Party time!

Saturday, September 11, 2010 Day 73

We went for our morning walk on the stairs of the Peyrou. On the way back, we detoured to see a St. Anne’s, a church which is visible from our bedroom window, but which we had not yet explored. We entered it and were surprised to find that it is a decommissioned (there is probably a better word, but I don’t know it). It was empty of pews, alter, everything else one expects to find in a church. The church was built in 1866 to 1869 at the time of the economic advancement of the city in parallel to the development of the trade of the wine. Its majestic bell-tower is visible to all of Montpellier. The church was converted into a cultural space in 1991 and now hosts exhibitions and festivals throughout the year, with a special focus on contemporary local artists.

Later in the morning I spent a couple of hours on the internet working out the bus route and mapping a walking route out to an AWG party in a small village called Lattes. The walking route was ultimately for naught, as there are parts of the trip which are country roads with no sidewalks, and we do not dare try that at night. We could take the bus out, but it is unclear whether the bus would stop for us later at night, so we planned to go to a party where we know NO ONE and try to bum a ride back home!

I only had one reminder that this is the anniversary of the terrorist attacks in the U.S. 9 years ago. It was on Facebook. It is really, REALLY nice to be away from the media overload in the U.S. about the attacks and all the attendant fal-de-ral with the “Mosque at Ground Zero” non-issue.

About noon, I checked the AWG website again and discovered that attendees are expected to bring a dish, an “aperitif,” so I looked at some French recipes and decided to throw something together. We went out to the market for Spanish ham, goat cheese, kiwis and bread crisps. Now I know what a boulangeries do with all their left-over baguettes and bread – they toast them, bag them up and sell them! When I got home, I combined the goat cheese with my lovely framboise vinegar and mashed it up really well, I spread a bit on two toasts, then wrapped the rest in saran and put it in the refrigerator. I sliced the kiwis and checked out the ham, then made two appetizers, one for Roger, one for myself. They consisted of a toast, the goat cheese, then super-thin-sliced ham, then a kiwi slice. Not bad. I put all that together to take to the party. We dressed and left to catch the tram to the bus stop, and we were way too early – we had almost 30 minutes to kill once we got to the bus stop. But then, buses don’t wait, so we knew we were better off being early than late. The bus ride was about 20 minutes long and made about five stops before ours. We had an easy 10-minute walk to the hostess’ house and we began to introduce ourselves at the doorstep.

Upon our arrival, I told the hostess that I needed a plate and a table knife, and I set out to assemble my appetizer. That took little time, but I had planned for 16 appetizers and the plate only had room for nine or ten, so I put the remainder of the stuff in the refrigerator and went out to meet people. We met lots of really nice people. Some had been there for years, a few were, like us, new to the area. There were at least three French women there – people born and raised in France, but who spoke English quite well. About a third of the people there were men; many (but not all) of these were French husbands to American wives. The main introductory questions, at least among people I talked to, were: where do you live, where do you come from, what brings you to Montpellier. Halfway through the evening, I noticed that there was only one of my kiwi appetizers left, so I finished up the rest of the toasts with the cheese, ham and kiwi. I then ate the remaining kiwi slices, cheese and ham. Yum! We managed to locate a ride back into town with a woman named Peggy who lives about a 10-minute walk from our place, just beyond the Peyrou. I got email addresses of three women, and when we got home, I promptly emailed all three plus the hostess to thank her for allowing us to come. I hope we have made some good contacts!