Bonjour from Jeffrey in France! As were winding down to the last few days of the mod, all of us here in France are working hard on our final projects. Earlier this week, the first group went (Matt and Maisie). They did an amazing job giving us the history and significance of the zoo in Montpellier. They talked about how the land was donated to the city which is why the admission is free. The zoo has also done a lot of work towards curing wild animals of diseases. They used the animals in their zoo to understand illnesses and how to cute them. They also said that there were giraffes. After the presentation we were given free time to explore. While some people wandered, another group of us spent the time desperately searching for the giraffe exhibit. At first we thought that they would be near the African plain exhibit but there weren’t any giraffes there. So we continued to search. Some how we made it past the giraffe exhibit and went in a massive circle around it. All that way across the zoo from the entrance and with 15 minutes before we had to leave, we realized that we had to give up our life long dream of seeing French giraffes. We started to walk back towards the front of the park in defeat when we found a map of the park. Excited by the spark of hope, we hurried towards the center of the park and found the giraffe exhibit! Sadly we spent five minutes looking into a giraffe-less exhibit. Apparently the giraffes were not there that day. I guess it just wasn’t our time to see French giraffes.
Together, we took the tram and preceding bus back into the heart of Montpellier with Diana Awa and Charlotte. There we spent the rest of the day working in a small cafe, eating crepes waffles and ice cream. We worked on our own final projects in a desperate attempt at following up the killer presentation on the zoo. We’ve ended spending a lot of time in cafes here doing work. I guess it’s very “French” of us. However the service in restaurants here is very different to the service you would receive in the United States. While in the US, servers rely on a tip, here servers get paid a lot more. Tips are optional and usually you don’t tip a lot. So if you’re planning on going out for a snack, don’t stop and sit. We’ve ended up sitting in a cafe for two and half hours after ordering crepes and water. However I can confirm that the food is very much worth the wait.
*written by Jeffrey, posted using Michaela’s account*
gryphonsinfrance 