What has Pam been doing Part 2

Well in the earlier blog I told you about the excursions. Now I will try and give a precis of life in Montpellier!
French Lessons!
Believe it or not our 4 weeks of French Lessons finish in 2 days time!!!! We have now been in Montpellier for 5 weeks and have had 4 weeks of lessons. French Lessons have of course dominated our time these last 4 weeks. As we said early on, Alan has found the total immersion incredibly challenging and tiring, but he has improved! He can recognise a lot more words and can write some simple sentences - and he now knows more than the word MANGER!!!!!!!! (to eat for those who can't speak French). However his listening skills have taken a battering and he feels like he has gone backwards. We are working on this. I (Pam) have also found the classes very challenging, but also very rewarding. To have 3 hours of continuous French is really great for improving the listening, comprehension, pronounciation and grammatical skills as well as the vocabulary. But it does help if you have a basis to work from, like I did. The classes are conducted all in French - the instructions, questions, answers and explanations, written exercises, etc. and they consist of a

• lesson in grammar - usually a tense, but also things like the use of pronouns (personal & objective) and when, where and how to substitute them, variations on the use of negatives and conditional negatives, plus various exercises to practise their use,
• lesson on vocabulary, usually in the context of a theme relevant to daily life like the weather, shopping for food or clothes, cleaning the house, the parts of the face and body, giving and taking directions (I have found these very useful) etc. with exercises to practise using them
• lesson on comprehension - usually listening to a song or story on cd or watching a French tv show and answering questions on what we have heard. For example we watched a French tv magazine segment on piracy in the seas around North Africa. We were first given a sheet full of questions about the segment and we had to answer them - and you needed to listen - watching it alone would not answer the questions Then we were given a sheet with the script on it but it had all the verbs replaced by blanks and we had to listen and identify the verb that was spoken and the tense that was used.
• lesson on pronunciation and putting all the rest together - for example working in pairs or small groups to prepare a dialogue or questions for the rest of the class and then presenting it and discussing the answers - all in French.

The first week my class was not very lively, but the 2nd and 3rd weeks I had a fantastic teacher and group of students, so learnt a lot and enjoyed it tremendously. Photo of this group attached. The teacher, Carole, is the young lady with the long hair in the middle of the back row. Ezequiel (red jumper) and Risa (standing 2nd from left) whom you have read about in the excursion blog are there. The rest of the class are Henri, an American, Risa, Melanie from Greenland (her father is French & her mother from Greenland), Mohammed from Switzerland via Algeria, Carole, Marc from Austria, Jan from Czechoslovakia, Ezequiel, & seated Ivan from Switzerland, myself and Michael also from the USA! As you can see a group of very diverse nationalities ranging in age from 20 (Marc) to 68 (Michael). It was also a mixed level of French, but also all past total beginner. We had a lot of fun with the skits and dialogues because Henri, Ezequiel, Ivan, Mohammed, Risa and myself would all get into character and really try to push our French. We had lots of fun pretending to be parents forbidding our daughter to leave the house dressed in gothic clothing, or searching for a new housemate amongst our class members or inviting people to a dinner party and then apologising for not coming or coming late due to a car accident or other such excuse. (I was the hostess, not the late arrivee - please note!!!) At the start of this week I decided to change classes and try the Intermediate level - a whole level harder. I said in an earlier blog at the start of the classes that this would be my aim, so I discussed the change with Carole & Alan the week before and Alan was very supportive and Carole said to give it a try as I only had the one week left. She was very accurate in her assessment - that I would find it a lot harder, but I that I would cope - believe me only just! The classes have the same structure, but they move along a lot faster and there is an assumption of knowing the easier tenses and having a much larger vocabulary base. It has pushed me and I am probably equal worst in the class with a Norwegian guy called Thor (pronounced Tor) but we are getting through the exercises and discussion and it is improving my vocab very quickly. It is also helping to reinforce the tenses I had learnt with Carole, because I have to use them more.
In 4 weeks I have been taught 7 or 8 different tenses, plus several other grammatical rules, plus an believable amount of vocab. Now I just have to absorb it all!
As stated in several other blogs, almost all the shopkeepers, plus our landlord and even people in the street have been very supportive. I have found that if after the obligatory Bon jour (every body greets you with Bon Jour) I say to them "I speak a little French" and "I need to practice" they will always respond in French, are willing to repeat what they said and even to correct me nicely if I use a word incorrectly. Montpellier, being a university town and also a hub of French language schools, has made the locals very tolerant and supportive of students. I am having some great conversations with the shopkeepers and have been helping Alan out when he needs to find out something.
I have also bought a very good French Grammar exercise book and also a few bi lingual novels (one page in France and the opposite page in English) to occupy myself and keep the learning reinforced, now I am not attending lessons. There are a couple of excellent bookshops here in Montpellier, which I am enjoying. I am also watching French tv in the evening (when not doing the blog) and during breakfast; and I am noticing I am picking up and understanding a lot more. Alan is particularly enjoying Midsummer Murders which is overdubbed very well in French. It is strange to see John Nettles speaking French!!! However knowing the stories, helps in catching what they are saying. A bit of fun abut also useful.
Our landlords, Solveig & Jean Robert, are also very supportive and Solveig only corresponds with me (via email) in French now and will only talk English when it is too difficult for either of us!
Other New Friends
I have also made friends from the school with a lovely Chinese lady, Jane, who grew up in England from the age of 5 but who married a German, so now lives in Germany. She speaks fluent English & German, a tiny bit of Cantonese and reasonable French. Photo attached. She works in Germany for Lufthansa customer service (hence her French lessons, paid for by Lufthansa) while her husband, an ex pilot for Lufthansa, now works in their huge plant in Toulouse, southern France, training new pilots. They only get to see each other at weekends, but they are used to that from his flying days. Both Jane & Ezequial have offered to show us around their towns if we visit Germany, so we are thinking that a short visit there might be added to our agenda at some point.
The other couple that we became friendly with were a middle aged Dutch couple called Paul and Phyllis, who were very friendly and chatty. He spoke excellent French and she spoke very good French. Although they lived and worked in Holland, they own a small winery in Burgundy, France and they also take numerous short holidays to Italy because they love the country and the wine there. We will be keeping in touch with them and hope to catch up with them when we are in the Loire Valley or in Italy. I had several good chats with them on the school excursions or over coffee after class.

Living in Montpellier
Well after our initial ravings, reality has set in and we can still say that Montpellier is a fantastic town and highly recommended if you are ever visiting France or even northern Spain (it is only 4 hours by car from Barcelona on the autoroute).
Positives
Well we have already spoken at length about the architecture, town planning and open space and how good it is in the historic town centre. In the outer suburbs it is pretty poor and boring, but in the town centre and inner suburbs, they have really thought about the impacts of new buildings, traffic, tourists and tourism, etc and made an excellent job of it all.
Traffic Control
for those who know Greg Noakes - ask him about traffic bollards! For those who don't, Montpellier, blocks off a lot of its streets with electronic bollards that are controlled by a remote control issued to residents and shopkeepers in the historic centre who qualify for one. This means that a lot of streets have limited traffic and are very easy to walk along. It is fun to watch them suddenly descend silently into the road so that a car can pass and then rise up again! Most other bollards are pebbly stone and many have been decorated with murals etc which is nice - think bollards at the Geelong sea front only shorter!
The other good point about traffic control is that all the big car parks are underground. Locals can and do park on the footpaths or streets, but everyone else parks in underground car parks that all have traffic lights controlling their exit. It makes the streets and buildings far more attractive (no multistorey parking to be seen!) and also makes the streets easier to navigate. Signage to locate the parking areas is very good and there are even portable city maps that have them clearly marked.
Public Transport
This is also good and well organised. They have two trams - lines 1 & 2. One is Blue and the trams are painted in plain blue, but the other is called the red line and all the trams are painted in bright red, orange and green flowers - they look great. The trams are very smooth and quiet, consist of several carriages that you can walk between and hold a lot of people. The buses are numerous and cover just about every area of the city. We have a couple just across the road from us.
Ticketing is easy and not expensive. On buses you can buy the ticket at various places or on the bus. You can also buy multi trip and seasonal passes. We have just purchased 10 trip cards which are easier and cheaper to use. Each trip whether on a single or multi ticket lasts an hour, so you can in fact do several trips which all count as one if you have to change buses or do what Alan did the other day - a return shopping trip to Lattes in an hour. Each individual ticket (single trip) costs 1 euro 3o cents (about $2.00). For the trams, it is the same price but you have to buy the tickets from the machines located at every stop. They are very easy to operate and you can buy several tickets in one transaction. Both tram and bus tickets have to be validated on the actual vehicle, but everybody seems to support public transport and you don't seem to see many fare evaders.
The other great thing about the tram routes is that they have made every stop a disability friendly stop (like the new stops in Melbourne), but the trams are much lower to the ground anyway. Also, within the city and inner suburbs, the tram routes are like pedestrian malls with trams through them, so you can walk or cycle on these routes with out worrying about cars - you just have to look out for the trams. The trams run quite frequently and to time!!!!
We were told in class that Montpellier used to be like a lot other European cities with an extensive tram network, which they completely dug up in the 1960's when they were "modernising" the city. Now they have brought these two lines back and everyone loves them. In fact they are planning to introduce a third line to the beach (about 10kms away) in 2-3 years time. "Progress" is an interesting thing.
Tromp L'Oeils
Several older buildings in Montpellier have been painted with most amazing tromp l'oeils. Photos attached. They do not appear to get grraffitti on them and they make a far more interesting building than a blank wall! You will notice in the first 2 pictures the reflections of a church. I have included a photo of the church for your interest. See if you can decide if the reflections are genuine or part or part of the tromp l'oeil. The last picture is a completely different building several streets away.




















Food & Shopping
We are living in the geographical equivalent of Richmond, Fitzroy, Carlton or Kensington (for Melbournites). We are very close to the Arab or Islamic quarter, so we get fabulous meat and groceries at very good prices. Alan has already posted a blog outlining his adventures out to Lattes and the excellent cheap supermarket shopping. But I am enjoying the regular market under our arceaux (aqueduct) every Tuesday and Saturday morning - much more fun and interesting! There is also the most amazing fish shop in the Islamic quarter (the suburb is called Gambetta) which has its own small swimming pool to keep the crayfish and other crustaceans, so that you can buy it genuinely fresh! It also has an excellent array of fresh fish and we are looking forward to trying some.
There are also the most fabulous cheese shops all over town (I have a favourite one) with the most amazing array of cheeses to try. I was told on the cheese excursion (see earlier blog) that France makes between 350-400 different cheeses. We still have a lot to try! Also they sell cheese from cow, goat and sheeps milk. The goats cheese here is exquisite. As is the roquefort - as Roquefort is not that far from Montpellier it is on our aganda to visit!
Alan has been enjoying comparing the differences between French and Australian supermarkets. In summary, French supermarket prices vary depending on how close you are to town. There are few large supermarkets in town itself, and most of those that are, are more like licensed agents rather than the actual chain. They are more like IGA supermarkets than Coles or Safeway. The actual supermarkets are more like American hypermarkets (absolutely enormous) and they are all located in the outer suburbs. The french value their fresh food produce very highly so even the supermarkets stock a fabulous range of cheeses, fresh (not prepacked) meats and fish and good free range eggs and organic veges. Also wine is of course a staple part of the diet, so all the supermarkets have the wine on the open shelves, not in a separate "bottle shop".
Vegetables here are good but we are noticing some differences. The range of many vegetables is not as good, esp swedes, pumpkins, turnips and grean beans etc (although they do have a lot of potato varieties), but they do have lots of different onions, shallots, mushrooms etc and also other vegetables that we only see as specialities. At present it is strawberry and asparagus season and they are numerous, very fresh and excellent quality. None of the vegetables are cheap!!! Our food is definitely cheaper.
Meat is also dear, but it is much more fun to buy! Lamb is very popular and often pre cut into chops or legs etc, but beef in particular (but also lamb) is often just in huge slabs in the window or teh large fridge and they will cut the portion or cut that you want to order. They will also vacuum seal it when you buy it or in the other extreme, just wrap it in a piece of paper (like our butchers 40 years ago!!) Most of the butchers operate the kosher or halal system and don't handle the money if they are handling the meat.

Negatives
Dog Poo
The French love their dogs. In class we did an exercise on a newspaper report that said there are more domestic animals than people in Montpellier and that the question of who gets the dog(s) in a divorce is a BIG issue! We see dogs everywhere - all well controlled and behaved, but they are allowed in restaurants, on public transport (I think) and to poo on the pavement!. It is a real walking hazard! We have seen the trucks come every morning to wash down the pavements and public spaces or else it would be a health hazard as well. The only town we have seen that controls this is Carcassonne.
Traffic congestion
We did rave about the parking etc but Montpellier, Nimes and other large towns do experience peak hours and associated traffic congestion. Friday afternoons are a particularly bad time to travel by car. It took Jane's husband 5 hours to travel 250km from Toulouse to Montpellier one Friday afternoon because of the peak hour / weekend traffic!
Water
This is still terrible - very mineralised and hard. It leaves a horrible scum on top of the water if you just take it from the tap and it has made my hair very dry and not very manageable, but we have found very cheap bottled water in 5 litre containers from the Lattes supermarket, so we are now managing. My younger brother, a civil engineer who specialises in water, offered to come and take samples to analyse it and provide a solution - the cost his airfares and accommodation - we are living happily with bottled water thanks!
Rubbish
This is not really a negative, but more an observation. In the town centre and inner suburbs like Les Arceaux (where we live), most people do not have individual rubbish bins. There are big and small skips and recycling bins (clearly labelled) placed at various intervals along the streets and people just come along and put their rubbish bags from their house into the skips. The council comes along and empties them about 2 or 3 times a week. It took us a few days to sort all this out, but it seems to work out okay. Fortunately we have some skips close enough to us to be handy but not too close to be smelly or an eyesore! We are told people can have their individual bins, but they have to purchase them and that sort of system wouldn't work in the narrow streets wherer houses don't have gardens etc to store them.

I think that's enough for now. Hopefully this has given you a bit more insight into life here in the south of France! Questions and comments gratefully received.