the French classes is that they don’t give you a very concrete list of readings, if they give you one at all. For this class the professor just handed out a large bibliography of books for us to read. I’m definitely going to ask her what books I should read in order to narrow the list, and then I will search for the books in the library or at the second hand bookstore.

Grammar and methodology
This is another class that I won’t get credit for, since I’ve already taken all of the grammar courses at the U of M. Once again I still need practice in this subject and I think it will help a lot. Making this class and phonetics mandatory is kind of a downfall of the program for those who have already taken those courses because it’s 6 credits total that won’t count (it’s a lot of people too because most people in the integrated course are at a more advanced level). I also had to buy 2 course packets for this class, but the total was under 10 euros.

Art History
This class is a special class for our program and it takes place at the local museum in the centre ville, not at Paul Valéry. I think I’m really going to like this class because it takes place within the actual museum (the amazing musée Fabre), each week we will have a different guest speaker and learn about something new, and we get to go on a class excursion to a museum in a neighboring city. The museum has a lot of paintings that I’m looking forward to learn about, since I’ve mainly only learned about sculpture and architecture in my other art history classes.

History of modern music
This is a licence 1 integrated course in the musicology department, but I’m not going to go into detail about because I’ve already decided that I’m going to drop it. The teacher was very nice, welcoming, and easy to understand. However, the course did not interest me whatsoever and a lot of things relating to musicology were confusing for me. I definitely understood more of what was going on in my licence 3 art history class than in this one, which I was not expecting. Also, it’s at 8:45 in morning and two hours long, making it hard to concentrate and hard to get to. I would have to get up super early, and if there were a bus or tram strike, like there was on that morning, I would probably end up missing the class.

So, in the end I will be taking five classes, one of them integrated, and the minimum of 15 credits, which is what most people do so that they have time to travel or do other activities in the city. That is all for now!