Hot hot hot

Oh my goodness, la chaleur! It's too much. If only I could spend the entirety of my days at the beach, but alas no. There's class and a research paper I need to start writing. Friday a bunch of us decided to venture out to the zoo after class and boy was that a mistake. To be fair, the rhinoceroses (rhinoceri?) were very cool (not in the cold sense of the word) - much larger than I expected. It was also fun to watch the three bears swim and play around in their pond. And there were giraffes, and I do like giraffes. But aside from the animals, which were far and few, it was basically just like a nature walk with a serious lack of shade. I suppose when I look back at the visit from an air-conditioned environment, I won't be as negative. I did enjoy myself though, even though it felt like I was melting.

To the left, salt

Saturday some of us visited the market, which was nice, but the location was a bit too narrow to be able to stop and look at the foods. There were also a few too many SDFs (sans domicile fixe/homeless) in my opinion. After we spent the day at the beach and the water was perfect. A bit salty, but the temperature was good. Unfortunately I received another coup de soleil (sunburn) on top of a preexisting  one, so that makes me wonder if a sunburned area is more likely to get burned than a non-sunburned area. Like frostbite: once frostbitten you're never the same (ask obs), so does that apply to sunburn as well, or am I just incredibly unfortunate? The only shadow on Saturday belonged to the looming deadline of my research paper, a major downer on this trip.

Aigues-Mortes

Sunday was Bastille Day, France's day of independence celebrating July 14, 1789/ the day of the French Revolution. During the day we took a group trip to the walled town of Aigues-Mortes, famous for its salt. It was a bit like the Anegada salt ponds what with the somewhat red coloring of the water and the presence of flamingos, except the flamingos weren't really pink so I say they don't technically count as true flamingoes. It was a very sunny day and it was an interesting town with many little shops. Our professor treated us to a nice lunch too, which was a bonus. After we headed to the beach and walked around the small uber-touristy beach town there.

Later that evening, around 11PM, back in Montpellier, there was a magnificent display of fireworks, the likes of which I've never seen before. It lasted for half-an-hour and though it was slow to start, it ended up being really cool. To get to where we could see the fireworks though we had to take a disgustingly crowded tram, and on the way back we didn't even bother trying to get on because of all the people. We just walked back and it didn't really take that long, maybe thirty minutes.

I can't believe this is my last week abroad. It's a bit sad I suppose, but I'm also excited to be going home to the land of A/C and good Mexican food. Yay!