good things all around

Although I am posting this on Monday, Valentine’s Day, I actually wrote it on Friday, Feb 11th, so it doesn’t make much sense for today since I just returned from Paris…but bear in mind it was written a few days ago and the “after-Paris” post will follow shortly! Sorry for the delay and so it begins…

Right now, I couldn’t be happier. I will be in Paris in 12 hours. I am finished with school for the week. I finally feel like I am making progress with my french. And last but not least, I found out that they sell oreos here and I am currently eating them. It’s a wonderful life.

My walk to school this morning was absolutely stunning. I would never again complain about the seven am wake up if I got to see this every day. The river was covered with a thick layer of fog so that all I could

walk to school

see were a few of the boats docked nearby. I probably stopped four times just to take pictures and am so glad I did because they turned out really well and I realized this would be a great place to go sketch or paint in the morning.

Luckily I only had two short classes today and both went by fairly painlessly. I finally feel like I am getting to know my classmates and it is extremely helpful to speak with them in french. Since we are all still in the process of learning it, it’s not as intimidating to speak to a classmate as it is to speak to a clerk or even my french family. I also had an encouraging dinner with my family and they told me that they had already noticed progress and that I was much better at expressing myself at this point. Although I hadn’t noticed a change, it was good to hear that because it can be challenging to sit there going “what’s the word for….?” all the time.

After school, I headed home with a baguette and some laughing cow for a cheap lunch and happened to arrive just when my family was finishing lunch. Ma mère offered me a warm slice of chocolate cake that she had just made (which I obviously accepted) and then I sat down and talked with them for a little while. I have noticed that I feel less intimidated with being alone with them because at first, all I wanted to do was seclude myself in my room with my computer and a world of english at my fingertips. It’s tempting but they really do want to help me and don’t mind speaking slowly or repeating themselves so that I can better understand.

Annie came over shortly after lunch and we decided to go to this cool craft store to look for materials to make ourselves masks for the upcoming festival in Nice. We stopped at a few cute boutiques on the way, but as usual, they were all way overpriced so we headed on into “la drougerie” to see what our options were. They had a lot of different types of feathers and beads that could probably be made into an awesome mask but I have zero creativity in this department so I gave up and decided I would be equally happy with a random store-bought mardi gras type mask. Either way, Festivale is going to be awesome. A lot of the other girls in our program are going as well and we all will be in the same hostel together so it should be a great time.

When we were done shopping, we all went our separate ways and ate dinner with our families. My french sister is very excited that I am going to Paris so she printed out a map of the city and marked her favorite places so that I could find them easily on the metro. On the back of the map, she made me a list of good shopping areas and bars. She kept coming back and knocking on the door again and saying “oh wait I forgot you need to do this too!” I am getting so excited to go back to Paris, especially considering that we were pick-pocketed the last time I was there (when I was ten) so I am hoping to get a better impression this time around.

dilemma

At dinner, I asked mes parents if Annie could come spend the night because I was afraid that she would sleep through her alarm in the morning and miss the train. I am not about to go to Paris by myself. They said yes, of course, and she came over just before 10 to help me pack. I have a lot of trouble packing lightly so I took out my largest suitcase and filled it to the point where it was nearly impossible to zip and then figured that ought to get me through the next three days, right?

Now I have to try to overcome my excitement and get to sleep since I have to wake up in 5 and a half more hours to catch a train. I’ll be updating again after the weekend getaway!! Until then, Love from Lyon!

just eatin’ dad’s beard

I can proudly say that I survived the first week as a french college student. It wasn’t exactly an easy go…considering I have 8am classes most days of the week and my classes go until 4 or 5 pm some days. Basically, I feel like I’m back on a high school schedule, but with less english and more asians. The past week actually went surprisingly well and although I am disappointed to be in class so much, I can already tell that I am going to like my professors and that their teaching methods will really help to improve my french.

The way that classes work here is that each one lasts for 1 hr and 45 minutes and then you are given a 15 minute break before your next class. Sometimes that gives me just enough time to sprint to the cafeteria and buy a cappuccino (or two) from the vending machine to give me enough energy to survive the next class. Since I am in a Language Intensive program, all of my classes are focused on improving our french. The main components of this are reading, writing, speaking, and understanding. With classes that cater towards correcting my mistakes, you can see why I feel so encouraged about improving. It also helps that the only common language within my classes is french, so if I want to get to know my classmates, I have to speak french with them. This really helps since I don’t get much practice speaking french with my friends that are in the UVA program.

Although it would be boring to go through what happened in each of my classes, there was one particular event this week that stood out to me so I will highlight that particular class period. During my “expression orale” class, we did an exercise where we all stood in a circle and had to introduce ourselves and say our nationality. The teacher began: Mme. Créach, French. It continued around…Spanish…Mexican…Iranian…Chinese…Korean…Brazilian…American.

and then we all laid down and put our feet on a globe and held hands

That was the group. It was such a weird revelation to look around this circle and realize that none of us had any common background or experiences and the only thing that brought us all together was our desire to learn french. Also, while I do not really hear my own accent (although I am well aware that my pronunciation is not perfect) it was really cool to pay attention to everyone’s individual pronunciation after that and I really could tell that each person was from a different country.

We continued the class and did several other exercises. Get in line by height… I was at the front. Get in line by age…I brought up the rear. Our ages ranged from 19-32 and there are students even older than that in some of the other sections of the program. People are here to learn french for their jobs or because they just moved here, or some, like me, just as one a continued study from home.

The week continued and got progressively better, as I was able to fit in a few afternoon naps to make up for the early morning wake up. Finally by thursday, I felt like I had a good thing going. I woke up in the morning, not feeling like I had been hit by a train, and made it through the whole day with one cup of coffee. But by 3:00, I couldn’t have been happier to be done with the school week.

I got in touch with a few of my friends and we decided we definitely needed to celebrate the fact that we didn’t have friday classes so we made plans to go out that night and then I headed home to eat with my family. After dinner, my friends came over to watch gossip girl and have wine before going out. By the time my third friend arrived and I started to make the trek down the stairs to go unlock the door and let her in, mon père decided it was high time to teach me how to buzz people in. Guess he figured I ought to know all of the tricks for opening doors in this apartment, considering my history of failures with such activities.

While we were all sitting on my bed, one of my friends pointed out the sad, dead plant that still sits on my hearth after I over-watered it the second week that I was here. I still have no idea what to do with it, but I don’t want ma mère to

what was once a bedsheet

notice it since she already replaced one dead plant without saying anything. I am also currently hiding the original sheet that was on my bed, it is now stuffed behind a locked door of my wardrobe due to a massive rip that happened upon it during a melatonin-induced nightmare early on in the trip. I had to take melatonin frequently to fall asleep and it really does knock you out quickly but it gives you terrible, nightmare on elm street-type nightmares. So I’m not quite sure when, if ever, I should tell them about that little mishap….

My friends and I headed over to our favorite pub, Johnny Walsh, and danced for most of the night. Eventually, we called my french sister to come hang out with us and she showed up just as we ran into a few french guys that have previously been in photographs in this blog. At this point, we truly felt like we lived in Lyon, running into old friends and becoming regulars at a normal bar… Good times all around. Anyways, closing time came much too quickly so we called it a night and headed back to our flat.

Since Ashley lives pretty far away from Johnny Walsh’s, she had spent the night the night before and we had made an agreement that we would wake up early on friday and go to the morning market to get ourselves some fresh fruit and other goodies. I don’t know if I would call it early, but we made it out of the house around 11:45 and got to the market in time to enjoy the last hour. I had never been before and absolutely fell in love with the french vendors as they offered samples of their cheeses, wines, meats, and fruits. The whole market was set up right along the river, the weather was perfect and it was the most picturesque little scene. I

morning market yumm

ended up getting a few “leechees,” which are an asian fruit similar to a grape, just like we used to eat at my house when I was little.

Sadly, the fruits and vegetables from the market weren’t quite cutting it as the comfort food my stomach needed after being at a bar until 3:30 am and so we decided to go meet Juliette at a nearby cafe for paninis and pastries. I ordered the trois fromages panini, expecting something like cheddar, gruyere, and mozzarella but after one bite, much to my disappointment, I discovered that one of the three cheeses was moldy and stinky. Apparently in France it is not necessary to specify when things have bleu cheese on them, because everyone here loves them, except me of course. So that got handed off and I downed my pastry and decided I was pleased.

Later on in the day, we ended up going to the big mall in Lyon, which is called “Part Dieu.” This was a good ways away from where I live so it meant taking the metro, which I have yet to master. I’ve never had to use it since I don’t live in the city and for some reason I always feel pretty uneasy when I board public transportation but Ashley didn’t hesitate, so I just followed her lead. She explained to me what the maps of the different tram and subway lines meant and how I knew which ones to take and by the end of the ride, I felt a lot better about the whole system. I don’t know why I had myself convinced that I was going to step on there one day and get off in Spain or something but now I realize it’s extremely convenient annnd since it will take me to that mall, I would be willing to use it anyday.

The mall was incredible. There was a subway stop right in the middle of the mall, a fountain that shot up through three stories of the building, and most importantly, tons of french clothes. I’m in love. Too bad everything is wayy expensive and the exchange rate suckks. Luckily, the sales here are nearing the end and so all items have been marked down two and three times so we took advantage of that and then headed out in search of supper.

Although France is world-renowned for its food, I have found that I have mostly just been craving a lot of things that I would get in America. Burgers, big sandwiches (take it away: i miss you), fries, sushi, pizza, hot and sour soup, fro-yo, the list goes on…. So we took the metro back towards where I live and found a delicious sushi place, which I am probably going to start going to every weekend.

When dinner was over, we were craving something sweet, so we went to Haagen Dazs where we were seated? and then given menus… this was strange enough but then we looked at the prices and it was 9 euros for one sundae! Since it was so expensive, we knew it was going to be huge so we decided to split one and couldn’t believe our eyes when the “waitress” brought out a pathetic, child sized sundae that had absolutely nothing significant-looking going on. After a few bites, I started to check for gold nuggets at the bottom of the glass because I figured they must have hidden some small delight for us in there, considering that they gypped us out of a small fortune. It was bogus, don’t ever go there if you come to Lyon.

After ice cream, the routine pre-game began again as we headed back to my flat with wine in hand. We wanted to try something new so we went over to Wallace’s, a bar closer to the University stayed there just long enough to finish a beer, then got creeped out by a 30 some year old guy who was literally standing several feet behind Ashleigh without moving his eyes off of her. One of our friends said she was at “Kelly’s” which is a large pub in Vieux Lyon, but neither of us had ever been so we searched around for a while and eventually decided to ask for directions. We approached a Scottish bouncer outside of another bar and asked if he could give us a little guidance. He responded by pointing towards the river and telling us to walk along there and then reassured us “it’s friggin huuuge! ya can’t miss it!”

Welp we missed it. As embarrassing as it was to show our faces again, we returned to the bar where our Scottish friend was manning the door. We admitted our inadequacy and he let us in. This place looked like it had a fog machine on, there was so much smoke. Most bars in France make you smoke outside but this place seemed to think that hot boxing it was the way to go…of course, only downstairs though. So when you walk upstairs, all of the smoke has drifted up the spiral staircase connecting the two rooms and it is even worse up there… Ahh sage bar tender regulations.

We spent the rest of the night between there and Johnny Walsh and then headed back around 3:30. Since Ashleigh had spent the night the night before, she decided she should probably go home, so she called a cab and hopped in it right outside my flat. I waved goodbye and then walked towards my door. I fished around for my keys for a minute or two and then quickly realized that they were sitting on top of the hearth in my room. Alright it’s fine, i’ll call Ashleigh. All too quickly, I remembered leaving my phone resting on my bed when I left for the night. No phone. No keys. 3:30 AM.

I started thinking about my options. Normally I would be able to type in the code and then buzz upstairs to be let in but of course, I had no idea what our code was because I have the world’s worst memory. Next option, walk over to Sydney or Annie’s house since I know both of their codes. Oh wait, they are both in Rome. Temporary homelessness was becoming all too real and I decided to resort to exactly what I had been warned not to do. Yell in the streets of France. That had to work though…I thought about how many times I had been laying in bed in my flat and could hear every word of the conversations of pedestrians below. Here goes nothing.

I yelled up towards my french sister’s balcony “MAUUURRREEEENNNN” “MAUUUUREEEENNN”!!!! After about eight times, I became discouraged and I could see the silhouettes of a few people walking across the bridge from Vieux Lyon; I didn’t want to be a target. I opened up my planner in my purse and looked up the code to get into the program director’s apartment. I cringed thinking about how humiliating this was going to be to buzz into her apartment at 4 am with absolutely no essentials with me. She already had me labeled as a problem child after the first night, I was sure of it. I started walking down the sidewalk in the direction of her house but got too freaked out and decided to try my sister one more time. MAUUUREEENNN?!?!?!

A head appeared over the balcony. I literally cannot even express my relief in this moment. She looked at me as if I was a crazy person, which is a valid look, considering the circumstances. I then relayed to her the information, forgotten phone, key, and code. I knew I was getting judged. She laughed and told me the code which took me about three tries since I was having a tad bit of trouble understanding french numbers. They make everything so complicated. Anything over eighty, you start adding things. So instead of saying 99, they said eighty-nineteen. How am I supposed to understand that at 4am?

Her boyfriend came downstairs and let me into the building wearing nothing but boxers, I still embraced him, and informed him that I had never been happier to see anyone in my life. Bear in mind, this is a very awkward young man and we had only spoken about three words previous to this moment of deep affection on my part. When the elevator reached our floor, my french sister received the same greeting and they both just laughed and told me they were glad I was safe. I don’t know what I am going to do when she leaves to go to New York in March. I don’t think that mes parents would be as receptive to 4 am wake up calls from the streets…

The next morning I hid in my room until I was certain that both Maureen and her boyfriend had left; I couldn’t bear

casual picnic spot

the thought of facing them after the performance from the night before. Finally I was able to get out of the house and I met up with Ashleigh to go back to the market. We came across one vendor selling rotisserie chicken that was cooking over top of roasted potatoes, needless to say, they offered to give us a few pieces of chicken over top of the potatoes and we quickly agreed to this and then decided to go eat our picnic by the river. We seated ourselves on a set of stairs just off the Saône and chowed down.

After lunch, we met up with Juliette and decided to walk to the park together. I had never been, but they told me that it was a nice walk and that there would be giraffes! I was sold. As we walked, we passed groups of old men playing bocce ball together along the river, which was adorable. We also saw this cool graffiti which says “la vie n’est pas un long fleuve tranquille” which is an expression to say basically “life isn’t all smooth sailing” or literally: ” life is not a long calm river.”

Shortly thereafter we arrived at the park, which was beautiful. There was a large lake at the front and people were rollerblading, skate boarding, and biking all over the place. When we got to the part with the animals, there were kids all over, which is always a bonus since french kids are way cute. Giraffes were first, then we saw flamingos, alligators, pelicans, foxes, the whole deal. There were a few snack stands throughout the park selling ice cream, coffee, candy, and best of all, cotton candy. We noticed signs for “Barbapapa,” which none of us had heard of but we soon realized that was the word for cotton candy. Barbapapa essentially means: Dad’s Beard. Hilarious. I love it. Of course I bought some and they gave me enough to feed a small country but I was blissfully happy.

dad's beard on a stick...appetizing

We left the zoo and Ashleigh and I decided to cook ourselves some dinner since mes parents had gone to the Alps for the weekend. When we got back, it turned out that Maureen had similar plans and had invited “a few friends” to come over for dinner. We made ours early and tried to get out of the way but as we were eating in the dining room, the guests began to arrive. I stopped counting after 12 but after the night I had had on friday, I wasn’t about to get involved in another debacle. I told Maureen that I was going to go to bed after dinner and that I would just put in headphones and the noise wouldn’t bother me. As it turned out this couldn’t have been more true.

I ended up hanging out with her and her friends until about 11 or so. They drank red wine and blasted “I wanna be like you” from Disney’s Jungle Book, in french. It was an odd experience to say the least. Once they realized that I recognized the music, they decided to show their skills and proved that they knew the english versions as well of both Jungle Book and Aladdin songs…. Obviously I was thoroughly impressed. Sadly it was time for me to get to bed, seeing as I was exhausted from near homelessness the night before.

The next morning, my french sister knocked on my door around 12 and wouldn’t stop apologizing for the noise. I told her that I didn’t even notice but she didn’t hear me and then she said “I hope the police didn’t wake you up!” Hahah loved it. She threw a rager, the cops came, I slept through it. I haven’t felt that lame in a while but oh well, looks like we have even more confirmation that ma soeur is a badass. I will be interested to see if New York can handle her.

a non-related picture of me and juliette

Later that day, everyone in the UVA program met up at the program director’s house to go see a soccer game together. Lyon vs. Bordeaux. I apparently missed the point when everyone got their ticket for the game, the director had purchased them in advance, but I went up and asked for my ticket, explaining that I was in the bathroom and missed the memo. The director had a minor panic attack and there had apparently been some sort of mix up with the tickets and now there were none left. She freaked out for about two minutes and then said that she wasn’t going and I would be taking her season pass in her place….awkward.

It turned out alright though because her husband and I separated off from the rest of the group since we had to go into the pass holder’s gate. He handed me the pass and informed me that I was going to be “Romain” for the night and I had to be ready to play that role. We got into the stadium ahead of the rest of the group so we had some time to chat before we all met up again. On the big screen, they were flashing the images of each player of the opposing team and every time a new face appeared, the lyonnais fans would shout “enculé!” which he informed me was nottt a nice word.

Then the lyon players started to show up on the screen and we got a whole new view of the crowd. They had

is it bad that i wanted to cheer for bordeaux because i like their wine more?

nicknames for each player and would chant them as the slideshow progressed. The director’s husband told me one really interesting story about a very famous player that the Lyon team had purchased from the Bordeaux team for 25 million euros last year. Apparently he has always been extremely talented but this past year he has sucked, so every time he kicks the ball they call it the most expensive kick ever made. 25 million euros. What a joke.

The game was uneventful and by the beginning of the third quarter, no one had scored. I also desperately needed to use a restroom and the only available one in the stadium was legitimately a pit in the ground; I think not. We decided to head out since we were trying to get to Johnny Walsh’s before the Superbowl started anyways. On the way to Johnny Walsh, we stopped in a McDonalds since the bathrooms are generally clean there and have the whole toilet and paper thing going for them as well. Unfortunately you have to show a receipt to be able to use the bathroom so I bought an ice cream sundae, which is on the 99 cent menu at home, for 2.10 euros. That is right around three dollars aka highway robbery.

We continued on our way and found the rest of the UVA group already at Johnny Walsh’s sitting in a circle, ready to get a little taste of home. They were handing out free potato wedges and discounts for students on beer, what a delightful idea. As the game began, we noticed that the announcer had a british accent. Someone pointed out that this might mean that we were not getting the same show as the US and therefore….we would not get commercials 😦 I am usually pretty much anti-emoticons but really, this was devastating. Once this had been confirmed, I finished one last potato wedge and headed home to search real super bowl commercials on hulu. Doritos, well done.

Yesterday, I didn’t have class until 2 pm so I stayed in bed until 1 pm when I realized that I had been assigned homework for both of my classes. Wonderful. Unfortunately here they make you email your homework in in advance so that the teachers can correct your work and return it during class. I sent two emails just before I had to sprint out the door to make it to class in time. It turned out that only about three people did the homework anyways so I guess I won’t have to worry about that again…. Literally none of the students here take anything seriously. It is unbelievable to see the way that people will blatantly carry on conversations overtop of the teacher while he/she is trying to lecture. Unfortunately, the teachers are so used to it that if you are one of the few people who makes eye contact with him/her, you will get called on. I learned this the hard way and try to count floor tiles or something in order to prevent myself from making this mistake again.

Today was another rough day at school but it’s done now and we just had a wonderfully amusing dinner. Maureen told her parents about the cops coming on Saturday…that was funny. They were not pleased. Oh and I forgot to mention that my probably 60-65 year old “père” has a massive black eye. So he told us the story about their ski trip this weekend and how he tried to help his wife with something and she accidentally elbowed him in the face so now he has an epic black eye. A dinner full of surprises.

Good News: I’ve only got two more classes this week then I’m off to Paris for the weekend! I also just bought my spring break tickets to go meet my host family at their house in Geneva to go skiing with them for the week! So many exciting trips coming up and I will definitely be posting again after this weekend in Paris. Until then, Love from Lyon!

we’re not in charlottesville anymore

This week has been a little bit slower since we had school for two days so didn’t go out quite as frequently. I have been trying to improve my french listening by watching french movies with french subtitles and it seems to help. My host family told me that I was welcome to watch anything in their DVD collection so I checked it out and they had the entire Alfred Hitchcock discography as well as all of Woody Allen’s work. It’s hilarious to see what random American things French people enjoy. They love our music and a lot of TV shows but at the same time, they are fairly disgusted with our accents and ask frequently if we are from California or New York.

This past Wednesday was the beginning of a huge sale in France that lasts for three weeks called “La Solde.” Every store participates and marks most of their inventory down up to 50%, so naturally we were counting down the days for this to happen since the dollar to euro conversion isn’t exactly conducive to shopping. Unfortunately, we had school on Wednesday from 8-5 so we weren’t able to start shopping until we left the university.

Although we hadn’t had school for the past four days, we were supposed to be working on an oral presentation with a partner that would be presented on Wednesday as our final grade for the class. Naturally, my partner and I started on it the day before and still had not come up with a topic to discuss. The assignment was basically just to choose a topic: art, music, a country, etc. and explain it to the class. We had no idea what to talk about until my partner told me a story about the dinner she had the night before with her “brother.”

Her brother had asked her what country music was and she didn’t know how to describe it so she showed him the most stereotypical song she could think of: Kenny Chesney‘s “She thinks my Tractor’s Sexy.” She explained that she wasn’t really into country music but it was popular in the South. Then her brother asked her the big question: Are rednecks real? He was shocked as she described the regular practices of a redneck bunch of guys and that’s when she realized, we needed to explain this phenomena to France.

yes france, they're real

Lucky for me, I’ve been surrounded by Rednecks all my life with a dad and brother who hunt constantly and pretty much epitomize most of the stereotypical role. We typed out our project explaining deer hunting, catfishing,  mudding, dipping and more then we knew we were ready to present. The next day in class, we gave the presentation which was not quite as much of a shock as we’d expected since many of the other students were American and were already well aware of this fine breed of human beings. I could barely believe that was all we had to do for that class and we got two credits at UVA… we went to class a total of five times. I don’t hate it…

After class Wednesday, we headed to the main shopping area in Lyon to check out La Solde. It really was a big event and people had travelled from all over to come take advantage of the sales. Every store was packed like they are on the day after Christmas in the US. We wandered around Bellecour for several hours, hitting up the Zara, H&M, and my favorite of all: monoprix. Although “Monoprix” was not necessarily the best representation of discounts, I loved that store because as soon as I walked in, I felt like I was back in America. The entire outside of the store is glass and it dominates a large portion of the shopping area since it is four stories high with a Harris-Teeter type grocery store on the bottom, then a department store, then a small cafe/restaurant, and on top: a CVS replica. Up to this point, I had basically assumed that the French were not aware of the joys of Super Centers. Contrarily, they just don’t have them on every corner, so when you do come upon one, it is like a whole new experience with convenience. While I could have easily stayed there for a very long time, I had to get back to eat dinner with my host family, so I grabbed the essentials: Gummy Coke Bottles and Chocolate Bars with Orange; can’t get enough of them.

I headed home and ate dinner with my family and then decided to take it easy in preparation for the upcoming weekend. I stayed in and watched the rest of Jeux D’enfants and caught up with a few friends on skype before going to bed early.

The next morning, we had a 2 o clock class that was completely pointless since we had already done everything for our final grade but I decided to go in anyways. I left a little bit early to swing by the post office and put some post cards in the mail, which turned out to be a quick and easy process since there was an english option on the automated machine so I cheated and went for it. Strangely, it costs the same amount, 1 euro or about $1.30, to send a postcard or a letter in an envelope but I dropped them all in the outgoing box and headed to school.

When we got to the University, we got to hear a lecture from the husband of the program director for the UVA in Lyon program. He is a professor at the Institute of Political Studies in Lyon and speaks both English and French flawlessly and was able to switch quickly between the two languages in order to keep our attention. Sadly he will be on sabbatical next semester so none of us will be able to take classes from him, but it was nice to see a sample of how a lecture in a real University class would be.

At the end of the school day, we headed out to the main shopping area of Lyon, Bellecour, to buy tickets for a big international party that night. We bought the tickets, which not only allowed us to get in, but could also be redeemed for one free drink and free crèpes all night. After we had our tickets, we split up to go home and eat dinner with our host families before going out that night so I started heading back towards the river.

Usually, my family eats around 7:30, so I figured 9:00 would be the best estimate for when I’d be able to be out the door and on the way to Annie’s with a couple bottles of wine to get the evening started.

wino in the making

I messed around on my computer for a while, waiting on dinner, but by 7:45, I still hadn’t heard anything. I decided to go ask mon père and he assured me that we would eat as soon as the student, that ma mère was tutoring, had left. I could smell dinner cooking so I figured this seemed pretty accurate and I headed back to my room. Soon after, I heard the student leave and I knew it wouldn’t be much longer so I headed in towards the kitchen, just in time to hear ma mère say that she had changed her mind about what we should have for dinner and she was going to start over.

At this point it was about 8:30 and I knew dinner wouldn’t be ready until after nine so I decided to tell them I was going to eat out because I had a “rendez-vous” that I couldn’t miss. At first they were ok with this plan and said that I could move my weekly dinner to the next night but then they realized that nothing would really be open at this point and I should probably just eat a quick dinner at the house. Ma mère made me a bowl of mashed cauliflower with cheese sauce, served with salmon and ham on the side. Not too bad for a quick fix.

I quickly rushed out the door after several “merci”s and headed to the convenience store to pick up a bottle of wine that we hadn’t tried yet. After I headed up to Annie’s room, we added the corks to our pitiful collection and started getting ready for this party. Our other friends came and met up with us shortly after and we all headed over together to find this club.

Once we got there, we found out that we had to pay three euros to check our coats so we all started stuffing coats into sleeves in an attempt to check one coat and split it between multiple people. Unfortunately, they charged separately for bags so our plan failed and we paid up and headed in. The rest of the details of this night are a little bit haazyy…but rumor has it, it was a good time.

The next morning we all woke up really late and headed over to the University for our last day of classes. I can honestly say that I have no idea what happened or what was said during that three hour class… I do know that I drew several caricatures of  people in the class during that time and wrote the entire alphabet and the numbers 1-100 as a handwriting experiment.

Once I lost three hours of my life, that I would never get back, we headed back to Bellecour to go to the Longchamp store and take advantage of these sales before they end. We walked around for a little bit after and got espressos and pastries but it was getting close to dinner time so we parted ways, agreeing that we would meet up after dinner for a night out.

Around 9 or so, I met up with a friend and we picked up a few wine bottles and headed over to a friends house nearby. Three bottles of wine later, we realized it was high time we left, considering that most bars are only open til about 1:00 here. With no plan at all, we headed out into the streets to see what we came upon. After walking a short distance, we noticed that large groups of people were walking up some cobblestone sidestreets so naturally, we figured that was where the party was, and we followed.

It turned out to be a bunch of different groups of young people, standing outside a bar that was just closing so we were all standing outside not really knowing what was going on. We decided it would be a good idea to ask one of these french kids if they could direct us to a bar that would be open later so we started scanning the crowd. Fairly quickly, I noticed one of the most beautiful beings that has ever graced God’s green earth.

well done France

I pointed him out to my friend and she boldly decided that is exactly who we would ask. As we start making our way through the crowd, we had no idea what we were about to get ourselves into.

It turned out that this guy was with a group of about ten other rambunctious french guys, deja vu?, and they were all extremely excited to speak to American girls. While it took a long time to clarify that we were not from California or New York, they finally got it and we stood outside the bar for most of the night, trying to practice speaking french with these guys. They were not hesitant to criticize our pronunciation and grammar, telling us they could barely tell what we were trying to say.

On the other hand, their attempts at english were a far cry from anything I’ve ever been taught. One of them thought it would be clever to compare Annie to “Pocahontas” but it took several tries before she even understood what he was getting at. Even after several “repeat after me” sessions, it still sounded, to us, like he was saying POKE-CHONE-TAZ, but to him it sounded flawless.

The night only got more interesting after they purchased a bottle of Whiskey and a huge coke and started chugging it in the streets, at which point, it became even more clear that this was a wild group of hoodlums, minus the one pretty one, who I will one day marry. They suggested that we go to a club up the street and when we got there it said on the outside “Market, Sandwiches, Café.” Not exactly the scene I expected these guys to pick, but we headed in anyways.

REJECTED.

It turns out that the bouncer had noticed that the hoodlums had just downed a bottle of Jack before coming in and he wasn’t sure if they were in the best state to enter the bar. At this point we decided it was time to go home. We said goodbye to our newfound friends and they all tried to pull the classic french boy trick

please note the homeless man on the far right who wanted to join the pic

where they say oh give me a french kiss before you leave! Naturally we all say no and then they act like we are crazy, they obviously just wanted a kiss on each cheek. So you go to give a kiss on each cheek and they try to plant one on you real quick. Luckily we had already run into this a few other times so we were all able to dart their attempts but you gotta watch out for that one…

My friends walked me back to my building and then continued on their way and I fumbled around for my keys for a second and finally got the exterior door open. The way that my building is laid out is that there is the outer door, then a foyer with another door that leads to a hallway with yet another door before I reach the stairs. Unfortunately in France, they like to preserve energy and whatnot so they never leave lights on and every building either has a motion sensor or a button to get the lights to work. Ours is a button and you can’t reach it until you pass through the first two doors. I made my way in and reached for the light but tripped over something big and bulky. That’s odd…. Usually the halls are empty. Especially at 3am. I felt my way along the wall and found the button. Tap. They came on and the object in my way was illuminated, a bike….with a lot of clothes on it. I started to back away from the bike when I stepped on something else, that made a noise. Oh.My.God.

A man in a sleeping back jolted up and yelled “Bonjour!” I literally do not think I have been more panicked in my life. I forgot all of the french that I knew and began cussing and yelling in english and running as quickly as my legs would carry me, towards the next door. Once it was closed and locked with me on one side and him on the other, I started breathing again but still raced up the stairs to get away. My french sister had just gotten back and said she had also seen him and that he apparently knew the code to get into the exterior door so he sleeps there on occasion when it’s cold. I would have liked a heads up on that one.

When I woke up the next day, I remembered that I had told my friend Juliette that I would go running with her. We met up at a bridge near my house and ran along the Saône river and I quickly realized how long it had been since I had run. My body wanted to collapse early on and I was overjoyed when we saw an group of book vendors, selling old french novels along the river, and we decided to stop and browse. They had all sorts of french authors spread out and every book had that look where you just want it, even if you know you’ll never read it, but it would look awesome on your desk.

Luckily I had no money with me and we didn’t run into any more book fairs so the rest of the run went by quickly and I returned to my house to shower and meet up with some other friends. After just a few minutes of being with my friends, it became quickly evident that I had not yet eaten anything and it was pushing 3 pm. I was being a bit snappy, to put it nicely. They agreed that the first thing we needed to do was get me some nutrition so that they would be able to put up with me. We went to Vieux Lyon to a small bakery where we got

nutella crèpe!

delicious pizza and cokes. After that, I ate a croissant that had pear and chocolate in it and my friends had their first french crèpes made  just outside of the bakery.

Although some of the hungry aggression remained, I agreed to go with them to climb up the hill of Vieux Lyon to get to the Basilica at the top

basilica at the top

and see the view of the city. Honestly, to call it a hill is a huge understatement. We trekked up flight after flight of seemingly never-ending stairs. I literally had to stop several times and each time we thought we were close, we would turn a corner to find more sets of stairs. Finally after a long, exhausting hike, we reached the top of the mountain, right before dusk. The view was incredible. We stayed at the overlook for a while, taking pictures and then headed into the Basilica to see the inside.

view from the top

Unfortunately they were having a mass at the time so we were not allowed to take pictures of the inside, but even just the outside was absolutely breath taking. The Basilica is right beside the Eiffel Tower of Lyon and by the time we left, they had just turned on the lights, as it was starting to get dark. Naturally, the stairs were much easier to face on the way down and we were quickly back in Vieux Lyon.

We decided to go out to dinner that night and found a chic looking restaurant that didn’t seem too expensive. Although the host said that there was 30 minute wait, we all knew it would be worth it because the smell alone could make you hungry even if you had just eaten thanksgiving dinner. We waited at the bar for a while and then were seated shortly thereafter. Each of us ordered a different pasta dish, knowing that it would be somewhat of a surprise as to what exactly our entrées would consist of since none of us knew the meanings of the words for half of the ingredients.

Luckily, they were all delicious and we left knowing we would be back again another night. After dinner, we wandered around for a little while looking for something fun to do but my body was so exhausted from the day, I was just about ready to take a nap on the sidewalk, so we decided to call it a night.

Although we had not had a sip to drink, We were extremely hungry at the end of the night and decided to go check see if MacDonalds was open. Sadly, we were reminded that we were in the US and not all businesses were going to cater to our late-night cravings. I went home disappointed and decided to raid the kitchen. That night’s late night meal ended up being: a baguette and a clementine. Looks like France could be good for my health after all….I still miss Little John’s though.

The next morning, I set my alarm for 10 to get ready for brunch with my host family because they had asked me to eat with them in celebration of their daughter’s 21st birthday. Their oldest daughter and her husband came over too and brought, the person I’ve been wanting to meet the whole time I’ve been here, their five month old daughter. She was the cutest thing in the world. When they brought her in, she was bundled up in a snow suit, waddling around and making loud little french baby noises. I was in love.

We had a delicious lunch and I drank wine with my host family for the first time. Their son-in-law teased ma soeur and I by replenishing our wine glasses every time even a sip was consumed. By far the best part of the meal was the dessert, homemade tiramisu and coffee. I’m not positive whether the food was great or whether I was just on top of the world because I got to hold the baby during dessert and read her”Little Red Riding Hood.” On every page, the family would stop me and ask me to explain it to them in french, it’s funny to think about things like that…Who doesn’t know that story right? I guess different countries grow up hearing different fairy tales.

That night, Annie and I went to the evening mass service with ma soeur. The Cathedral was not nearly as elegant as the one I had attended the week before, but there were a lot more young people and it was a shorter service. It was sort of like going to a modern service in the US because they used a projector and sang new songs rather than Hymns. The only part that I could really follow along with was the Nicene Creed but other than that I was pretty lost. I decided to skip out on Communion since it hadn’t gone so well the week before and I’m not even Catholic so I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be taking part.

After the service, Annie and I were starving, as usual, and we asked ma soeur if she knew any good burger places nearby because the french are not fond of red meat and we crave it all the time. She started raving about this place that made burgers that were even better than the US and we couldn’t wait to get there. After looking up directions online, we clicked on the main website and of course, it wasn’t open. Sunday. The French are pretty good about following that rule…

Instead of big juicy burgers, Annie and I ended up eating microwaved burgers at the “James Joyce Pub” across the river….at least we got glass cokes! Of course we were still hungry after that so we went to the fallback restaurant… MAC-DO, as they call it here. We ordered fries and mcflurries and continued to stuff

couldn't ask for anything more

our faces. Once we were full, we headed home to get to bed early.

Monday morning I had to be at school at 8:30am for the entrance exams for CIEF, the intensive french program I am enrolled in. We were briefed on the school’s policies and paperwork we needed to get filled out and then we were given the option to take our entrance exams all in one day or over a period of several days. I decided I wanted to get them all out of the way so I volunteered to take all three of my exams in one day, which meant a longg day of testing.

At the end of the day, I decided to go home and watch a movie and nap. I looked through the family DVD collection and found the French version of Into the Wild, a personal favorite. This was a great decision until I realized that the entire movie was based on sappy quotes about relationships and the meaning of life. Once I was about an hour in, I had to cut it off and skype with my parents for a while to get my mind off the movie and how much I missed home.

I was starting to feel a like I was catching a cold so I decided to stay in and rest. Then on wednesday morning, I woke up late, grabbed bread and espresso for breakfast and met up with my friends in Bellecour. We bought cards that you can use to purchase discount tickets for trains or flights with a student ID. A lot of businesses offer pretty hefty discounts to students so we were anxious to get these cards. After that we went to a café, as always, for pastries and coffee. Unfortunately, the waiter did not understand us when we ordered or when we said that friends were coming to meet us so he gave us the wrong coffees and offered the other two available seats at our table to some random strangers. It was not an encouraging interaction and we quickly made our way out of the café.

Since I am in a different program at Lyon 2 than most of my friends, we were on different itineraries for the day and they all left to go sign up for classes. For once I was on my own in Bellecour and it was actually pretty exciting. I headed to monoprix and bought my self a much-needed present, socks and shampoo. Up to this point I have been wearing only tights or knee high socks and it has been driving me crazy. As for the shampoo, it’s not that I haven’t had any this whole time, but I think I may have read the package wrong on the first night when I bought it and ended up with two bottles of conditioner…All I know is after about one hour out of the shower, my hair has not been pleasant sight. Luckily, monoprix had Pantene Pro-V and normal ankle socks. Success.

cool chalk drawing a guy was working on in Bellecour

I shopped all day until it was time to go back for dinner and it was just starting to get dark and cold. When I got back to the flat, Mon père knocked on my door and handed me a letter. My first piece of mail!!! It was an adorable card from my sister who I miss A LOT (happy gin?). I read through it and it inspired me to write a couple more postcards to home and then I headed in to the kitchen for dinner.

The coughing got progressively worse and I couldn’t hide it at dinner so mes parents went into care-taker mode and offered me all sorts of medicine and tried to set up a doctor’s appt. This seemed a little hasty to me, considering that I go to the doctor basically only for emergencies in the US, so I just took whatever over the counter medicine they had at home and thought that would be the end of it. We finished dinner and I realized that there was no way they were going to let me go out that night since they clearly thought I was on the brink of death so I called my friend Annie to come over and help me come up with a plan. She showed up with a bottle of wine and we just got ready and finished the bottle without ever leaving the room so mes parents didn’t realize what was going on. Then, once we got the call that our other friends were outside, we quickly left the room and said goodbye before they could contest.

We walked for a long while and finally found what we were looking for, a salsa dancing club that another girl in the program had suggested we should go to. Unfortunately, it was the night for intermediate dancers and I have never salsa danced in my life so I seated myself off to the side and watched the sweaty couples from afar. We didn’t stay there long because it turned out that almost no one in our program knew how to salsa so it wasn’t an ideal hangout for us. Instead we decided to search for a few kids from Dartmouth that we had met earlier that night.

En route to the bar that the Dartmouth kids were at, we stumbled upon a Falafel place and decided to go in and grab a snack. Although I had never had falafel, everyone else was raving about it so I decided to try it. The man who was running the little late night joint was an adorable Brazilian man who took on the ominous task of helping us with our french, seeing as he had been in the same position when he moved to France, 8 years before. We chatted with him for a good while and then realized that we should meet up with the rest of the group before the other bar closed.

When we found them, they were all just leaving the bar so we turned around and headed back to where we came from. One of the girls knew of a place nearby that her friend had recommended that she go to, so we all agreed that that sounded like the best plan. Sadly, when we got there, it was closed but there was a group of people standing outside a bar just a block up and we had a few members of the group that were pretty desperate to find a restroom so we decided to give it a chance. While it looked beyond sketchy from the outside, the inside was actually pretty cool. It was a small jazz bar

the jazz bar

with a live band that played just fifteen feet from the seating area. After we had listened to two sets, a few of us were tired enough that we needed to head back so we split from the rest of the group and began the long homeward bound trek.

Exhausted from the day, I quickly fell asleep and woke up this morning thinking it was past 4pm for sure. Luckily it was only about noon and my friend Annie called me and reminded me that we had agreed, as a group last night, that we would all meet up at a thai restaurant for lunch at one. I dragged myself out of bed and met up with her but we had noo idea where this place was but we headed in the general direction that seemed right. After about 40 minutes of walking and a lot of phone calls for directions from friends, we finally reached the small restaurant and found the rest of the group.

During the entire walk, I was able to force one foot in front of the other, stomach grumbling, just thinking about the pad thai that I was about to receive. It was enough encouragement to keep me walking for another 40 minutes I’d say. Unfortunately, upon arrival, we found out that the only menu offered was written on a small chalk board with three or four daily plates, none of them being pad thai. I was devastated to say the least.

Since I rarely even know what I am ordering in a thai restaurant, I was even more lost while placing my thai order in french and I knew I was in for a surprise. The food was fine but I’ve never been a curry person or a thai food person really, besides the token dish… but it was good to see the group again this afternoon. When we left the restaurant, I was dreading the thought of walking back so we decided to try public transportation for the first time.

We looked at the bus routes and found out that those would not take us anywhere near where we wanted to be, so we decided to search for a metro. Block after block, we saw nothing until we finally realized we were almost on our side of the river again anyways so it made more sense just to walk it out. We did get the chance to buy some metro tickets at least, on the off chance that we ever decide to learn how to use that system…

Now I have just walked back into my flat and of course, I was hacking when I walked in because this cold will not go away. Mon père came in, very concerned, and offered me hot tea and medicine. This time I took a new liquid medicine which tasted like straight up poison and now I feel like I need to sleep for another 12 hours. I checked the package and the only clear warning was DO NOT DRIVE AFTER TAKING THIS. Soo I should probably assume that carries over and means don’t blog after taking this either….so I’ll stop here. I’m going to try to get better about updating more often, this was just an off week. Until then, Love from Lyon!!

PS: This is a link to my friend Sydney’s flickr account and she takes a lot of the pictures I have been using!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovefromlyon/page1/

avez-vous des enfants?

When the alarm went off yesterday after a short five hours of sleep, I knew I had to get out of bed so that I had time to fix my face and hide my exhaustion before I would be presentable for my first visit to a Catholic Mass. I got up and put on an outfit characteristic of an episcopalian congregation, thinking that would be the most comparable experience that I had had. After about 30 minutes of preparation, I headed into the kitchen thinking I should try to get a bite to eat before the service so my growling stomach wasn’t overpowering the priest. Oddly, when I walked into the kitchen, I found both of my host parents sitting at the table eating their morning bread and jam but they hadn’t gotten dressed for mass yet because they were both wearing jeans and sweaters. Although it was just 30 minutes before the service was supposed to begin, I decided it would be rude to let them know that they might want to go ahead and get ready so instead I joined them at the breakfast table.

Ma mère (french mother) made me fresh squeezed orange juice and an espresso while mon père cut me a few pieces of the morning baguette. Although it seems like it would be nice to be waited on all the time, it is getting to the point where I feel like I am always a burden and I really want to tell them that I will gladly get things for myself if they are ok with that, but I haven’t quite figured out how to say that phrase…so for now, I don’t hate it.

After we finished breakfast, they grabbed their coats and asked me if I was ready to head to mass. That is when I realized that I was drastically overdressed but it was much too late to change now so we headed out into the street. The church was only a few minutes walk, but in that short time I noticed that everyone in the streets was headed to church and all of the store windows were dark and empty. I asked ma mère and she told me that all businesses close on Sundays out of religious respect and the only places that would remain open would be a few food places that were unaffiliated. She was surprised to hear that it is not the same way in America because it is such a common practice here.

We headed into the Cathedral and ma mère pointed at the huge columns, telling me that they remained in tact from ancient roman temples. The architecture of the church was stunning, but the seating seemed almost primitive, with wooden chairs filling the room, connected at the base. Since I have become accustomed to padded pews built with an inclined back rest, this was not the ideal seating that I imagined would fill the beautiful Cathedral.

Pamphlets were passed up and down the aisles with the prayers and hymns of the day’s service printed on them. This was essential for me in understanding what was going on since the priest catered to the native french speaking congregation rather than the slow, well-enunciated speech that I had been faced with in dinner conversations with my family. Although I could follow along for the prayers and songs, my attention span quickly gave out during the sermon when I realized I had no idea what the priest was saying. Instead I directed my attention to the two young girls in front of me, pulling each other’s hair and whispering back and forth the whole time.

Their trivial bickering kept me entertained for the majority of the service and then the congregation stood up and I realized it was time for communion. Since I am not Catholic, I was not sure if it was ok for me to participate in communion and I did not want to offend anyone by making the wrong decision. As soon as the priest said it was time to exchange blessings of peace between each other and people began handshakes and cheek kissing, I seized the moment and asked mon père (french father) whether I was supposed to participate or not. He said that he wasn’t sure but if I was Catholic, I had better not. Then, a minute later, he changed his mind and said I should just go ahead up with them.

The time came and we stood up and walked in lines up the aisle. I was handed a small wafer and the priest blessed it saying “le corps du Christo” or “the body of Christ.” Once I had the wafer, I searched for the wine nearby to dip the wafer or take a small sip as I have done in every previous communion. Although the line kept me moving away from the front of the Cathedral, I never found the wine and I hadn’t seen whether people had eaten their wafer immediately or saved it to eat after a prayer back in their seats. It turns out that I was supposed to have eaten it but at this point, I was paranoid and pretty sure that most people were looking at me, wondering why I was holding onto my wafer in my increasingly sweaty fist. I quickly shoved it into my pocket and closed my eyes to pray, realizing that whatever I had just done was probably sacrilegious and I would eat the wafer in a more discrete location later to make up for it.

At the end of the service, we headed home for lunch which was a delicious blend of vegetables, served with beef and salad. I finally decided to try the yogurt and cheese that had been offered to me every other night but I had been too scared that I would not like it and then I would have to force it down in an attempt to avoid offending ma mère. I was given the small glass far full of yogurt that they kept in a tupperware in the fridge, with about 12 jars per large container. I watched as “ma soeur,” my french sister, poured raw sugar on top of hers and I decided to do the same and then took a bite of the suspicious looking substance. Surprisingly, it was unbelievably tasty and I quickly finished the small jar before being presented with vanilla ice cream and chocolates and then as usual, a cup of espresso. Once again, I basically ate an entire thanksgiving size meal in one sitting, as if it was a casual lunch, and for them, it is.

At the end of lunch, I went to meet Sydney and Annie to head back to our new favorite place, Vieux Lyon. Despite the pouring rain, I did not change out of my church clothes and started to walk out the door of our flat. Ma mère stopped me and handed me an umbrella first, saying that she wouldn’t want me to mess up my nice jacket. She is adorable. On a side note, she also now claps for me every time I successfully unlock the door on my own. But anyways, we headed over to the macaroon store that we had visited the afternoon before and stopped at a bakery first so that Sydney, who had not yet eaten, could get a piece of pizza to tide her over. As we stared at the menu, we saw a few words we did not recognize and questioned amongst ourselves what they meant. Soon the girl in front of us turned around and in answer to our question, said in perfect english,without a trace of an accent, “aubergine means eggplant.” We looked at her wide-eyed as if we had just witnessed a miracle. Although some vendors here understand bits of english, this was the first time that we had come across someone who was clearly american, but was able to blend into the culture with ease. As she walked out of the bakery, part of me wanted to head after her and just have a normal english conversation, where she understood me fully and I was able to express my thoughts without charades and repetition. But she quickly disappeared around the corner and we were left, dumbfounded, hoping we would run into more Americans again soon.

Once we had picked up some pistachio macaroons next door, we met up with our friend Juliette and went to a small café to get out of the rain. The café was empty except for the owner, who allowed us to sit with our drinks for an hour or so before we decided to head back to try to get a quick nap before regrouping later in the night.

It turns out that napping is not easy to do after a cup of coffee and so the sleeping period became a few games of angry birds on my ipod before Sydney came over to get ready to go grab dinner. Ma mère had been in the kitchen all day and had just finished baking a king cake in celebration of the epiphany. Sydney and I were invited to have a piece and quickly accepted the invitation. She had hidden a small plastic king and queen inside the cake, just as we do for mardi gras with the plastic baby. Neither of us found royalty in our slices but we thanked her and headed back to my room to grab our things and head back to Vieux Lyon for dinner.

Annie called just before we left the city and she had just gotten out of mass since she went to the later service which caters more to young people. Since she was back we decided to wait a few minutes so she could come meet up with us and then we headed across the bridge. Ma mère wasn’t kidding when she said that nothing would be open on Sunday…. When we got to Vieux Lyon, there was almost no one in the streets and very few venues with lights on at all. Besides Indian food, there was basically nothing to eat so we gave up the search and headed to a nearby pub called “The Smoking Dog.” We had heard that that was the hotspot for Americans and this was confirmed when we first walked in and were greeted by a man from Wyoming who overheard us speaking english as we entered. After a bottle of wine, we headed back across the bridge to drop a friend off early then went on a hunt for a bathroom.

Bathrooms here are not an easy thing to find or use, especially on a Sunday when 7/10 stores are closed. We found a public restroom outside that looked like a nicer version of a port-a-potty but you couldn’t even open the door without a french credit card. After giving up on the deceptive outdoor toilet, we went across the street to the first bar we saw and headed to the back to use the bathroom. Finally, the debacle was over and we settled down at this place with a few glasses of wine. After a few minutes, we noticed that there were no other women in this bar, but a lot of pretty men… Not ideal.

We left the gay bar and headed back to Vieux Lyon for late night treats at a 24 hr bakery that we had noticed earlier in the day. While in line, we noticed that everyone around us was speaking English! It turned out that the couple in front of us was American, as was the guy behind us. Once we all had our baked goods, we headed over to another bar to watch the Eagles game and speak some good ole English. Annie and Juliette spent most of their time with the couple that we had met while I spoke with the other guy and found out that he had just moved here a month ago and was taking classes to learn french. He had an upcoming quiz and was carrying around a sheet of very simple french phrases that he needed to learn so I offered to quiz him on them.

His friend Sophie and him sat on one side of the booth, while I sat on the other and began the questions. Where are you from? America, was the response. What do you do for a living? A banker. Do you have siblings? blah blah blah… very basic french. It got old and we ended up talking for most of the night and he seemed like a really cool guy so I was excited to have met a normal American in Lyon that I could potentially hang out with. A few beers later I picked up the vocab list again and started back up on the quizzing. Avez-vous des enfants?- Do you have kids? Deux- Two.

Reality Check.

I laughed it off thinking he hadn’t understood the question and asked it again in English. Yikes. Two Kids. Next Question: How old are you? 25. That didn’t add up… I asked again. 34. It turns out that either I have absolutely no idea how to gage a person’s age, or that was a deceptively young looking dad. Either way, Juliette and Annie and I quickly left the bar and headed back across the bridge with the couple that we had met earlier, leaving the dad behind. We all went our separate ways and headed off to sleep.

The next morning, I woke up around 12:50 and got dressed and ready to go buy French Social Security. Annie, Sydney, and I met up and did the usual search for anywhere cheap to eat and finally settled on a small American looking place that offered pizza for 5 euros which is actually extremely cheap here. Once we ordered, we realized that there was a different price for sitting and eating vs if we were taking the food to go, so we ended up paying an extra 2 euros since we stayed. This could be related to the fact that no one in France expects a tip so the extra charge might go towards the “service fee.”

We went across the street to the social security place and each bought the minimum requirement and then called our friend Juliette and decided to meet up in Bellecour, the large shopping area. Although we were within sight of the hotel we stayed in for the first few days, we somehow made a wrong turn trying to get across the bridge to Bellecour and we ended up in the only part of Lyon that we were told to avoid. Ma mère told me that her son had been attacked in the predominantly arabic part of town and that it would be best to stay out of there. As we walked, we noticed more and more mosques and arabic writing on stores and realized we had found the danger zone and had no idea how to get out. We started walking quickly, without speaking, so that it was not obvious that we were english speaking students who were clearly lost. Once we got out of the most dangerous and isolated part and reached a more busy intersection, Sydney asked a nice looking woman where the Rhone was from our location and she looked at us as if we were crazy and pointed in the correct direction. After walking a block, we understood why she gave us the look because we realized where we were and had found the bridge within a matter of minutes.

After spotting Juliette behind the ferris wheel of Bellecour, we headed towards a nearby café that she said she had been to the other day and knew we would all enjoy. We walking into the picturesque boulangerie and oggled at all of the delicious looking baked goods behind the glass. Once everyone had picked out a treat for themselves, we were seated upstairs, where we were brought coffees and waters. So far, almost every restaurant has brought us water and wine glasses, so that we have become accustomed to drinking out of only wine glasses or coffee mugs here. It does throw me off sometimes though when we walk past cafés early in the morning and I wonder if France should be more worried about the rate of alcoholism in their country as I see people sipping out of wine glasses at 8am.

Once we were seated with our coffees, we sat for a while and shared stories about all of the humiliating grammar mistakes that we had made with our families at dinner and in general. We stayed for about an hour and then decided it was about time to head home and continue making these mistakes at yet another dinner, with hopes that after enough dinner corrections, we will eventually start to improve.

After a quick chat with ma mère and mon père, I found out that my french sister was going to be staying at her friend’s house close to her University since they had exams the next day and needed to be at school super early. This would be my first dinner alone with mes parents. This dinner was not as extravagant as the past few but equally delicious. We started with a rotisserie style chicken, served with several types of mustard sauces for dipping, then moved onto the next course of legumes that I have never seen before, but really enjoyed. After a small pasta dish, we had the usual series of fruit, homemade yogurt, cheese, then dessert. I do not think I am going to tire of this feasting anytime soon and might have to learn how to make yogurt before I come back to the US because I am forming a quick and undoable attachment.

This night’s dinner was notable though because when it came time for the fruit, we each grabbed a clementine, each of which was wrapped in a light wax paper and we began to unwrap. Before I could get the peel off of mine, ma mère told me that she wanted to show me a magic trick that her husband had taught her. I will never turn down a magic trick, especially from a grown woman, so I told her that she had my attention, and she began.

She took the wax paper from her orange and flattened it before rolling it into a lengthwise tube. Although her dinner plate still had remnants of the meal on top, she carelessly flipped it over to use as a flat surface and placed the tube on top, balancing vertically. Since she stood up, I thought this was the whole trick and tried to come up with some way to express a sort of sympathetic amusement but before I could get anything out, she lit the tube on fire. That was unexpected. The length of the tube quickly blackened and just when it reached the bottom, the last circular piece shot up into the air quickly. C’etait magie. I am becoming more and more fond of this family as little things like this happen. I tried to record mon père playing piano outside my room today and am going to attempt to attach the track but I am not sure if it will work because I have never done that before.

Mr. Feuillet Playing Piano

I have also noticed that my English is slowly deteriorating into a sort of English-French combination that doesn’t make much sense, except to the other victims of the same occurrence. The whole group of exchange students have been replacing random words throughout english sentences with french vocabulary or using the wrong english word entirely. It begins like stuttering and then you realize that you have no idea how to express yourself in English or French and we all have to try to guess each other’s thoughts or just assume we know what the end of their sentences should be. It’s a sad state. By the time I get back to America, I will probably be nearly incapable of keeping up in conversation unless I become a way more active member of the Skype community.

Today I woke up at one pm and came out of my room and mon père said “you woke up just when the sun was going to bed!” aka he probably thinks I am a lazy bum but hey when you don’t have school for four days in a row, it’s difficult to force yourself out of bed at an ungodly hour. He offered to cook me some eggs but I wanted to show him that I didn’t need him to follow me around all the time, doing everything for me, so I said no thank you and then went into the kitchen to make myself bread and jam. Although I could tell he didn’t understand when I tried to explain my sleeping habits at home, he eventually gave up on trying to make me eat breakfast and lunch in one sitting to make sure that I didn’t have some sort of disorder. I think I am going to have to work on waking up at a normal time so that he doesn’t become even more concerned that I have a medical issue or something because sleeping in just does not exist in this family. So long brunch, hello breakfast. Thank God for espresso, the only thing that will allow me to wake up at the same hour as these early risers. Sorry for the wordy post, I have trouble comprehending the word summary but I’ll work on it in the future. Until then, Love from Lyon!

out on the town

Just as the first day of school was a long and difficult one, the second was not much better. The only thing that helped me get through it was the constant reminder that it would only be half as long as the first day. When “treize heure” or 1:00 arrived, everyone was more than ready to get out of the small classroom and explore more of the city.

We attempted to find a café that we had been to once before but with my sense of direction and me leading the search, it was not successful. Since we couldn’t find that place we decided we would just wander around the streets until something caught our eye. We ended up close to the hotel that we first stayed at and noticed that a lot of people were eating in the same café that we had been to the first night. As we walked closer, I saw through the window that they had delicious looking sandwiches and I decided to look closer. It was not until another girl on the trip came over and pulled me out of my daze that I realized I had been staring through a glass window at the food on a plate of a couple eating together. It is easy to feel as if you are in a film in this environment because it is so picturesque and new that it does not seem real. For us, as tourists/ students new to the area, it is easy to stare at something surprising or different without realizing what you have been doing. Once we realized this, we have become better at noticing when we are doing it and hopefully not falling back into the “glassy eyed american” mold.

We eventually did end up eating at that café and I ordered the same sandwich that I had been drooling over in the window. Almost all of us ordered poppy seed subs and the waiter set them all on the table on one big platter without napkins or plates. Everyone in the restaurant was just eating over a bare table which was new for us but also very difficult to do when you are dropping poppy seeds all over the place with every bite. At the end of the meal, we did a quick fix on the disaster that was our table and headed out our separate ways.

I ended up going with my friend Annie to meet her host family, just a five or six minute walk away from mine. They were very friendly and helpful with our french as well. The dad spoke a good bit of english so he is able to understand what we are trying to say and can help us understand the best way to express each thing in french. After a quick tour around the apartment, we decided to head back to my house to change and shower before meeting up with our friend Sydney.

My phone was not working properly and I could not call my host family to make sure it would be ok if Annie came over but I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal since we would just be in and out pretty quickly. Au contraire. When we walked in the apartment, my “mom” looked as if she was about to have a panic attack as she glanced from me to Annie multiple times, wondering if she was about to have a surprise dinner guest. Although I tried to explain that we were just stopping by for a second, I don’t think she understood fully and so there was a short while of awkward tension before we left without eating and repeated again that we had just come for clothes.

We headed over to Sydney’s apartment, just 5 minutes away and were greeted by an adorable furry grey dog and her 21 year old “brother” who was essentially stoic as he let us in the door. We decided not to stay and headed out to grab a bite to eat. We walked a short distance to the central shopping area where there is also a large ferris wheel

ferris wheel in bellecour

and we decided to take the ride up to the top. The view was unbelievable and also showed us how much of the city we had yet to see. When the ride was over, we headed back to the phone store to try, yet again to get our phones working.

French prepaid cell phones are a terrible thing. The whole system is extremely difficult to understand and all versions of customer service and phone information are fully in french and therefore even more difficult to comprehend. When we got to the phone store,

trying to speak english using french t-9

the same woman was working that was there last time and she quickly let us know the problem. Although we thought that we had paid 50 euros for a phone and 30 euros for additional minutes, it turned out that the extra 30 was just for the SIM card and we actually had no minutes on our essentially useless 100 USD purchase. Wonderful.

We left the store disappointed that our inability to comprehend french had allowed us to make that purchase and we continued on our way, stopping at a few of the large stores in the area. I went to the Starbucks here, only to find that a large Frappucino is a whopping 8 euros and I left with a simple tall latte, the cheapest drink available.

Since we did not have school the following day, we decided that we should take advantage of our first free night and go out. Annie and I stopped by a convenience store which was just as stocked as an ABC store and we picked up two bottles of wine for less than 7 euros. We headed over to a friend’s house to pregame before our first night on the town.

Despite the extremely low price of wine in france, it is delicious and potentially more potent than the wine from in Charlottesville, because after splitting the two bottles amongst the three of us, we were having ourselves a pretty good time. We head out to find some dinner, thinking we could get a taste of the fine french cuisine but soon realized that none of us wanted to wait for a waiter and service in a restaurant. Naturally, we went back to McDonalds.

A few thousand calories later, we were back out wandering the streets looking for the bars that young people would go to. With no basis for any of our decisions, we ended up at a few random spots before following the sounds of chanting and yelling in the streets, which usually indicates a good time. When we reached the source of the noise, we had found a group of 8-10 loud, young, french guys who were overly friendly and eager to speak to the three of us. 

The night gave way to hilarious attempts to break the language barrier with them practicing their english and us, our french. They rowdily joked within their group and we watched, having no idea what was going on.

les garcons

It seems that “drunk in public” is more of a regular occurrence here rather than an offense because, if I have ever seen a violation of that law, it was at this bar. We had a great time until about 12:30 when the bar closed down (they close very early here for some reason) and we became tired and ready for bed.

Sydney and Annie offered to walk me home since I lived close to the bar and they live on the same block as each other so we headed towards my apartment. We said goodnight outside the door and I headed up the stairs towards the ominous process of unlocking the ancient door blocking me from my apartment. Sadly, I failed miserably and I had no way to get in touch with my friends or family because my stupid french phone had no euro credit on it.

I quickly sprinted down the stairs in an attempt to catch up with Annie and Sydney before they got to their apartments. Sadly the street was empty and I was running around alone in the streets of Lyon on my first night out. Since we had been to the apartment earlier that day, I knew which one was Sydney’s and decided to use the outside keypad to try calling her so that I could come sleep there since I had no access to my house. Luckily she answered and I had found a place to crash. I sent a text to the only number I had for my host family, telling them not to worry, that I was safe at a friend’s house, then we went to sleep.

When I woke up at 11 the next day, I decided to head back to my apt to change before we went to lunch. As I was trying and failing, yet again, to unlock the door, it opened and I found two, seemingly angry, host parents on the other side of the door. They asked where I had been and why I hadn’t been in touch with them. They told me that they were so worried that they had called the program director. GREAT. Just what I needed for the beginning of my stay with them.

I explained what had happened and that I had tried to send them a text but my phone did not have enough euros to make calls and they quickly forgave me and began giving me more lessons on unlocking the door. After they locked me out about five times for testing, I had it down. Once I could prove to them that I could open the door with ease, we sat down for lunch which was, once again, a five course meal. I just don’t understand how this family is so skinny. I know that if I keep eating as much as they are feeding me, I am going to need bigger clothing sizes before the end of this trip.

After lunch, my host mom gave me two books that offered ideas of things for students to do in Lyon. The book had recommendations of where to eat, travel, shop, etc so I called Annie and Sydney and we decided to head out to “Vieux Lyon,” the ancient part of the city, to see what kind of things we could find using these books.

crossing into Vieux Lyon

Once we crossed the bridge into this part of the city, it was like we were in a different country. The buildings were old and quaint, with cobblestone streets and vendors offering crèpes and cotton candy. It seemed almost as if we were in an amusement park as we walked up and down the slanted streets of this new discovery. I picked up some stationary and we scoped out a few places that we could go to for dinner and then we decided to head home first because it was getting chilly and we wanted to grab jackets.

After we had regrouped, we decided we would rather grab dinner at a pizza place close to our apartments before heading back to Vieux Lyon.  When we returned to the ancient city, we wandered up and down several streets and then stopped in front of an old church where we noticed a group of men singing what sounded like english. Several songs later it was confirmed that this group of men were playing Bob Marley songs on their guitar and singing along with thick french accents. It was surprisingly beautiful and we stayed and watched for a long time before a large, oddly dressed, group showed up, carrying large instruments, and we knew the Bob Marley singers were about to get overpowered.

The misfits began playing and a crowd quickly formed, creating a mass of singing, dancing, clapping, drunk french people. It was hilarious to watch. People were linking arms and dancing in circles or coming up in front of the crowd and showing off drunken moves individually. The whole group was lively and entertaining, playing everything from national French anthems to Toxic, by Britney Spears.

When the travelling band finished, we decided it was time to head home. I am now exhausted and need to go to sleep because I am going to Catholic Mass in the morning with my host parents and I do not want to fall asleep during the service and make an even worse impression on them… I love this place more and more every day and I will update again as soon as possible. Love from Lyon!

americans in lyon

It seems that the time difference did not throw off my schedule too much since I woke up around 11:30 this morning after falling asleep at about 10 last night… After finally getting dressed and ready for the day, my roommates and I decided to head over to get water bottles since we cannot drink out of the faucets here and had had nothing but cokes on flights for the past 20 hours… We walked across the street to a small market with a fruit stand outside where we were able to find half gallon bottles of Evian and a few French candies. Also, there was a “boulangerie” next door where we grabbed a couple of croissants with a group and snapped a few photos. Mid-eating pics are always cute so I’ll share:

first french croissants

 

Since we only had one item on the agenda for the day, a meeting at the program director’s house at “14 hr,” we decided to go find some lunch before the rendezvous. Unfortunately, finding an inexpensive restaurant that will fit on a student budget is a bit more difficult than expected. As we scanned menus outside restaurants in the area surrounding our hotel, we found ourselves 30 minutes from the time of the appointment and still starving. Despite our vows to avoid American food and embrace the culture that we have immersed ourselves in, we saw a “Panini shop” and caved… The guilt only worsened when we walked in and the décor was based solely on USA license plates and Marilyn Monroe, not a good sign. We were seated in a small booth, glanced at the menu and decided to take the easy way out by ordering three chicken paninis and coffees, “très vite si possible,” in an attempt to express the hurry we were in. Since none of us knew how to ask for the meal “to-go,” we just accepted the fact that we would be late to our very first meeting in Lyon. The waiter clearly did not understand the rush, as he proceeded to bring out our espressos as an appetizer before the sandwiches and then individually bringing back the change one at a time, insisting on walking back behind the counter each and every time he needed another coin, despite the fact that we all bought the same thing and paid with the same amount. He clearly meant well and just did not understand that we needed to be somewhere but we did what we had to do and grabbed our paninis up off of our plates and took them for the walk/run to the director’s apartment.

Once we arrived at the door and walked into that awkward “we are late and causing an interruption” scene, we seated ourselves anywhere we could find a place and attempted to hide our sandwiches as discretely as possible. Our program director was an adorable, petite woman who dressed well and had a chic little apartment overlooking the river. We listened as she explained all of the main ways that we give ourselves away as Americans while walking down the streets. Laughing loudly—check. Walking in huge packs—check. Speaking English—check. Taking pictures—check. Looks like we have a lot to work on…

bridge between our hotel and the city

 

She also gave us recommendations on traveling and filling out the correct paperwork etc. and let us know what would happen on our first day of classes, tomorrow. We will be starting a full immersion two-week program in order to get our French at a level where students will be prepared to take University level classes without translation.

At the end of the meeting, we decided to go get pre paid cell phones, at the director’s recommendation. The whole group headed over to the French version of Best Buy and bombarded the phone counter, but we quickly realized this was going to take forever so two friends and me split off to find a smaller phone store that might be quicker. We were told that the cheapest method would be to buy the same phone from the same service so we were, once again, able to use one French sentence and ask for the exact same thing. Since the woman only had two of the phone we wanted, we ended up on a goose chase through the city to find the sister store which was holding the third phone for me. Sadly we failed and had to go back and try to ask the woman, again, in rough French, for more directions. We were finally on the right track, picked up the phone and met up with the rest of the group again.

When we were all reunited, we decided to grab some dinner and finally went to some authentic French crèpes. The restaurant was an adorable, small place with inexpensive, delicious coffee, wine, and crèpes all of which we took advantage of and loved. Now that we have finally experienced the French cuisine, I’m thinking we will stick to that rather than reverting back to McDonalds and Sandwich shops…

typical tourist photo

Although I did notice a Starbucks not too far away, which I might have to hit up considering that all cafés here seem to think that a normal coffee is about the size of a shot glass…but the same price as a grandé coffee.

 

We headed home after dinner and paid for more wireless from the front desk woman, who pretty much hates us at this point. This morning she referred to us as “a homogenous and uniform group,” but in French. She smiled the whole time and I’m pretty sure she thinks we have no idea what she’s saying every time she speaks to us… In either case, she wasn’t happy that we wanted to buy more Internet after 8pm and made a big fuss about it while she processed the transaction.

Once we were up in our rooms, we all tried to program our phones and exchange numbers. Sadly none of us could figure them out so I decided to revert to gmail calling, which went surprisingly well and makes free calls internationally. I was excited to get a chance to speak to my family for a few minutes for the first time. Now it’s about 1:30 AM and I think the two grande cafés from dinner are starting to wear off… I’m off to bed but will update after moving in with my family tomorrow, which I am very excited about! Love from Lyon!

 

finally made it to lyon!

balcony view

The Frankfurt airport is officially one of my least favorite places ever. Not only did we endure freezing cold shuttle rides to and from our flights, we also had to hike up and down multiple flights of stairs in order to make it to the correct gates. Luckily, my friends and I were still able to be seated together on all three flights and slept through the last two, allowing for a bit of a recovery from the time difference.

After picking up our luggage, Annie and I headed out the exit in search of our cab driver that was supposed to be waiting for us. Since we were running about an hour late, I guess he decided to leave us because we did not see anyone from “taxi jaune” and had to test our french for the first time with the long line of taxi drivers waiting to pick up passengers. We finally negotiated our way into a van-type taxi to accomodate our massive amounts of luggage and we were off! Our cab driver, with his thick accent, kept us entertained by testing our french conversation skills and attempting to convince us that we were doing well. Despite the fact that he was working for tips, I’d like to think we did alright.

After he dropped us off at the hotel, we checked in with an overly concerned concierge who repeated herself multiple times s-l-o-w-l-y  to make sure that we understood everything she was saying. We got our keys and headed up to our five person room which we would be sharing with a few other girls in the program. Once the baggage was all moved in, I took a few photos off of our balcony in the hotel room. Here is my first view of Lyon:

view

Soon all of the girls had arrived and we decided to head out for coffee in order to avoid falling asleep too early and therefore throwing off our sleep cycle for several days. We went to a small shop right across the street and were delighted to encounter the friendly owner who spoke both english and french. He seated us upstairs in a round booth like setting and took our order. I asked for “du café,” thinking I would get a regular coffee but instead received a shot of espresso; the owner apparently thought I said “petit café.” Despite the mix-up, it was a delicious espresso and a great first impression of Lyon.

le petit café

Once we got back to the room and changed clothes, we decided to head out for a walk to get a glimpse of the city. We were able to wander around the streets of Lyon at the most beautiful time possible, just before dusk. As we walked in and out of stores, we became hungry and decided to check  out a couple of local places to eat. Being the cheap Americans that we are, we refused to pay more than 6 euros for a quick dinner and found that our frugality eliminated most of the options around. Embarrassingly enough, on the first night in France, we wound up with McDonalds‘ burgers and fries from a very ritzy venue in the middle of the city.

first taste of france, french fries

Now we are back in the hotel, so exhausted and ready to go to bed. So far, France is beautiful and exciting. Although we sensed some animosity towards us, as Americans (we were given the bird during our first walk down the streets), we will adjust easily and come to understand the french way of living. Tomorrow is our first meeting with the program director, more updates will follow! Love from Lyon.

no turning back now…

After a 7.5 hour flight, I have arrived at my first destination, Amsterdam. Currently I am sitting in the airport, browsing through dutch websites and listening to the foreign languages that surround me.

This morning’s departure was not quite the spectacle that I expected. My dad and sister waved goodbye to Mom and I as we backed down the driveway headed to DC. The 2.5 hour ride was spent listening to music and debating lunch venues rather than discussing the huge change that was about to happen. This allowed for my denial to continue all the way to the terminal.

Rather than calling it like it is, I have been referring to this trip as my “weekend get-away,” in order to calm my nerves. This worked up until the very last minute when I had to say goodbye to the very last part of my family that I would see for five whole months, my mom. Despite my usual excitement and anticipation for change and challenges, the idea of spending five months in a strange place with no real security blanket became suddenly terrifying. Tears were quickly cried and dried, goodbyes said, and my friend and I headed into the gate, leaving family and all close connections on the other side.

We made it onto our plane and negotiated with other passengers until we were seated side by side. After settling into the seats and checking out the movie list for the evening, my friend realized that she recognized the boy sitting across the aisle from me. It turned out that he, too, was headed to Lyon and we now had an addition to our posse for negotiating our way through foreign terminals and security checks.

Two movies, a TV dinner, and bag of pretzels later, we had arrived. The Amsterdam terminal was quick and painless, minus the surprisingly intrusive TSA (but dutch version) check…  Now here we are sitting at our gate, waiting to board our flight to Frankfurt, Germany. The itinerary says that we should arrive in Lyon around 2 pm. I’ll update later tonight if I don’t pass out first! The time difference is drastic… I feel like I should be going to bed right now but instead they are handing out danishes for breakfast… This will take a while to get used to. Love from the Netherlands!