Off to the South of France...

Day 11—September 9, 2008.
Today we decided to get on the peage (toll road) and go directly from Toulouse to Montpellier so we would get here before dark. And we did.
Getting to our hotel was supposed to be simple – it's daylight, after all, but suddenly turned into another adventure in becoming stronger human beings! We always look for “la gare” first (the train station) because historically that's where our hotels have been. In this case, we found it almost immediately, but did not see the sign—a big red circle with a horizontal white line across it—and the next thing we knew, we were going the wrong way down a one-way street with pedestrians looking on in horror as we proceeded into in the middle of the electronic trolley tracks, at rush hour, with mobs of people on their way to the gare surrounding us! I think Robin ended up pulling up on a wide sidewalk until he saw a car that looked as if it knew what it was doing, and we followed it. That was scary! I could see all these modern-day trolleys coming down the hill toward us. Eventually, we found Hotel Holiday Inn Metropole after many traffic jams and wrong turns. While on this exploration, we also saw an aqueduct, a palais, a big crucifix, a faux Arc de Triomphe, and mobs of under-21 year olds running out on the street or pulling out on motor scooters in front of or beside us. The hotel is on a tiny, one-way street with no parking, of course. Once again, Robin pulled right up on the sidewalk and went inside to find out where we needed to be. A nice Canadian concierge directed him to an underground garage. I haven't forgotten that being hard is what makes it great!
Montpellier at last! This is where I intended to spend my junior year of college—only my dad had other ideas and they did not include his only child going off to France for a year. It is an old town and a very large, busy one with a great university.
I just sat down and looked at the menu for the restaurant here at the hotel. It's in both French and English. I'm going to write below what's in English so you'll know what we're dealing with here:
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Gaspacho of watermelon and Provencal tart with duck, sorbet of cucumber flavoured with olive oil
St. Pierre in salad, small cream of beetroot
Thick piece of roasted bull served with crushed potatoes, olive oil and a red wine sauce
Fried sea bass fillets—a la plancha (?)
Partilda of gambas, seafoods and scallops
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And this is all in English!!
As we drove south today, we noticed the vast difference in the terrain and such between northern and southern France. In the north the fields were full of corn, cows, and sheep. In southern France, the fields are full of grapevines. The roofs have changed to pink tiles. It's an entirely different world. Most of the way we saw the Pyrenees in the distance and knew we weren't far from Spain. We also got a glimpse of the Mediterranean—we'll do more of that tomorrow on our way to Avignon.
We also had what the French call a “pique-nique” and shared—what else?--a jambon and egg salad sandwich on wheat bread and a pasta salad that we bought at a rest area. Also, a Coke Light—that's their Diet Coke.
Another discovery today—something I never before thought of when I mindlessly eat sunflower nuts or buy sunflower seeds for the goldfinches—was field after field of sunflowers going to seed. Now I know where they all come from! I have never seen so many sunflowers!
We stopped near Carcassonne and observed another fortress from the 11th century. It was unbelievable—to withstand centuries of weather and war. And to think of how these massive structures were created without machines or technology. They were built to last.

We have just returned from dinner in the hotel here and they had more items on the menu there than above. We had the very first salad and vegetables since we left Paris. I had to laugh when mine was served—three forkfuls of salad, one cherry tomato slit in quarters with four long, skinny, cold green beans arranged artistically from the tomato's center, four tiny carrot sticks and four small zucchini sticks, each arranged on the plate like a tic-tac-toe game. They had been cooked but were cold. It didn't matter—they were all delicious and very welcome. The French are so artistic when it comes to presentation that it's funny. I ended up with a cod dish, which was fine. Robin had some quail as an appetizer and the bull as his “plat.” The dining room reminded me so much of the dining hall when I was in college in a beautiful old building at IUP with the filigree on the ceiling and the wonderful molding—like an old ballroom. I felt so at home there. This hotel has a lot of charm—a sanctuary amidst the craziness outside.