Montpelier

Today we went to Montpelier to sell Paola's books from her time at preparatory school to the students who are currently there. She had a ton of books, none of them were huge like our textbooks, they were more novel sized but there sure were a lot. They were quite heavy to carry too! haha To get there we took the autobahn, my first time on it! I guess that's not that exciting since it's just a freeway, but it was fun to see the speedometer get to 120 even if it's in different units!

While Paola was selling her books Jessica and I were able to walk around the town a bit. The main shopping area is not open to cars so it was a nice walking district. All of the buildings have beautiful iron railings that are in pretty patterns and many of them have stone carvings on them. Everything just looks so decorative and beautiful, it was amazing! There were lots of musicians playing on the streets for money. Jessica and I ate the good Italian ice cream again at a cafe in the main town, which was refreshing.

Jessica and I on the main road

Beautiful fountains were everywhere!

The books that Paola didn't sell, we sold to a secondhand bookshops. It was one of my favorite shops because it had book sections for one euro! I bought the 3rd and 4th Harry Potter, the 1st and 2nd chronicles of Narnia (all in french of course) and a French comic/ storybook called Titeuf there! I had to stop myself from getting more!

At the end of the shopping district there is an arch de triumphe, very similar to the one in Paris along with a statue and another interestingly carved building.

No I'm not in Paris yet guys! :P

And what do they display inside this beautiful structure, a statue of lipstick! haha

We finished our tour of the city with a tour of the gardens there! Montpelier is very far south, so there were lots of palm trees, cacti and even bamboo in them. The gardens had some pretty old statue ruins from the 16th century which I really enjoyed.

Tomorrow I take the TGV back to Paris to meet with my program group and to take a tour of Paris! I am very excited, but a little nervous because I have to take a taxi from the train station to my hotel. I have never taken a taxi before, so I hope that I don't have a problem finding one or anything. Wish me luck!