Easter

Hello all.
Yes it has been a long time since I've written. I'm sorry. I have no excuse except that I work all the time and I have a very busy life here in the south of France. Just to give you an idea of what I have been up to:

After I got back from my February vacations to Malta, London, and Dublin, I returned to Montpellier for the month of March. I worked a little, playing English games with my kids such as scategories, which they loved and begged me to play two weeks in a row, survivor, in which they each had to make a speech as to why they should stay on the Island and then we voted someone off at the end of class, and the classic hangman.

This past month also the the opening of the new Lidl grocery store. Lidl is a German grocery store that offers all the same basics as the normal grocery store for centimes. For example, a kilo of pasta (about 2.2 pounds) is only 63 cents. Pasta sauce is 35-45 cents, 6 slices of ham a mere 2 euros, foie gras for 4 euros. I love Lidl. It has given me much more money to spend on traveling.

Last week my friend Wes and I went on a day trip to Pezenas, a small town about an hour from Montpellier. We walked around the little streets and peeked in all the courtyards which Pezenas was supposedly famous for. We also saw some hotel particuliers which are old house/palace places, the coolest one we saw was Hotel Lacoste. Louis XIV stayed there when he passed through Pezenas, and there was a very cool art exhibition going on there as well.

I have also booked my April vacation, which starts this coming Friday. Yes, another vacation for the French. This time I will head off to Ibiza with Alissa for a few days and hopefully see Anais who is doing an internship in Mallorca. Then after a few days in London for some grad school interviews, I will meet Alissa and Katie in Graz, Austria where we will visit our friend Susanna. From there we will head to Prague and Vienna. We will fly out of Bratislava, spend one day in Brussels and then head back to Montpellier. Once back in Montpellier I have a week left of my contract, which means about 2-3 days of work. Then I will head out on the road once more.

In May I will spent a few days in Paris before I fly to Tel Aviv to meet up with Gabby! It has been 6 months since I've seen her and I am so excited! Chloe will be there too doing birthright and I could not have asked for anything more than to be in Israel with these two girls! Gabby and I will travel around Israel and Sinai for about three weeks before flying to Kos, one of the Greek Islands near Turkey. We will travel around there for about a week. Then its off to two days in Milan, and finally flying back to Girona, Spain to get back for a summer in Montpellier.

In more recent news, Happy Pesach and Happy Easter! For Passover in Montpellier a few friends and I went to a seder hosted by the Liberal Jewish Community here. They were wonderful! All the Jewish mothers were concerned that we had enough to eat, passing us parsely when we had none to dip; The Jewish men were concerned that we had enough wine and that our cups were never empty. We met some wonderful people and exchanged contact information as well. Pictures to be posted soon on facebook!

Yesterday for Easter my friend Katie hosted a brunch, all of our friends came and we ate quiche, asparagus, scrambled eggs, frittata, pasta salad with cherry tomatoes and zucchini, ham, fruit salad, etc. We had a mini easter egg hunt and beer hunt. And we all wore colorful dresses, w nice change for France which prides itself on its shades of black. Later that same day we all gathered at our friends' Tom and Katie's for a barbeque. There we ate chicken, cheeseburgers, grilled veggies, french fries, baked potatoes, etc. It was delicious and got me excited for summer when bbqs will be frequent.

Today is Monday and France is closed. Yes, I know Easter was on a Sunday, but apparently one day for a holiday is never enough and we have Monday off as well. Life in France.

So I will try to update more frequently and keep you all updated on my travels/life in France. As always, photos will be posted soon on facebook!

Bisous de Montpellier