Montpellier

"Montpellier is the capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, as well as the Hérault department. Montpellier is the 8th largest city of France, and is also the fastest growing city in the country over the past 25 years. Located on the south coast of France on the Mediterranean Sea, it is the third-largest French city on the Mediterranean coast after Marseilles and Nice"

So says Wikipedia... I say it is cool.

After the aforementioned train trip, we arrived at the train station in Montpellier where we were picked up by Christine's 1st cousin Frederic's wife Susan and Susan's 2 grandchildren Ian (7) and James (4 1/2). As previously mentioned we are being hosted by Frederic and Susan for the 2 nights that we are in Montpellier. While we are there Kathleen, who works in New York, New York and is the mother of Ian and James (so the daughter of Frederic and Susan) came down to pick up the 2 boys that had just finished their 2 month holiday in the South of France. Mikael (the sister of Kathleen, Uncle of Ian and James and the son of Frederic and Susan) also joined us for the evening - he works in Paris as a propulsion engineer. Confused yet?

Susan was born in the USA, spent a lot of time in Germany and lives in France. She spoke good English to us, French to the others but German to Frederic - as this is the language that they speak to each other at home. Kathleen spoke French to her parents, brother and her boys but also excellent stereotypical New York English. Mikael spoke French to everyone and was the one that struggled the most with speaking English to us. The 2 boys who go to a bilingual school in New York were completely adorable and spoke the cutest French that you could ever imagine. Hearing French spoken is nice enough but somehow, coming from the mouths of babes so to speak made it that much more endearing. 

Susan ran round feeding us and plying us with wine constantly. We had the obligatory croissants and baguettes each day for breakfast then for dinner, on the first night we had 2 courses of different shellfish dishes. Both with a creamy sauce  the first were tiny pipi like things that you picked up with your fingers, sucked the little meat that there was off the shell and scooped up the juices with your crusty baguette. The second course was a pasta dish with the most amazing cockle like thingies. Superb. All washed down with bottle after bottle of Frederic's delicious chardonnay (then vin rouge) from his cellar.

The second night, Mikael (pronunced Mick - ale) made us a traditional Argentina asado - asado is a term used both for a range of barbecue techniques and the social event of having or attending a barbecue in Argentina. It was delicious. Susan had got the meat specially delivered to her house from her butcher from a nearby village.

Bi valves!

Asado action

Breakfast

Susan and Frederic were the most fantastic hosts. They were so welcoming and generous. They picked us up from the train station and dropped us off at the airport, we stayed in their house, swam in their pool, ate their food and drank a lot of their wine. What an amazing "family" experience it was -  Christine, Jamie and Ben and the lot of them are of course blood relatives. Such an amazing mix of languages and cultures and so wonderful to have had the opportunity to have spent the little time that we did have with them.

We left promising to meet again one day. Susan said that Ben should come over and stay sometime soon - she even said that it would be easier for him to fly into Geneva and that she would go there and pick him up. SUCH an awesome lady.

Onto the next bit. We picked up the rental car at the airport and departed Montpellier this morning heading towards our base for the next 2 weeks, St Chinian - a small village in the middle of the Languedoc wine region.

Talk soon