Nîmes!

All of the inbounds and rebounds at our integration weekend at Vescemont. This is gonna be a good year <3

 Things here are happening so fast! It's so hard to write about everything that's happened, because every day, I seem to learn and see so much! When I think I've seen everything in this city, I find something else, I taste something else, I meet someone else... It's all so exciting! I can tell this is going to be a really great year.

Last weekend, I traveled on a TGV (a really really FAST train- 300 km/hour) to Nîmes, a city in the south of France. It is really well-known for its Roman architecture. I even saw an arena! It looks just like the Colosseum in Rome, really. It's crazy- I never knew there were other arenas like that! We went this weekend for 2 reasons: First, this weekend was the "Feria des Vendanges". This marks the end of the BULL FIGHTING season, and it's a huge three day festival. Throughout the whole city, there is this huge party, with music of every kind, tents with all types of food, and, of course, bulls. Saturday night, Véronique, Colombine (my host sister who is in college in Nîmes), Aurélien (Colombine's boyfriend), and I watched bulls run through the streets. They put up these fences, and the horses surround the bull to make sure the bull doesn't get away. Then, when the bull comes out of the trailer, a bunch of guys chase the bull down the street! It is such an interesting tradition! We also watched a competition where young men will try to grab the bull's horns for money. It was so exciting! The guys would jump over the fence to escape the bull, and sometimes the bull would get out of the center ring! It was so funny watching the officials try to lour the bull into the center.

A bunch of people wearing authentic regional costumes! The stilts were so the shepherds could watch over their sheep!

The second reason why we went to Nîmes this weekend was the "Journées du Patrimoine". This is a special weekend, throughout the whole country, where people can get into museums and other historical sites for free. It's a really great concept! We took a day trip to Arles on Saturday to visit the museums. There was another Roman arena there too!

An old gravestone! There were at least a hundred like this at the museum. They were all found in the same old cemetery!

A marble coffin! There were also a bunch of these, too! They were all so perfectly preserved- I couldn't believe it!

Roman Mosaics!

AQUEDUCTS! It was so neat to see these in person. They were things we talked about a lot in history class... but I had never actually seen them!

The streets were so adorable, too! The divot in the middle is so that water can flow out of the street!

The arena in Arles

The Rhone River! It was so pretty!

We had a REALLY AWESOME lunch on Sunday, too! It was calamari, with a really yummy salad. It tasted really great! I have only had calamari fried before. If you like that, you will like this at least eighty times better. I LOVE LOVE LOVED it! Then, for dessert, we had strawberries with whipped cream. This wasn't ordinary whipped cream. This was homemade whipped cream we bought at the market that morning. It was most certainly a whipped cream that put all whipped creams you THOUGHT were good in the dust. SO GOOD.

Whew, I have to go do my homework and be a good student and all that jazz. I'm still in CLA for another week and a half. After that, I begin my high school year! I am so nervous!
Here are a couple more quick things:
~Yes, peanut butter does exist here. It's not Jiff... but yes, It exists.
~Euro coins have different designs on the back, based on what country they're from! Colombine collects them like some people in the US collect quarters!
~It's true: clothes here are REALLY expensive.
~Their cups of coffee are really tiny, but the caffeine content is the same as our's.
~Always keep both hands on the table while eating your dinner!

And now... here's a song from the sixties that has been stuck in my head all day:

Bonne journée! :)