Montpellier - Park visit and Claudine's party

Saturday morning we got up decided to go biking to the beach (la plage) ; we haven’t made to the beach yet, it is only 10 km to get there, the closest to us it is a resort called Plavas. By the time we got ready, had coffee , made a picnic, it is 11am. When we got the to the rental biking place all the bikes were rented for the day! well, next time we know better ---if we want to rent a bike on a Saturday morning, we better be there earlier!

So change of plans; we end up by going up to visit Parc Lunaret. The park is in North Montpellier, a part of the city that we have not visited yet. We walked all the way from downtown to the park, maybe around 8km one way. Right by the park there is a Zoo, so we end up by also visiting the Zoo.
We stopped for a nice picnic in the park – why always food taste so much better outdoors? The park is fairly big and hilly, there were quite a few people jogging around. If we have lived any closer to this park I will jog here too!

In the afternoon we had to prepare a dish and get ready for Claudine party. Mark cooked eggplant curry and cuscus. He got lots of compliments for the dish J

We went to Claudine by tram – this is the second time we took the tram just because we had to carry the food and the wine. Tram is very funky, clean and smooth, it is very comfortable to ride on the tram.

We got to Claudine exactly at 8pm as invited, we were the first to arrive. Soon after all the other guests start to show up. Every time someone shows up we have to kiss three time. This is a Montpellier customs – every time you meet friends or family or at the party when introduce to friends – you have to kiss three times. In a few weeks here, we kiss more people than in one year back home. However kissing three time doesn’t apply to strangers or someone that you just meet in a bar J is this good or bad ???

Claudine had prepared amazing food, du foie gras, many salads, olives, meats, fresh baked bread; also every single guests contribute with something extremely yummy.



Claudine’s Moroccan friend Nadège brought Moroccan cookies, buy there were good cookies and as a bonus we got some to take home. We eat quite a bit, was impossible not to get stuffed.

After dinner 3 of the quests start paying guitar so we all start singing French songs. Of course Mark and I were pretending to sing, Mark didn’t know any of the French songs, I knew a few but I can not sing! Everyone else was very good, everyone was singing!

We really enjoyed the evening, all of the sudden it is 1 o’clock, we were tired, but not the French,

I bet they party until 4 am in the morning!

I guess we still have lots to learn about Savoir du Vivre!