I just got back from Les Estivales, which is basically like a giant party for all of Montpellier. L'Esplanade, a long, narrow park that is right downtown (le centre-ville = downtown minus all the skyscrapers) is always filled with vendors and performers, but at Les Estivales it is filled to capacity. Les Estivales happens every Friday, but today was the last one, so it went all out.

Highlights of the evening are wine tastings (and you get to keep the glass!) and crepes. I finally fulfilled my dream and got a Gran Marnier which turned out to be so not worth it. The first half was delicious, but the last half was like eating straight up alcohol - not so good.

After walking around tiny French streets, I finally feel like I'm in France, while before it felt more like a vacation where everyone just happened to speak French. I think this will change even more later when the actual French students get here, because so far, the entire university is populated by American exchange students.

Tomorrow we are finally going to the beach. Even though Montpellier is technically "on the Mediterranian" it's about 10 km to get to the coast. While this wouldn't be a problem at home, not having a car really sucks, especially since it's about a 20 minute walk from the closest bus station to the beach. This time we're getting a fancy bus as part of the program, but I'm not holding out hope for anything like this ever again. But tomorrow, yay!!