White Elephant

Since the last 2 holiday parties, Halloween and Thanksgiving, were awesome, we decided to do a White Elephant party.  I put a 10 euro limit on the gifts and planned to have it on a Monday night when everyone could come.  People kept asking me what kind of gifts to get and that is a hard question since people with white elephants can have hit or miss ideas.  And it is always funny to have those really dumb gifts but it is also good to have some awesome gifts too.  

Everyone brought a gift, some were wrapped and some weren’t.  I told them to wrap the presents, but those just ended up being the last gifts to be chosen, since opening a gift is so much more fun.  

I wrote all the names down and put them into a hat.  First up was Jordi.  He’s a goofy guy so it was a good person to start off the game.  He looked around, shook some gifts and finally settled on one.  He opened it and it was a Santa hat that said “Montpellier” on it.  The next gift chosen was a set of shot glasses, and this was also the first gift to be stolen.  It was also the first gift to be stolen 3 times so it was not steerable any more.  Some other gifts consisted of penis pastas, a tea kettle, a pillow, a head massager, candies, more candies.  

I think the group did pretty well wight eh whole game.  The steeling was solid, even though at first, people were reluctant (too polite) to do it.  But once a few people did it, people became ruthless.  Someone stole the Santa hat from Jordi so he was able to pick another gift….he chose another Santa hat.  It was the funniest moment of the night.  

Le Gala

Since October, there has been a French Master’s class in the room above us every day.  They are basically learning the same curriculum as us, but started in February 2013.  They have been more or less a mystery.  One guy, who was confident in his English, named Pierre, was the only person to talk to our class.  But then there we were invited to this “Gala” event that they organized.  This was our chance to get befriend the French students above us!! Before the Gala, all we did was watched them walk by our window and decide who was hot or not.  Sadly, there were not that many “hot” guys.  

The Gala was the Saturday after Thanksgiving! Can you imagine how eventful these few days were.  We did not know how to handle all the socializing that we had to go through!! Not really, I can talk a lot.  

It all started at 10 in the morning!! Bright and early.  But as the French do, when they say 10 they really mean 11 or 12 or 1…really anytime but 10.  There was a scheduled soccer game and rugby match.  I signed up for the soccer game (and was the only girl) but not for the rugby match because I did not want to break every bone in my body.  

I have not really played much soccer since i was 13 so my skill set is pretty low.  But because my parents are sports fanatics I like to think I understand how sports work.  I can understand the basic strategies on how to get a ball from your side to the other goal.  For some reason, my team did not.  We had “positions” but that did not matter.  I was a defender but then no one was up attacking the goal so I felt the need to go up since 5 guys were by our goal.  Then people would go from right to left just because.  People didn’t know what the weak side was and passing was not an option.  We did score…once.  Nevertheless, my team lost, and I looked like a girly girl trying to play.  

To redeem myself I got a game of volleyball going!!!! Can you believe it?!?! VOLLEYBALL!!! I hadn’t played for so long, and it felt so good.  I was not playing with anyone who had a lot of experience, but just jumping around and pretending to be a front row player was amazing.  

Eventually food was BBQed and devoured then it was time for everyone to go home and get ready for the dinner and dancing.  They had busses to bring everyone to and from the venue which was about 20 minutes away.  Everyone looked good dressed up in nice dresses and such.  It is always fun to dress up.  

At this part of the day we had a lot of wine and a 4 course dinner.  At one point in the meal a food fight erupted along with a paper airplane contest.  It was just with people we knew so we weren’t being too annoying.  

After dinner the party really got started: dancing, socializing, drinking, the usual.  I made friends with some of the French guys from the French Master’s program.  One was a French guy from Aix-en-Provence and another was an Italian guy who only spoke Italian and French.  The conversation is always more interesting when you are dancing around a few languages.  

Like I said, the busses were there to take us to and from the venue.  The busses coming home were scheduled for 1 am, 2 am, 3 am and 4 am.  When they had told us this before I was thinking “Who will be there until 4!?”  I was there until 4.  And the bus didn’t actually leave at 4 it left more around 4:45 since we didn’t board very fast.  It was funny though since it was the only bus left, everyone had to fit on it, so people were tripled up on seats, laying on the ground.  It was rumored someone was underneath the bus is the luggage section.  I was not home and in bed until 5:30!!!!! I had woken up that morning at 8 am and then went to bed at 5:30 a

m the next morning.  I woke up Sunday feeling as if I was hit by a train.  My body was exhausted from being up so long and playing soccer and volleyball and dancing a lot.  But the exhaustion was worth it, I had a great time!!! And the French people really were not THAT bad to hang out with.

An Epic Thanksgiving

After our very successful Halloween party, American holidays became an interest to my fellow international classmates.  Therefore, we decided to host a Thanksgiving get together.  How to make it authentic with the resources we had was going to be a challenge but we were up for it.

Challenge #1: Turkey

I don't know what it is, but France has something against turkey…or maybe the whole world except America.  In Australia I could rarely find turkey in the deli meats and the same issue happens here is France.  I don't understand, it is SO good.  But we could not find a whole turkey to bake so we had to improvise by buying rotisserie chickens.  I can explain further in the next challenge more about the food.  Funny enough, on Wednesday we were at the supermarket looking at the rotisserie chicken when we ran into other Americans that were thinking the same thing, substituting chicken for turkey. 

Challenge #2: Kitchen

Our first thought was to book one of the residences communal kitchens.  Some of them have an oven and some are just big rooms that have a stove.  We would have been happy with either…there were none available.  So we put our thinking caps on and tried to think how to make a TON of food with the little kitchenette that we have in our rooms.  Honestly, this was never actually planned so we winged it…VERY SUCCESSFULLY.  Molly and Monica slaved away in Monica's room with 3 toaster ovens and 2 burners.  They managed to make a metric shit ton of mashed potatoes, stuffing, roasted carrots, roasted sweet potatoes, roasted garlic, gravy, and warm up the chickens.  So now you understand why we went for the already cooked chickens.

Challenge #3: Place to hold 30 people

Thanksgiving is also a time of being with the people you care about.  Being a small class of 33 people that see each other everyday we have grown close.  To get the real feel and appreciation for Thanksgiving, I wanted everyone to feel the family vibe by being in the same cozy room.  All the kitchens in the residence were booked, so we had to improvise.  Javier, for some weird reason, has a room that is bigger (not by much) than anyone else's.  He offered to try and fit everyone in it.  I wish I new the actual dimensions but you should get the idea that these rooms are not big.  Miraculously, 5 tables fit into the room and about 30 people fit around those tables.  Amazing…. I think yes. 

Challenge #4: Get people to eat way too much and not be able to move

Having 30 people to feed is always a challenge.  A way to compensate was the delegation of appetizers.  But we needed to make sure that there was enough "traditional" Thanksgiving dishes to have everyone try.  We decided that 6 chickens, 20 sacks of potatoes, 2 big batches of stuffing and 2 bags of carrots would do.  Lets just say, there were a lot of full people and still a lot of food left over.  A lot of food left over. 

In the end, all the challenges were accepted and completed.  We somehow managed to throw another successful American party. Maybe a Christmas one will be next…

Will's Departure

It turns out that going to bed at 4 or 4:30 means you'll be pretty tired at 7am when your alarm goes off. In fact, you just may be so tired that you turn off the alarm and fall asleep for another 55 minutes. For whatever reason, I opened my eyes and saw sun streaming in the window and glanced at the clock and jumped out of bed. As quickly as my brain warmed up enough to do some simple math, I realized that we'd be fine, we just don't have as much time to spare as we originally planned. Thank goodness we gave ourselves that cushion!

After a quick shower and shoving everything in my suitcase (no time for folding!), I said bye to her room and the residences and we loaded up the car and took off for the gas station to top things off. I am glad we had such a small economical car. Gas was expensive! But all of the adventures from the past couple of days made it all worth it 100%. We made one last stop at the boulangerie for a pain au chocolat and a coffee and Kaitlyn got some type of almond pastry that was delicious. I'm really going to miss that place! We navigated our way back to the rental car return at the train station way easier than we thought. Maybe we were just becoming pros at driving in Europe! Doubtful though. On our way to the tram stop, I caught myself walking slowly and dragging my feet, trying everything I could to slow down time and to extend our time together but unfortunately I don't have magic powers. We rode the tram to the airport bus stop, getting us there with time to spare. I hate goodbyes and so does she so we tried to ignore it but some emotion snuck through. I am so lucky to have been able to spend as much time with her as I did, but when saying goodbye, I always wish I had more. We parted ways as the bus pulled up, me hopping on the bus and her catching her tram back to town. Knowing I had to navigate the airport and check in and all of that by myself when I speak just a few more words than I knew at the start of the week kept me preoccupied from being too bummed. I got to the airport a couple of minutes after 10, trying to catch my 11am flight. Yup, I was cutting it close, but in the back of my head somewhere, I wouldn't be all that upset if I missed my flight and had to stay there forever. And I came so close to that actually happening! For whatever reason, the self check-in machines didn't accept my information so I had to go to the counter. I took a look at the line and knew I'd be cutting it close. Add the fact that they were allowing people behind me to cut to the front as they scrambled to get everyone on a 10:40 flight checked in made all of my hope evaporate. I tried explaining my situation to anyone I could but it seemed like nobody spoke any English. It was exhausting and incredibly frustrating. When I FINALLY managed to get in front of the check-in counter, I was told that I'd have to fly standby because I missed the check-in deadline. Thankfully I was able to communicate to Kaitlyn somehow via facebook on my kindle (no idea it was possible before that moment), so at least I knew that I could get some help if I really got in a tight spot. They made me stand off to the side as they let more and more people though. I was sweating more and more as the minutes ticked by,10:53, 10:54, 10:55... Finally, I heard someone read a name that could have been (and ended up being) a very butchered version of my own. Thank God! I grabbed my ticket and ran to the front of the security line and then onward to the gate. They were about to close the door when they saw me running up. I made it, sweaty, stressed, and a weird mixture of relieved and disappointed.

The flight to Paris was pretty painless. Once at Charles du Gaulle, I worked my way to the gate, knowing that I wasn't incredibly pressed for time. And I managed to get a passport stamp! All of that minor frustration and disappointment from the weekend before was for nothing! I spent the time in the waiting area telling Kaitlyn the whole story and thanking her for such an amazing trip. It really was awesome. I boarded the next plane, a gigantic Airbus A-380, supposedly the largest commercial passenger plane in the world, and took off for JFK. About an hour into the flight and halfway through my movie, the flight attendants come around and to take our drink orders. When I take my headphones off, the guy in the window seat strikes up a conversation over the empty (score!) middle seat between us. "Great," I thought. "I'm going to have to talk to this stranger for the next seven hours." While I am a social person, I just prefer to keep to myself on airplanes so I can sleep, read, watch movies, or whatever else I want to do. This guy was going to ruin all of that, but after a little talking, I was glad he did. I really liked him a lot! His name was Fred and he's a few years older than me. He's from Bordeaux and is a pretty talented pastry chef. He was en route to LA to try to make it in America and to try to rekindle an old romance - a pretty gutsy move and I admired him for it. We talked periodically through the flight and got our fair share of movies in too. Chasing the sun, we hit some strong headwinds coming across the Atlantic but we survived.

JFK was a bit of a culture shock. Yeah, I was only going from first world country to first world country, but it was still a little too crazy for my mood at that moment. It was pretty disorganized as we were herded like cattle towards the customs area, and all of the cameras and security measures and dogs and heavily armed security guards could definitely be pretty intimidating for someone seeing it for the first time. It wasn't a very warm welcome. My new friend Fred, despite all of his world traveling, was surprised by how crazy things seemed to be. We were heading towards neighboring gates for our connecting flights so we stuck together, me acting as his translator (for the rare times he couldn't find the proper word or phrase) and guide. I had about forty minutes to catch my connecting flight and I quickly realized it was going to take about that long to get through customs. I approached a TSA officer and, still in France mode, said, "Pardon, monsieur." Yet another person to look at me like I was an alien. I explained my situation and he just pointed me back to where I came from in line. I made it with a couple minutes to spare, but then realized I had to wait for my bag to come through baggage claim, then I had to get in ANOTHER line to deal with another grumpy customs agent. I forgot how crazy all of that was. Maybe I just blocked such unpleasant memories out of my mind. Yup, definitely missed that flight. I started calling around, trying to find a place for Fred and I to stay in NYC, but fortunately we were both able to be placed on the last flights across the country for the evening to our respective destinations. But first, another massive security line. For those of you who will go visit Kaitlyn over the next year and a half, I doubt you'll regret just getting direct flights from the US to Paris. That extra step on the way home a pain in the butt.

Before my final flight home, I stopped at Panda Express to get some high-quality authentic Chinese food. "Bon soir! Je voudrais le Orange Chicken?" "Huh?!" Don't laugh. It will probably happen to you too. That flight was long and annoying just because I was sick of sitting. But I eventually made it back and my sister Quinn picked me up, driving me back home, five thousand and some miles from where I started my day.

Carcassonne

My last full day of this trip! Time was flying by and I was far from ready to go home, but I knew I'd be back so it wasn't the end of the world. We woke up and got ready for our day trip to Carcassone. We met Molly and Kaitlyn's other friend Monica at our arranged meeting spot and led them to our clown car in the parking lot. I wasn't entirely sure how comfortable everyone would be with four people in such a tiny car but we managed. I know I was comfortable and I didn't hear any complaints, so either Kaitlyn has some stoic friends or the Fiat is deceptively roomy. I looked up directions to the highway right before we left and thought I had them memorized, but naturally, that was not the case. We didn't take the most direct route out of town but we finally made it to A9, a big highway that runs along the south of France.

It was about an hour and a half from Montpellier to Carcassone. I LOVE driving on French highways. People are really great about staying in the right lane except when they are passing. They'll move to the left lane to pass, then get right back over. It's the way driving should be! When you move over to pass a car, there is nothing but open highway in front of you in that lane. I love it. The highway took us past rolling hills, farmland, windmills, and castles in the distance. It was really pretty. We found a couple of great radio stations with good dance and pop music. There was even the occasional great belt-your-heart-out sing-a-long song, a staple of all great road trips. 

As we passed signs for Carcassone, the walled city came into view on the horizon. We drove through the new city and parked outside of the old city walls. As a guy who spent a good portion of my younger years wearing plastic knight's armor and carrying around a toy sword, it was pretty awesome to be face to face with a real castle. We crossed the drawbridge and entered the city. The city was pretty touristy, with shops selling all sorts of medieval knickknacks and souvenirs, but I suppose that was to be expected. They need to get the money to preserve the city and the castle somehow. There were no motor vehicles inside of the old city. The cobblestone streets were tiny and lined with shops, cafes, and small museums. I definitely made a few mental notes of places to consider for lunch. Our first stop of the day was the castle. It is walled off from the rest of the city, kind of like one of those Russian nesting dolls. With all of the conflict the castle has seen over the centuries, that design must have served it well. We beat the crowds and made it inside the castle pretty quickly. A lot of the signs and displays were translated into English, and our group of four picked up a pair of handheld audio guides as well. We spent the next hour or so exploring the castle, peeking out over the walls, ducking through small doors, and going up and down plenty of spiral staircases. It is in pretty good shape for being so old and having been through so much. Every now and then we would get whiffs of the delicious cassoulet being made in the restaurants around town. Our hunger for learning was satiated and our hunger for a big bowl of cassoulet took its place. We found a nice outdoor table at a restaurant back in the old city and ordered our food. Oh man, I think I found my new favorite comfort food. Cassoulet is AMAZING. For those of you who haven't had it, it's a really hearty bean casserole with duck and sausage and possibly some other delicious things that I couldn't pick out. Just writing this is making my mouth water for it again.

Needing to burn some calories after such a hearty lunch and having a desire to explore the rest of Carcassone, we walked along the walls surrounding the old city, stopping for more than our fair share of cheesy photos. We completed a full lap, made one last sweep through the old city, stopping at a few shops for souvenirs, and made our way back to the car. Molly and Monica did some research in the days leading up to our trip and found a winery for us to try while we were in the area. It was called Domaine O'Vineyards. The winemaker was an American man and his French wife helped him out. The tasting room was more or less their living room and all things related to production were in the basement. Their home was surrounded by vineyards on top of a hill overlooking the area and Carcassone. Mrs. O'Connell warmed up to us fairly quickly once she learned that Molly, Monica, and Kaitlyn were studying winemaking. I don't remember the specifics of the tastings, but then again I don't really have a knack for that yet. If you're curious, you should ask Kaitlyn. After the tasting, she offered to take us downstairs to show us their operation. Again, to me, it was nothing too memorable. A relative expert like Kaitlyn would probably better be able to tell you if there was anything remarkable about it. At the end of the tour, Mrs. O'Connell told us to feel free to walk around their vineyards, her dog Muse acting as our tour guide. It was the golden hour during our walk, so everything seemed that much more magical and scenic. It was a great way to spend my last afternoon of this trip.

My passengers napped for the first half of the trip, then the second half was more or less a dance party. It definitely got us in the mood to go out. We got home and went our separate ways. Kaitlyn and I wanted to go out to have dinner together, so we got changed and headed into town. The restaurants were understandably busy since it was a Saturday night. There were a ton of people out. We got turned away from a few restaurants and were put on some really long wait lists for others, but hey, I was in France, I couldn't complain too much. We eventually found a French restaurant and were seated at a small table outside. Continuing with the French theme, I ordered foie gras. The taste wasn't bad at all. I actually think I liked the taste. What I didn't like was the texture. It reminded me of catfood, smooth and slimy and not incredibly appetizing (I'm sure the mental image of catfood didn't help my cause). I ate all of it though and am willing to give it a second shot someday. Maybe another style of preparation would be better for me.

Kaitlyn's friends were at a bar in town and we walked across town to meet them after dinner. I was pretty comfortable with them by that point. It was great chatting with them and we all enjoyed a few drinks together, including a flaming drink called the Olympic Torch. As the night went on, people peeled off from the group, going home to bed, but a strong core of us proceeded on to the next bar. I was finally getting to really see what a typical Saturday night in Montpellier is like for Kaitlyn! After our visit to that bar, there were only a few survivors left. We went to what would be our final stop of the night, a bar/club/concert venue called the Rockstore. It was awesome. There were a ton of people there our age and there was a lot of music and dancing. As some of you may know, I'm not much of a dancer, but that night, I gave it my best shot. I think I did ok but I guarantee Kaitlyn would tell a different story.

Four a.m. rolled around and we all stumbled out of the Rockstore, sweaty and laughing. Those of us with bikes grabbed them and we began the long hike/ride back to the residences. I didn't want the night to end. I had such a great time with Kaitlyn and her friends and I could have kept going for a couple more hours no matter what time the clock said. We were laughing the whole way home then said our goodbyes and parted ways to collapse in our own beds.

All Saint's Day (Will's Perspective)

 If the next morning was any clue, I think the verdict was the alcohol did me in the night before, not my jetlag (I am still baffled as to how I completely dodged the wrath of a nine hour time change). However, I've definitely felt worse before and there was no time to waste moping around so I sucked it up and we started our day. A couple glasses of water, breakfast, and a shower made me feel like a new person. It was then time to get the car to start our adventures!

Since it was All Saints Day, pretty much everything around was closed so the streets were pretty quiet as we walked through town on the way to get our car from the pick up location at Montpellier's train station. While it didn't occur to me at that point, it was probably a good thing that everyone was at home enjoying the holiday instead of being out and about so my first experience driving in Europe wouldn't be quite as chaotic. We got to the train station and went into the car rental office. When signing the forms, the woman asked us if we wanted to get full insurance for an extra forty euros. Kaitlyn and I looked at each other, had an entire conversation with our eyes in about a second and a half, and at the same time, turned back to the woman and said "yes!" If you'd seen the width of some of the roads in town, you would have done the same. We signed the forms and and were given the keys to a Fiat 500. Wandering through the parking lot, trying to find our car, we both noticed a bright red Fiat about twenty parking spaces away surrounded by a bunch of cars of more subtle colors. We were both stoked when I pressed the lock button and the little red car beeped and flashed its lights. It was so perfect and so European and so fun. It definitely wasn't the manliest car around, but hey, when in Rome (or Montpellier).

Kaitlyn (falsely) accuses me of being a bad driver, but even so, I did 90% of the driving for the week. I think she just wanted to not be liable in any way in case something happened, so she could say "Told you so" if we lost a mirror or something on an impossibly narrow road. It was probably better that we did it that way anyway because Kaitlyn had a phone with working GPS. We took a very roundabout way back to the residences (VERY roundabout) but we got there in one piece, no dents or scratches anywhere. I think road signs are pretty intuitive no matter where you are, so even though they are very different from ours for the most part, I didn't have nearly as much confusion as I expected. Also, did you know that the French use stop signs that are identical to our own that even say "Stop?" Apparently a lot of countries do that. I had no idea. I'm obviously not very observant.

Once back at the residences, we showed and packed a bag and hit the road with les gorges de l'Herault, a recreational area about 40 minutes away. Twenty five minutes of the drive was pretty standard highway driving, albeit with the occasional French farmhouse and vineyard here and there scattered among the countryside. The next fifteen minutes or so were on small country roads through the farm fields, passing through a couple of tiny towns with even smaller roads. Everything was pretty beautiful despite the cloudy weather. We finally found l'Herault, the river that Montpellier's surrounding area is named after (or maybe the other way around. What do I know? I'm just a tourist!) and we followed it upstream into the mountains. We passed le Pont du Diable, a really old stone bridge (built in the tenth or eleventh century) that crosses the gorge and eventually found our first planned stop of the day, la Grotte de Clamouse. It's a massive cave structure discovered in the 1940s and has on of the largest caves in the world that is open to the public. The tour may have been even more memorable than the caves themselves. First of all, they were celebrating Halloween that day at the cave, so there were a ton of young kids dressed in costume on the tour with us. A bunch of their parents were dressed up too, including one guy in a clown costume that freaked us out because he'd always be standing right behind us whenever we turned around in the dark caves. Our tour guide was dressed as a vampire. It was all pretty cheesy but the cute kids in costume made it worth it. We felt left out dressed in normal clothes! Second, it was about half tour, half performance. At one point a man played a guitar and sang a song about the caves, and farther along, there was a light show set to music in the largest cavern. Third, though we had a handheld audio guide in English, we were sharing it and forgot to use it in some rooms, leaving us very entertained but not much wiser as to the cave's formation and history.

Our next stop was up the road a few kilometers. The road clung to the side of the gorge, l'Herault swirling over boulders and crashing into pools a couple hundred feet below. We knew we were going to the town of Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert and it was a UNICEF location but neither of us really knew what to expect. It was perfect. It was this tiny town tucked in a nook in the mountains, verdant cliffs and rocky outcroppings towering overhead. The town looks like it hasn't changed a bit in hundreds of years. We parked and continued on foot to the town square. There is a massive oak tree in the middle of the square. Underneath the tree are a couple dozen tables belonging to the cafes and restaurants that line the square. One side of the square has the church and monastery that that town was built around so many years ago (early 800s!). With a population of a little more than 200 people, walking from one end of town to the other would have taken just a few minutes if everything wasn't so beautiful and perfect. Our photo breaks and wandering in awe slowed us down, but we had nowhere else to be so we were able to enjoy our time there.

 Fun fact: just a few months earlier, Kaitlyn and I were in New York City and we spent a rainy day wandering the Cloisters museum at the far north end of Manhattan. Unbeknownst to us at the time, we saw part of the monastery from Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert that day and would see the original source four and a half months later.

We were starting to get hungry so we revisited the town square, where we found a creperie that looked pretty delicious. My new love of goat cheese from earlier in the week was not a fluke, as I thoroughly enjoyed Kaitlyn's chevre and honey and nut crepe. It was dark as could be by the time we left town but we were well-fed and thoroughly satisfied with our day as we drove back the way we came, cruising along those tiny roads back to the highway, French pop songs on the radio. When we got back to Montpellier, Molly had us over for tea so we could plan the next day's trip to Carcassone. Once we agreed on a meeting time and place, Kaitlyn and I went back to her room where we just hung out for the rest of the night, watching the movie Bottle Shock before falling asleep.

Halloween

Halloween morning was appropriately chilly and overcast. It felt like the Halloweens that I was used to growing up, not the warm sunny Halloweens that I've struggled to become accustomed to since moving out to California six years ago. Kaitlyn had a morning of classes and study sessions and I had plenty of work of my own, planning our next couple of days of day trips. The morning passed quickly and before I knew it, Kaitlyn and her friend Molly were knocking on the door. The plan was to go downtown to find some Halloween costumes and to pick up party supplies. As North Americans, we took it upon ourselves to show the rest of the world what our Halloweens are like. I was even more excited to see (and taste) the traditions from the rest of her class. The idea for the party was everybody would bring a food and/or drink from their home country.

We hopped on a bus downtown to find a costume store we heard rumors about the previous day. We didn't know the name or exactly where it was, so it took a bit of wandering before we found it. The wanderings took us past some delicious sandwiches that Kaitlyn couldn't pass up on, so nobody was complaining. We finally found the costume store. It looked like any other small costume store you'd find in America, except nobody spoke any English. It seemed like everyone in Montpellier who cared about Halloween was in that store, because outside there were no signs of the holiday, but inside, there were witches, vampires, Frankensteins, doctors, cats, and whatever else you could imagine. Knowing I had a red and white checkered shirt and a pair of blue jeans in my luggage, I decided I was going to be a cowboy. I bought a cheap cowboy hat and was done with it. Molly bought a broom and a witch's hat for her costume, then Kaitlyn was torn between being a viking and a pirate. A viking woman probably would have shaken her head in disgust at Kaitlyn's wardrobe so it was a pirate's life for her. We got some more supplies at the 2 Euro store, then were off to buy our contributions to the night's beverages. Since Jack Daniels is probably one of the more American drinks out there, we got a few bottles with the intent of making Kentucky mules, which are Moscow Mules but with bourbon instead of vodka. Pretty tasty! I also picked up a small case of cheap beer so we could show the group how to shotgun beers, another bit of American culture for better or for worse.

American Shot Gun

Once back at the residences, we prepared the Moscow Mules then started getting ready. Soon enough the pirate and her cowboy were on their way to the first meeting area at the front of the residences, arms full of our pumpkin, reeses, cups, and other odds and ends. We met a few of her friends on the balcony outside of her friend Javier's room and set up our station, with Kaitlyn finally taking a knife to the pumpkin to make a Jack-o-Lantern. The balcony was the perfect spot for the first location since that would be where we'd all organize, meaning we'd have a great vantage point to see all of the costumes on their way to the party. We ended up having a Viking at the party after all, with Kaitlyn's Swedish friend Tobias playing the part. There were ghosts, devils, witches, doors (Kaitlyn's friend Dor taped a drawing of a door to his chest), characters from the Big Bang Theory, and a bunch of others. Just as good as the costumes were all of the treats! I tried so many different snacks and drinks. All of them were pretty good (except for this drink called Raki, which had an anise flavor that I'm not crazy about). Some of the more memorable ones were a peppery drink from India, sangria, chicken wings, and seafood-y snacks from Sweden.

I got a chance to meet a bunch of Kaitlyn's classmates who I hadn't met yet earlier in the week, then I was also able to talk more with the ones who I met in loud bars or in passing while walking separate ways. Everyone was so awesome. As you can imagine, with all of that alcohol from all around the world, the talking and the laughing got louder and louder as the night progressed. There was some ABBA playing courtesy of Sweden, more than a few beers being shotgunned, and some dancing. It's probably for the best that the residences were mostly empty of other students because we ended up having quite a party on our hands. 

As time went on, the party started to die down as all of that food made people sleepy. My jetlag or my round-the-world alcohol tasting finally caught up to me  (you be the judge) and I was ready for bed. The party was amazing. It may have been the highlight of the week. Everyone seemed to have a great time, but with such a great group, how could they not? People thanked Kaitlyn for organizing it. While she did a great job, we both agree that the party was such a huge success thanks to everyone's participation and contributions. I wasn't sure what to expect at the start of the day, but by the end, I was positive that this was the best Halloween of my life.