on y danse.

bonjour!

i have arrived in france. how lovely it is to be able to communicate once again! the journey from barcelona to france was equivalent to a backpackers express, i do not think there were any other travellers. we took over! in my compartment there were three loud obnoxious guys who pretended to speak catalan to everyone; a little asian girl who dropped her backpack on another girls head when she tried to put it on the rack above (i laughed out loud. oops.); and a girl from canada who dropped her shoe on the tracks and lost it forever. it was an entertaining ride.

here are quick observations from the town i have visited so far, as well as some general thoughts about france. as you can imagine, when you are travelling alone, you have loads of time to think.

montpellier: a cute university town where everyone spends all day every day sitting in cafes. and when the sun goes down, they switch to pubs. i don't think they ever make it to class!

carcasonne: on the recommendation of carolynn, i took a day trip to this unforgetable walled medieval city. from afar, it actually looks like a cinderella castle. it is hard to believe that 120 people still call it home. an amazing, magical city.

avignon: another adorable walled city (i don't know, can you call a city adorable?), complete with an abundance of cafes, museums and nice walks. the famous bridge, not actually called the pont d'avignon, but pont st. benezet, was a slight disappointment, because it only goes halfway across the river! did you know they did not dance on the bridge, they danced under the bridge? oh the lies we have been told.

in general france is gorgeous, and people are unbelievable friendly. within ten minutes of getting off the train, three people stopped to ask if i needed help finding my way. this morning however, while i was drinking my cafe au lait in the sun, i was struck by things that i didn't about france. there are certainly more positive things to say, but these next thoughts are certainly more interesting:

-there is shit everywhere. literally, no one picks up after their dogs and no one picks up after themselves! this morning i actually witnessed a man throw a can in the rhone. what a numpty.

-everyone smokes. unfortunately, this is not really particular to the french, but a europe thing. have they not gotten the message that smoking kills people? maybe it is classy and sexy to sit at cafes with their cafes and their cigarettes, but stop making me inhale the second hand smoke!

-the french assume that everyone in the world should speak french (fair enough). so, eager to practice, i always try to communicate in french. however, i am by no means perfect, and i still struggle with some vocab. the worst is when people make disgusting contorted facial expressions as if to say "huh? what are you saying you crazy foreigner?". i am trying! you do not need to look at me like i am speaking greek!

-it is certainly not the fault of the country, but it is damn windy here. when i was standing on the pont d'avignon, i literally thought i was going to get blown off.

now that would have made a great story.