Elsien's Traveblogue

Weather

The last time I saw weather like this was in Asia, or maybe the beginning of the rainy season in Darwin, Australia – I don't quite remember. Any way, it's warm and ever so wet here in Montpellier – I expect the pavements to start steaming any moment now. It's been raining now for a week, I think, and not just rain: we've had thunderstorms almost constantly, at times serious gusts of wind; the skies are mainly black … and the temperature doesn't go below 20º. Apparently there have been Red Alerts in the area, the University Library by the (tiny little river) Lez was evacuated (!!??) and there were serious traffic problems on the road to Barcelona, the A9, the 'Languedocienne'. We, of course, knew little about all this, as I haven't connected our TV box yet and we haven't started to listen to local radio yet. Local newspapers, as J. reminds me, tend to have the same awful piece of news every week: “Deux enfants brûlés à vifs ...” so we haven't bought any yet. We have been holed up in our comfortable little apartment, going out only from time to time to do our bits of shopping at our already favourite market in town and, as we now have a fridge, we don't have to go every day any more … We also have a working telephone and Internet – this has only taken a month to sort, but it's now in place, hurray! When we do go out, I am constantly amazed how many Montpelliérains are out in this awful weather, big smiles – yeah, smiles! - under large umbrellas! When it's raining in Brussels, everybody is huddled up against the wind, rain and cold, looking as miserable as can be. These people here are still looking happy and cheerful, stopping to have little chats with each other under shared umbrellas … The Midi? I love it!

We are slowly getting sorted, dealing with bureaucracy. Still no active French bank account, so I cannot buy the washing machine on the Internet, pay the gas and electricity bills that are due soon – yes, we are connected and have an account! - and as for trying to register the Belgian car, a Renault, in France … forget it, it's so complicated (and expensive), we have almost given up …Off to one of the four cinemas only round the corner tonight – France is an intensively cinematophile country. I look forward to seeing all kinds of non-Hollywood movies here!

Attached some pics of our apartment in progress. I'm writing this in a very comfortable little study. It is also the spare bedroom – friends are very welcome to come and stay, especially if we can do little house / flat swaps at some point …

posted by Elsien Gale  # 2:48 PM 0 comments