la voiture des animaux

at noon friday, i caught a train from montpellier to nimes. i was only in nimes for about an hour, then i got on a train to clermont ferrand. it was definitely not a high-speed train--it took about 6 hours to get to clermont. the train was set up with little closed boxes that had about 8 seats, and i ended up riding in a box with a little french woman that resembled my grandmother. she spoke absolutely no english, but we managed to strike up an almost decent conversation, which comforted my fear that i had completely forgotten the french language. the woman told me about how beautiful the view from the train was, and she was right.

she kept saying 'regarde, regarde! c'est tres jolie!' anytime she saw something pretty outside her window. even when i was trying to get some sleep. at one point i tried to ask her if there was a car on the train with food (aliments) and she thought i asked for a voiture des animaux (animal car). that was the funniest misunderstanding i've had since i got here.

i got into clermont around 7pm, and alex, who studied in oklahoma last year, picked me up at the station. we went back to his parents' house and ate lots of food, including fresh bread, good cheese and freshly-picked cherries from their garden. alex's dad showed me the garden and explained every plant. he kept complaining that the garden wasn't organized well--his wife did the layout. his parents were really nice, and it was good to have a real shower and bed that night.
we went and met carole and elise, more oklahoma exchange students, and went to this park on a hill that had a view of the entire city.

then alex took us to a bar he really likes where we had grog. it's rum, honey, sugar and maybe something else served extremely hot. it would be good for a sore throat. after walking around a bit, we went back to chez alex. it was great to see everybody after over a year since they left oklahoma (i also saw angelique for about ten seconds). hopefully i'll be seeing more of them over the next month.

the next morning we had a big breakfast of assorted pastries, then alex and i walked around the city a bit. the entire city is surrounded by volcanoes. this is the puy-de-dôme, the biggest one and also the name of the department:

the cathedral in clermont is actually pretty scary looking. the rocks around the area are all really dark, so the outside is all black, extremely gothic. after seeing some of clermont, alex drove me up to vichy. it's 45 minutes or so by car. vichy seems pretty nice. it's something of a resort city, so there are lots of old people vacationing. but it looks like there are young people as well, and there is a night life (even if everything closes at midnight). no class monday because of pentecost. here are some pictures of my dorm room:

i have four chairs in my room, it's madness. i'll post more from vichy soon.