I have arrived.

Lundi, 21 Septembre

I have arrived. The flights were lovely, as were my companions. As I "pretzled" my way into some sort of sleep on the plane, I said to my fellow traveller that I was thankful I had had years of yoga. I arrived on Sunday (yesterday) and managed to walk all afternoon with my hostess, Jacqueline, through much of the old part of Montpellier. (My school. Ecole Klesse, arranged for my room and board with her. She is 77, a retired spa owner, and a lovely cook, who speaks little-to-no English, so I am really getting an immersion experience.) 

This morning was my first French class. As it turns out, Jens, a young man from Berlin, and myself, are the only two students in our class. Our teacher is very nice, and, after having been an English teacher myself for several years, it is interesting to sit on the other side of the desk and to experience learning a language being taught in that language — only French is spoken in the classroom.

The city is very beautiful (as future photos will attest), and I love the sunny, blue Mediterranean skies. As I sat on the large open plaza, eating my lunch — a galette and a Panache ("pan-ah-shay" — 1/2 lemonade, 1/2 beer), a guitarist was serenading everyone with beautiful classical music, and I felt that all was truly perfection.

It is still very early days (well, evening here, actually) and I'm still pretty exhausted. I've had some moments of frustration, having brought the wrong charger for my camera battery and the wrong electrical adaptor, thus costing me $49 Euro at FNAC this afternoon!! Ugh. But, as they say, c'est la vie. It's all part of the journey. Now to bed and, hopefully, more energetic days (or at least the energy required to match my activities). Good night.