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!
trying snails and frog legs 