Bonjour � tous!

It’s been a bit since I last wrote- I’ve been busy getting settled with new classes, a new schedule, and a whole new set of people who arrived in our program for the spring semester. It was a little difficult adjusting at first (and so different!) but I’ve already made some great friends and I feel like I’ve gotten more of a grip on classes. Unfortunately, this semester is looking to be a lot more work than last semester, but I’m not going to let that stop me from traveling more and making the most of Montpellier!

As for what I’ve been up to lately, I spent the last two weekends traveling with my host family, and finally getting my snow fix for the winter! My host parents are incredibly nice, and invite me along with them whenever they go anywhere interesting.

Two weekends ago, we went on an expedition to Andorra. I had never even heard of it before, but it turns out it’s a tiny country/principality in the Pyr�n�e Mountains between Spain and France. They speak Catalan there, which is a regional language that is totally unintelligible to me but looks a lot like Spanish. And the country itself is so small! We drove across nearly all of it to the capital, Andorra la Vella, where we went shopping. Andorra has a sale period in January just like France does, and it also has lower prices in general because of tax differences.

View of mountains from the car

Andorra la Vella

We stayed in an apartment across the French border, in a mountain town called Font-Romeu, and we drove to Andorra in the morning. I was really impressed by the mountains on our drive there- they were so huge, and so gorgeous all dusted with snow. The road was winding and full of switchbacks, kind of just meandering along all of these massive peaks that looked like something out of a postcard. There hadn’t been much snow when we got there, but while we were shopping we got caught in a big snowstorm, and by the time we had to head back that evening, the roads were pretty rough. Honestly I was scared for my life since my host dad loves to drive super fast, and there were sections of road without guard rails. It was snowing so much that it was just white in all directions- it was one of those “is this really happening to me?” moments. I never imagined I’d be stuck in the Pyr�n�es in a blizzard haha. We made it back after a few hours of traffic jams on snowy slopes, whiteout conditions and me bracing myself in the back seat (kudos to my host dad for getting us back!).

View from our apartment balcony

Dog sled passing by in Font-Romeu

Font-Romeu

This past weekend, we went to a different set of mountains in southern France, the C�vennes. My host dad’s diving club had organized a winter activity (in lieu of diving in the cold!), which was snowshoe hiking, and I’d been invited along. I was really excited because I love hiking but had never tried snowshoeing before! “Snowshoes” in French: “les raquettes” J

We spent Saturday night socializing and having drinks and dinner at our lodge in the village of L’Esp�rou. There were about thirty-some of us in total, so it was a big group. In the morning, we rented the snowshoes from a nearby shop- I wasn’t sure what to expect, and had been envisioning old-fashioned wood and leather snowshoes haha, but it turned out that they were colorful lightweight plastic things that you simply strapped your boots into.

Then, we were off! We drove a little ways to Mont Aigoual, a nearby mountain, parked by the side of the road, and wrestled on our snowshoes. We hiked from the morning into the late afternoon, and it was great exercise with beautiful scenery. It was pretty easy to walk in the snowshoes, and it was nice to chat with everyone as we hiked. We mostly stayed in the woods, and the trees were pretty all coated in white. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a view from the mountain since it was really cloudy, but apparently, usually you can see the sea.

Some of our group stayed at a ski station partway up the mountain, and the rest of us hiked all of the way up. It was really hard going once we emerged from the tree line, since the wind was so strong and the snow was piled up in drifts. You could barely see where you were going because of the cloudiness, and there was ice formed sideways on everything- extreme winter conditions! There’s a weather station at the summit that looks like a castle, so we trekked over to get a look at it before heading back down. We stopped at the station for much-welcome hot chocolate, and then made our way back down to the cars.

I had so much fun, and it was neat getting to have a new experience like that. When I think back on how many unfamiliar things I’ve been lucky enough to try during my time here, and how many memorable experiences I’ve had, I feel amazed and so grateful!

I hope that everyone’s semesters are off to a wonderful start, and I will write again soon.

� bient�t!

~Julia

Location: Montpellier, France