first snow fall

Despite the progression of my illness, I decided to go out last night just to meet up with friends in a cafe and hang out for a little bit. One of my friends said she had been dying to try “vin chaud” or hot wine, ever since we saw a sign for it last week.

cinnamon, spice, and everything nice

Although I was totally grossed out by the concept, she went for it and wouldn’t stop raving about it. After she passed it around the table to my friends who weren’t a risk of germs, it was agreed upon that the best way to describe it was “liquid blackberry cobbler.” Naturally, after that description, I was pretty sure that would be the remedy to a sore throat, so we ordered another round and stayed at the café until the warm red wine started to kick in and we got sleepy.

This morning I woke up early (11:00 am) and walked over to the University to sign myself up for an upcoming group trip to the Loire region of France. Sadly, this is not the Loire Valley, where there are an abundance of ancient castles, but a smaller part of the Loire where we will be visiting a fromagerie (cheese shop), having a picnic, and walking around looking at the sights with our group. A lot of the students in our program have signed up for this day trip and we are excited for our first chance to travel, even if it is a short day trip.

After sign up, I met up with Sydney and Annie to get lunch at a bagel place near the Rhône. It was basically a mix of Dunkin Doughnuts and Einsteins and I was pretty excited that we found a place that gives normal portion size for less than 10 euros. I guess the French aren’t too fond of bagels…or restaurants that look American, because we were the only customers for the majority of our lunch.

Once all the bagel sandwiches were finished, we headed off in search of the Musée De Beaux Arts, which is within walking distance of our homes. After about 20 minutes, we had reached our destination and headed inside. The museum doesn’t charge anyone under 26 so we checked our coats and began looking at the exhibits.

First we found an exhibit of 19th century sculptures which was incredible. It was also fun to read the captions on each work, with it’s description or history, in french after having heard the same stories so many times in english.

After the statues, we found the Egyptian exhibit where there was a real mummified head and hand, as well as ancient jewelry

egyptian jewelry

that I would have bought and worn today… Unfortunately, the massive tour group ahead of us filled an entire room and we couldn’t get by so we made a u-turn and headed back to where we came in. A woman stopped us before we made it up the next flight of stairs and asked to see our tickets. Apparently even if you are under 26 you are supposed to pick up your free ticket… So we got booted out since they were about to close in 20 minutes anyways.

On the way home, it started flurrying and then quickly progressed into a steady fall. The flurries here are short and unpredictable with flakes that are so big they look fake. We stopped in Bellecour for a minute and tried to catch a few on our tongues and then realized this might not be normal in France and they probably thought we were lunatics.

Just got home to find ma mère sitting on the couch knitting, as usual, and mon père reading a book, waiting on their student to arrive for her joint tutoring session. They are adorable. I’m obsessed.

I fixed myself some chamomile and had my evening dosage of all the medicines mon père wants me to take. Luckily, cough syrup tastes more like delicious thick tea here than the liquid death it tastes like at home, so it has been easy to go through the motions of killing this cold. But this cup of chamomile just ran out so I’m going to go make another now and then treat myself to a few more glasses of that vin chaud tonight… Love  from Lyon!