how is it mid-october?

The realization hit me a couple of days ago that I have only two months remaining here in France, which means I'm about 40% of the way in. WOW. Montpellier is no longer new to me; more and more, I know my way around the city, both literally and figuratively. My classes are in full swing and I have a rhythm and routine now that I didn't at the start of the semester.

Last weekend, my friend Cate from the tour guide office, who's studying in Madrid this year, came to visit. It was so so so great to see a familiar face and to be able to show her around Montpellier (and make lots of corny tour guide jokes!). It made me even more excited for my upcoming travels to see friends: London in two weeks, where I'll see Carly, Deeya, Drigan, Sara, and Chase; my side-trip to Ireland to see Megan; Madrid two weeks after that with Sara to see Cate; and then Paris at the end of November with Carly and Megan -- where we'll get to hang out with my host brothers who study there :-)

Also! This is exciting. I'm getting a viola! I didn't bring my viola with me to Europe because it's pretty bulky/inconvenient, and I didn't know if there would be any opportunities to play in an orchestra or something like that here. For the first few weeks, I didn't give it a thought at all because I was so busy adjusting. But the past few days or week, I've been going a little nuts missing playing music. I've been listening to classical music nonstop. I've been dreaming about playing. It's the most bizarre thing, but I guess it's to be expected since this is the longest I've ever gone without playing. So I decided to go ahead and look into the options for renting an instrument here, just for my own personal satisfaction -- and I can rent a viola from a luthier here for 22 euro a month! I'm so excited. I'm going back tomorrow afternoon to pick it up; I'm just going to take it for a month now to see how things go, but yeah -- super excited. Even just quickly running through a scale on it today to check the size made me feel like I was back where I wanted to be. I'm a little nervous to see how much my skills have decomposed in the last two months, but at least this way I'll be in better shape when I come back to the states in December!

Anyway, that's what's new with me. I know I haven't posted in a few weeks, but that's mostly because in general I'd rather be out doing things than writing about what I'm doing. Hopefully pictures to come soon -- haven't taken many lately, but maybe I'll change that.