Today it was nice out but I was nervous about Israel and getting my hotel and everything situated. I spent the day researching and contacting people. By the end of the day, I felt good. The next day I headed to Montpieller. Now normally this would be easy, take a train and BAM you are there. However, the strikes are still continuing so we had to research lots of things. There was one train from Tarascon to Nimes and one train from Nimes to Montpieller. I went for it. I got to the train station bought my tickets and waited for my bus as there was no train; just a bus. The bus was 20 minutes EARLY (I was glad that I was waiting in the cold for the bus). I got onto the bus and the driver said that my ticket was no good.
Three other people joined in and talking but luckily there was a young girl there who translated. They said that the ticket that the station sold me was not good on this bus and that I needed to get a new ticket from him. An old lady offered to pay for my ticket, but I had money and paid. Everyone was very upset and said that when I returned tonight that I needed to get my money back from the train station. I got to Nimes and waited for my train. I caught it without a problem and was off.
I arrived and the town reminded me a bit of Paris. Lots of young people though, a bit hip, more city-like. I walked and took in some sites taking pictures with Julie’s camera as mine stopped working. I saw a large group of students and found out that today the students were protesting for the adults to continue the strike. In fact, Julie’s cousin who is a teacher went home early since none of his students showed up, that is pretty sweet. Anyway, I got some pictures of the protesters and thought about joining in but there were police around and I did not want to get into any trouble. I continued my tour with the train tour.
Yes, I was skeptical after Arles but this was very good. Showed me many places and great information. Afterwards, I grabbed a light lunch (I picked up a crepe with jelly when I arrived). I made conversation with the waitress who is planning to go to the USA next year and then mapped out where I wanted to go. Honestly, there was so much to see but I knew I would not get to see a lot of it. I decided to walk around and get a closer look at many of the places I saw on the train tour. I did not have time to go to the zoo or aquarium…next time. I stopped and grabbed some ice cream before I left; violet and some kind of white chocolate. Julie was all about the violet ice cream and so I was not sure what to expect, one whole scoop was too much but it was okay. I do not think that I would get it again.
It was super cool and nice and then I headed home. The train that I had wanted to take did not exist and so I took the next one, which was delayed for 20 minutes. This caused me to miss my connecting bus in Nimes. I had no idea about the next bus and Julie said not to move and that her and Patrice were coming. It is an hour away, after they worked all day. It was so nice of them – two hours!
We got home and Lucielle came over for dinner. We had some drinks and chips and then pasta. Dinner was the cheesecake that Julie and I made the night before. It was close to NY cheesecake but not exactly the same. We winged it with using butter biscuits for the crust and fromage blanch for the cheese. It was still good though. It was a long day with lots of travel, but I was very happy that I got to see Montpieller before I left.
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