Brief Recap

So as many of you already know, I have been in Montpellier, France for the past 3 months teaching English to French high schoolers. I have recently decided to start a blog about my life in France. But as I have many stories to to tell that have happened already, I am going to do a brief recap of my travels and experiences thus far.

Lets start at the beginning.

Gabby and I departed from Boston on a Tuesday evening. My parents, Gabby's parents, my brothers, Chloe, Matt, and Matt's Parents took us to the airport where Gabs and I got on a 7 hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany.

Upon our arrival in Frankfurt (after figuring out how to get from Frankfurt airport to Frankfurt central train station and storing mass quantities of luggage in some teeny little German lockers), we finally got to eat our first doner kebabs. Do0ner kebabs, for those of you who don't know yet, are amazing pita-type bread things filled with shaved lamb, cheese, various veggies, and delicious oniony white sauce. (See picture).

A few hours and many luggage struggles later we finally arrived at our first couchsurfing hosts, Carola and Beatte, who live in a small town right outside of Frankfurt center. They were so nice and such wonderful hosts to Gabby and I. We went out to a delicious dinner together at this pasta place that had potted herbs right on the table so you could garnish your own dish!

We were only in Frankfurt for 2 days, but we walked around, ate bratwurst and fries, and explored a German open-air market where we tried organic beer and saw a real hops plant!

After that it was off to Paris for a day to drop off the luggage, have a picnic, and explore Montmartre. We did, however, manage to have a very nice duck dinner before I left for a weekend at the beach near Siena, Italy and Gabby left to spend a few days with her friend who lives outside of Amsterdam.We met up again in Amsterdam. We stayed in a cute little hostel right near Centraal Station with a very teeny balcony that overlooked a cute little street. In Amsterdam we spend most of our time enjoying the architecture. We also got to see my friend Leah, the daughter of my mom's college roommate, which was really wonderful! We ate delicious Dutch sweets and drank hot chocolate for breakfast.

Next it was off to Ghent, Belgium and our next couchsurfing host, Lisy. Ghent was such a beautiful city! Kind of like a fairy tale! Lisy's friend Joos studied art history and took us on a walking tour of the city one day telling us all about the different Castles and Monasteries. The tour ended in the enclosed garden of one of the monasteries in which there were dozens of apple and pear trees. And we lolled around on the grass, lazy in the northern sunlight, and picked apples from the trees.








In Ghent we ate: Waffles, which are delicious with nutella, fries with specialsaauce (ketchup, mayo, & onions), we cooked a pasta and steak dinner for Lisy and her roommates, drank the best Belgian beer from this ancient abbey, and had delicious spiced hot chocolate at this adorable cafe with rough wooden tables and a dog named Kaya. We also discovered this cute little cafe one day that served us homemade tomato soup with a brie, honey, & walnut sandwich, and wonderful fresh mint tea!

So then we decided to hitchhike to Paris. Lisy and her friends hitchhike all the time and told us how to do it safely. And it went pretty much perfectly, except for when some woman drove us 20 min in the wrong direction. Luckily, Lisy's boyfriend Alex happened to drive by where we were standing and drove us to a better location. We made it to Paris in 6 hours.


Our first night in Paris was spent in a lovely auberge de jeunesse in the 20th arrondissement (like a hostel, but worse, and surprisingly expensive, note: not reccomended). We were feeling poor and bought Franprix store brand dinner items. Franprix=shall we say store 24? Note: do NOT buy Franprix brand items such as meats, crackers, cheese. You WILL NOT feel any sort of pleasant afterward.

The next day we met up with our incredibly wonderful couchsurfing hosts Saki and Yoann, who after our experiences with them, have become very good friends! They are such generous, good people. This time in Paris we were mostly biding out time since the cheapest train tickets to Montpellier were on Wednesday. So we wandered around the city, visited Edith Piaf's grave at Pere Lachaise cemetery, I ate my first fresh fig which was just incredible.
This is Gabby, Saki, and Yoann in the metro on our way to eat pizza in St. Michel quarter of Paris. Afterwards we went to see Notre Dame at night all lit up and took pictures of ourselves pretending to be Quasimodo. Then we walked along the river, which is my favorite thing to do in Paris, especially at night because the lights all shine on the water making it sparkle and shimmer.

The next morning we woke early. Saki and Yoann took us to the Gare de Lyon. We kissed both their cheeks, thanked them profusely, and boarded the train to begin our next adventure in sunny, southern, Montpellier.