End of the Second Full Day in Montpellier

Damn! I'm tired. Elena and I walked all over today. We walked here, there, back here, back there, then over there, then there, then here, etc. You get the idea. We walked.

Anyway, we woke up this morning a little before 8. Since it wasn't yet 8--when we had decided to get up, we got to savor those minutes you get when you wake up before your alarm on a non-work day. We savored them, because even though we both had a really good night's sleep, it's nice to be in that restful, peaceful state.

But all good things come to an end, and we had to wake up.

We headed out--with laptop--to Les 3 Graces, a cafe on the main plaza with WiFi. Or so we thought. After all, they showed up in my iPod. Knowing we'd probably get online, I ordered a large Americano and Elena ordered a large Cafe au Lait. We got the Cafe au Lait and a double espresso. Oh well. We asked the waiter for the password. He told us it is difficult to access the internet. After a little back and forth, it became clear that the WiFi of the place was only for their waiter pocket PC ordering system and not the public. We had our coffees and skeedaddled. There was a bit of excitement outside because the Creperie next door had a fire.


Then, we went to Lamy to ask about other places in the University area. NOthing really. It's the Da Vinci or a small place. So we said we'd be back and headed out to google more apartments and options in Montpellier, and I wanted to get a USB thumb drive. I went to the Polygon which is the local mall. No stores there seemed to have USB drives. Then I found a store with USB drives, but I couldn't get in. So I went to the cybercafe and found Elena where I left her. She had forgotten where it was and waited for me patiently while I was wandering around in the Polygon.

So we got the addresses of a couple of places and figured out what happens when you type 54321 into a French keyboard. It's )"'e& where the e has an accent over it.

I tried my iPod at Le Riche again. I tried the )"'e&--the iPod has a French keyboard for entering French letters. That didn't work. So I tried plain old 54321 again. This time, 54321 worked! Yay!!! Now I have to furtively try to log in with my laptop and see if I can connect. Could it be an ASCII vs. Unicode issue? I don't know. But I have to figure it out.

Anyway, we got a couple of locations from the addresses in a brochure we had. We almost got three, but the time ran out just as google maps stated searching for the location. Oh well. The first one, the Observatoire, was close so we went there. The woman at the reception was very nice. She told us that they had nothing at the moment, but she called another place nearby for us and said that they had a room for 2 for 3 months. We headed down there--the Clemenceau. But, noon had passed in the interim, and reception was closed. Hmmm.... Ok, to the second one, Sun Valley. This one is way out on the west of the city. We got 2 two way tickets.

Getting those tickets wasn't easy. I was touching the screen to get the round trip tickets, but nothing. Then a girl watching us showed me a cylinder stickout out. It worked like a mouse wheel or Blackberry wheel. But it's about 3 inches long and 1.5 inches in diameter. Cool.

So we trammed out. The university area was nice. Many many students. We went about 8 stops and got out. Elena took a look around at the green but essentially lifeless area and said "I'll tell you one thing right now. There is no way I'm going to live here for 3 months." So we crossed the tracks and waited for the tram back.

We got some turkey, cheese spread, a tomato, and a sunflower seed baguette and went home to make scrambled eggs and a baguette. Yummy!!! Then off to the residence that closed at noon. Reception was open, so we explained our situation. Then she remembered the phone call. "Ahhh...." The rooms are $480 per person (1-3 month rate). Halfway through, I guess she liked us, so she dropped it to $420 per person (the 10 month rate). These rooms have internet, but the layout is funny. Basically a common kitchen and bathroom, then 2 sleeping rooms.

We headed back to Lamy and along the way decided on the da Vinci, if they had internet. It was $200 cheaper, but we'd have to pay all at once. The Observatoire is $200 more expensive, but cleaner and but we'd get to pay each month and have more flexibility.

When we got to Lamy, we asked if the da Vinci had internet. No. Damn! And there doesn't seem to be a good way to get it for a short term.

The other problem with the Clemenceau, is that the weekly rate (the rate we'd have to pay until April 1 when the monthly rate kicks in) is super high--almost 3x what we're paying right now. So we'll have to fend for ourselves until April 1. So back to the internet. But first we needed a USB drive.

I found the USB drive place. I asked for one in my bad French. What could have been an easy transaction, was complicated by the sales woman trying to give it to me free in exchange for a store card. I didn't want a card--just the USB drive. But Elena wanted the card, so she was trying to explain our situation to see if we could get the USB drive for free. Finaly, I got my way. 12.40 euros. I pulled out cash, but she can't easily accept cash. So I pulled out a credit card, but she had me stick it in the bottom of the machine instead of swiping it. They must had credit cards with a chip here. That didn't work either. So we had to go to a different registers where I could pay in cash. Whew!

Then we transfered our blog information to the USB drive and went to the internet cafe. Elena googled for a place to stay until April 1. I updated our blogs.

We checked a few local hotels by just walking to them. Then got dinner ingredients at INNO (chunks of beef, frozen vegetables, spiced couscous, and a 1.05 euro bottle of wine. It was about 11 euros all together, but we only intended to use half the ouscous and vegetables. We cooked up a really delicious meal, drank the not-too-bad 1 euro wine, and went to sleep watching a documentary about some orphaned bear cubs, "Dr. House" and "New York: Unite Speciale" ("House" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit").

So we went to sleep optimistic. I'm excited. I hope Elena is excited too.