All together in front of the Maison Carrée temple in Nîmes after a long scavenger hunt.

On Thursday we went to Nîmes, where Laurent had prepared a scavenger hunt for us throughout the city. We split up into 3 teams – Sofie, Olivia, Thomas versus Chloe, Charlotte versus the teachers. Throughout the day we faced many challenges and enigmas that forced us to explore and learn about every landmark in the city. Our scavenger hunt led us to a fountain where we had to measure the volume of the water within it. This proved more difficult than we expected when we realized that the depth of the fountain was longer than an arm’s length! Different teams went about this in different ways. For example, Charlotte sacrificed her leg to the murky waters in order to measure how high the water reached on her leg. While the team of teachers and Chloe and Charlotte forged onwards in their quest fearlessly, the other team was hopelessly lost. When everyone had reached the lunch area they were still wandering and had to be rescued by Laurent.

Having completed the scavenger hunt (Chloe and Charlotte won the first half and tied the second) we all went to watch a movie about Roman life and the building of the city. Exhausted after having walked 7 miles, we took the train home ready for a good night’s sleep.

On Saturday, Lana’s birthday (!!), we went to Sommières to visit Laurent and explore his town. We started at a huge market and walked through the different stands, each one filled with delicious produce. Having collected certain items for lunch and after Laurent picked up a roasted chicken, we made our way to his home. His house was so nice; we ate outside surrounded by foliage with his pool in the background. After we ate we quickly changed and went swimming! It was very refreshing given the extremely hot day. Afterwards we sang Lana happy birthday and she was presented with a large bowl of Laurent’s famous tiramisu. After continued exploration of the town we took the train back to Avignon.

Enjoying the sunshine at Laurent's house in Sommières.

Today we went to Orange, the site of the most well preserved Roman theatre in the world. It was extraordinary to see. We listened to the entire audio tour and then went across the street to a related museum. We split off into groups for lunch and ran into Olivia’s friends (for the third time)! We then went home and had our last Latin lesson (holding back our tears of sorrow), having completed 2 books of Caesar, translated many poems and learned a lot about their culture.