Les femmes des volcans

Everyone wonders how the french are so healthy and in shape when all they eat is cheese and wine and butter.  What's their secret?  Walking.  In France you walk.  A lot.  Exercise is naturally incorporated into the day to day.  Not only do I walk to school, lunch, downtown, etc. every day, I have done a lot of hiking.  Now, anyone who knows me knows that nature and I don't always mix.  First of all, I am allergic to basically anything outdoors.  Second, I am not a huge fan of moving.  But I have been doing it a lot here and I actually love it.  It is a new me.
Climbing a volcano never even crossed my mind as something I would want to do in my life because it just seems so...insane!  And now I have done it twice and both times it was spectacular.
The first volcano I climbed was the Puy de Dome, the major tourist attraction of the region of Auvergne.  That is what I love about where I am studying.  I live in the suburbs with my host family, but a 15 minute bus ride and I am downtown.  And then a 20 minute car drive and we are in one of the most beautiful nature sites in France.  My host parents took me and two of my friends to climb it with them.  The leaves were all different colors and the view was amazing.  Although it got pretty difficult the further we went, when we reached the top of the volcano, looking out on all the other smaller volcanos in the chain, it felt so immensely satisfying.  I'm really thankful that I have a host family that likes doing things like that and pushes me to do the same.  Whenever I have a free day my host mom is pushing me to travel and find things to go see and do.  She knows how important it is to make the most of this experience and climbing a volcano definitely qualifies.
I went with my friends Natalie and Mallory and her host family to another volcano a week later.  Although it wasn't as large, this volcano you could actually climb inside of!  It took us a while just to reach the base of the volcano, and then we began to climb.  It started to rain a little bit and the wind started to pick up.  The higher we went, the worse it got.  People passed us and warned us about the wind at the top.  I couldn't imagine it would be much worse than what we were already experiencing, but I was wrong.  I literally had trouble not falling over the wind was so strong.  The experience of being around the top ridge of a volcano while the wind is almost making you fall off the edge and freezing rain is slapping you in the face is actually a lot better than it sounds.  It was such an intense and surreal sensational experience, it was unlike anything I had ever felt.  We made our way down to the bottom of the inside of the volcano and got an insane view of the volcano from the bottom.  By the time we made it back to Mallory's and warmed up with hot coacoa I was cold, exhausted, and exhilarated.
Being in France is an experience I am still in shock I get to have.  Climbing volcanoes, going for quick weekend trips to Paris and forming real family-like relationships with the members of my host family just makes it feel even more like I am not actually living my life; like it is all just a dream.  I'm not sure if I will get to climb a volcano again in my life, but I won't soon forget what it felt like.