Back to the France posts after a little New York break! This one is from the weekend we traveled to Montpellier. I traveled with 5 of my friends from the program, and although the we had some issues, the trip was all around really fun! This trip had some crazy moments, and I can wait to share them all with you in this post! Let’s just say one of my stories involves tear gas… so keep reading!
Our Montpellier Horror Story!
When we finally arrived in Montpellier after a long, crowded bus ride, we got right on the tram to head towards our Air BNB. We were one stop from where we were suppose to get off, when there was an announcement saying the tram wouldn’t be running the rest of the day due to a protest. So we get off, and I googled how far we would have to walk to get to our apartment. It was only 20 minutes away so we started off walking. Well, we were probably about 10 minutes from our place when I started to smell something really weird. I thought it was just me so I didn’t say anything, but when we turned the corner and saw a man in a yellow vest we realized we had come upon the protestors, “the juliet gens,” and what we were all smelling was actually tear gas! We turned around then, and decided to stop and eat lunch at a place a ways back. During our meal, we witnessed the protestors all come marching by, quickly followed by the place. I probably would have been a little more nervous about it all, but the locals didn’t seem to feel threatened so we sat and watched.
After our meal we headed back to our apartment, and after having to cover our nose and mouths for a little ways we finally made it to our place! After struggling to figure out how to get in, I went back and reread the instructions from our host and realized we were suppose to go to their office to get the keys 
I felt so dumb! So, we had to backtrack through the protestors. We barely made it across the road on our way back to the apartment before we would have run straight into them. I heard a giant boom, and we looked over and could see the tear gas bomb going off in the square. It was so crazy!!
Looking back now, I love to tell this story. But, in the moment it was kind of scary!! Especially since I am very much not used to this kind of thing, and then you throw in the foreign aspect and it’s all a little wild.
The rest of our trip went over very well! We swam in the Mediterranean sea and ate lots of yummy food. One of the things I miss the most about France in general is all the good food I constantly ate. I seriously would have ice cream everyday! My favorite part about Montpellier was all the old, windy streets like pictured above. It wasn’t my favorite city I visited, but we still had a great time!
Only two more France posts to go! Make sure you’ve caught up on the other posts as well. Thanks for reading!!
xoxo,
kenn♥
Kennspiration 