The Weekly Market

Every Saturday morning, vendors from all over Montpellier set up shop under the town's ancient aqueducts for town market. The market is home to the run of the mill market goods such as fruits, veggies and cheeses,

but also whole chickens roasts over open fires, cooking potato halves in its dripping juices, giant pans of fresh paella, and cans of foie gras.

While the market closes at 2, one can easily spend days going from vendor to vendor, eating samples of fresh cheese,

smelling huge assortments of spices,

and drinking freshly made green tea from a strange little man with a mandolin.

The market is crowded with locals, getting their fix of everything they need for the week ahead.

While I was there, I bought a delicious still warm baguette, goat cheese topped with rosemary and bursting with flavor, sweet and salty green olive tapenade and an ear of corn. It was delicious.

I would have gotten more things, but my arms can only carry so much and saying "Je vodrais..." and then mimicking the way you eat food you'd like doesn't get you very far. Being in France, I have also realized how much Spanish I actually know. And also that French is not Spanish. But sometimes it doesn't matter if you can tell a "droit" from a "droites," meandered on home, my fresh baguette sticking out of the top of my bag I felt very French anyway.

ESTIVAL

Every friday night during the summer, Montpieller is host to a wine festival (Or as we culture drained Americans say it, LE ESTIVAL) The festival takes over the center square of the town with stands to get food, wine, antiques, hats, and anything you can think of.

For 4 euro, you get a pretty little wine glass (Which I lost a mere hours later in an unfortunate bar table clearing incident) and three tickets to sample any wine you want.

All of the wines are from local vineyards (which includes Burgundy and Bordeaux) and are served with pride by a vineyard worker.

ESTIVAL is also home to some of the best street food on the planet.

Moules Frites served straight out of the steamer and doused in a healthy serving of onions and delicious broth.

If Moules Frites aren't your style (anyone? anyone?), you can wander through a seemingly endless maze of food vendors selling everything from steaks to paella to falafel.

After indulging in the delicious food and the wine, and more wine, and some more wine, the townspeople, and some drunk americans yelling "I love ESTIVAL" can gather around the town pond, or infront of the large stage to watch a variety of jazz performers.

They also flood the streets to wander through stands selling all sorts of things. In one block, a determined shopper can buy nougat, books from the 1800s and antique china.

The ESITVAL is a great time, a cheap night filled with culture and entertainment, and a mainstay of Monpieller for hopefully years to come.

Tour De France!

Today was one of those "in the right place at the right time" kind of days. Because of convenient timing and perfect placing, I got to see the Tour De France, which came flying through Montpieller, right around the corner from where I live.

We all went down there to watch the race, which involves a lot of waiting and about 30 seconds of a blur of bikes flying by, narrowly avoiding spectators toes.

Before the race starts, a caravan comes through and throws useless items into the crowd. I made off with a bottle of water and an umbrella hat.

After the caravan, people come through in cars and yell at you in French until you get off of the street, then they go around the corner and everyone gets back on the street.

Finally, the dim chopping of a helicopter signifies the coming of the bikes, and they all come at once, flying by, ducked low through the screaming and cheering of the people flooded in the streets.

They're followed by the cars with extra bikes on top and some stragglers.

It was very interesting to watch, for the second that they were there. Now all I have is an umbrella hat and some whiplash.