Aimless Wandering in the French Countryside

I don't think I've mentioned it, because I've been rubbish at maintaining this blog (more on that later), but I have actually been outside Montpellier several times during the past few months. My host mom really likes the countryside, so I've seen a lot of it. My friend really wanted me to go to Marseilles, but I was taught to say no to peer pressure, so I didn't.
There's not going to be a lot of commentary here, because for once I don't have much to say.

A bunch of the traveling we did was because of my host sister, who is in the process of looking at colleges. She wants to be an artist, and there are a surprising number of art schools within about a two-hour radius of Montpellier. She and my host mom went to take a look at a bunch of them, and brought me along for the ride, which meant I got to stand around awkwardly in in the middle of some really col art classrooms. "Yes, this is my daughter. She's here for the open house. And this is the American kid who follows us around."

This is Carcassonne, a small medieval town about an hour-or-so from Montpellier, with a nice art school and a big castle.

The outside was very majestic and dramatic, and the inside was lined with tourist shops.
Just like most castles, really.

Le stormtrooper- a common sight in rural France.

One of the other art schools we visited was located in Sete, a small port town that's apparently a very popular tourist destination.
But not on the day we visited, because it was cold and rainy.

The city is built on a hill, and the art school was in this really interesting old building at the top of the hill, with lots of stained glass and a big garden in front.

Sete apparently has a very prominent artistic community, and there was graffiti and cool street art all over town.










For Easter (Pac in French) we went to visit my host mom's oldest daughter, who lives with her son and a whole bunch of pets in a tiny village up in the mountains. The mountains are located in the middle of southern France, and are called Massif Central, which either means "Big Middle-ness" or "Middle Big-ness". Either way, someone clearly put a lot of thought into that name.  The drive up was all narrow, twisting roads with sheer drops on the side. It was great.

We didn't do much for Easter. We had lunch (pork, which is apparently traditional. Is it traditional for Easter in the US too? I don't actually know) and then we went for a walk.

That's not, in fact, a giant cotton ball with legs. That is a rabbit on a leash.

This is Pont du Gard, the site of a Roman aquaduct and some really cool nature, where we spent an afternoon.

Guild graffiti  from 1774 on the bridge running alongside the aquaduct.

Eeeeewwww.

I mentioned cool nature, right?
Olive trees are amazing. They're very tough and very resilient, and they have incredibly long lives. According to the sign, this olive tree has been around since 908.
It's over a thousand years old.
Think about that for a minute.

After hanging out at Pont du Gard, we went to visit the Haribo factory and museum. Haribo is a very popular candy brand in Europe, and I've recently started noticing it in the US too, so they have clearly begun expanding their evil sugar empire.

One of the things I like about Haribo (apart from the obvious) is that they're really creative. They make gummies in pretty much any shape you can think of, from fried eggs to alligators to Smurfs.

Either some sort of candy-making contraption, or a Star Wars extra. I'm not sure.

The store. It's even more beautiful in person.