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!