Jusqu’ici, tout va bien

I’m starting to think that I’m never going to get over Lyon. You know that feeling where you’re supposed to get homesick and all that stuff. Well obviously I miss my friends and family a lot, but I’m still like 150% enamoured with this place and could see myself here for much longer (if I was 345% richer, obvi). The only think I can’t be bothered with anymore is this hike straight up the Croix-Rousse (the hill upon which our hotel is situated) multiple times a day. It gets steeper as you go up, as if its laughing at you for deciding to take classes in the summer or for going out one night every time you walk back up to your room. 

she feels my pain.

So rude. But anyway, Updates on this great trip.

                Wednesday was Pierre’s class at 2. Megan, Karen, and I left a bit early in order to get some food from the Boulangerie at the bottom of the hill before making our 40 minute walk to IEP. That walk is honestly getting easier, but my legs are already killing me. I think it’ll take another week to get fully adjusted to all the walking. We eventually met up with a lot of the people in Madame Spay’s lyon class and then split off to IEP. Class was quite weird. I mean, this cultural stuff is generally speaking my confiture (jam), but again with the 2.5 hours, it wasn’t gonna marche. It felt quite long because we didn’t take a break this time. And then it got worse. It was pouring outside by the time class was over. I’m not talking like cats and dogs, and but like elephants and wildebeests. Rough life. So. 8 girls, 4 umbrellas, and a 45 minute walk from home (that turned into an hour and a half). Pierre just kind of peaced and left us, but we later figured out that he had to pick up his girlfriend.  The walk home. It. Was. Mis.  Amanda and I are pretty fast walkers though, so we were huddled and bouge-ing like our life depended on it haha.

Karen showing us that its actually raining INSIDE the building. merde.

IEP is real innovative with its solutions to flooding. a little blue bucket (it may not be obviously but that floor is a river). double merde.

I LOVE RAIN I'M JUST SO HAPPY

huh...still pretty

And the funny part was that even in the rain, the river and the bridges and the scenery was still beautiful. Overrun with water and flooding, but still so pretty. We all basically decided that there was no way we were going on the tour of the Croix-Rousse afterwards. Fat chance. But thankfully, it was canceled any way. Needless to say my clothes and shoes were soaked, but we have these handy dandy towel dryers in the bathroom that worked really well as makeshift dryers. So I changed and did some homework and was going to call it a night. But as usually, I wanted to hang out with people, so went ended up going out to this place Ayers Rock, which is conveniently next to cosmo. I’m starting to think I was born with some sort of dancing gene because it makes me so happy to just be able to dance whenever. The music was alright…they played the Macarena…yeaaaah. But it was actually pretty funny. The best part was that we got to examine a classic phenomenon: the euro-lurker. If you’ve been anywhere in Europe you’ve probably seen him before. He always comes in one of two flavors, bald or balding, or greased hair that is either slicked back or spiked straight up like all the boys did in like 6^th grade. We were lucky enough to see both. And boy, were they lurkin’ and creepin’ that night. C’etait bizzare. We all just constantly had to save each other, and our UVA boys did well to body block any and all attempts from the lurkers at dancing with our group of girls. So great. Wahoos know teamwork. I had a good time that night, although we didn’t get into Shenanigans (Flanagan’s) afterwards (Its not a la mode here to be in large groups, and we were about 14 or 15 at that point).

Amanda, Sarah, Rachel, Hannah, me, and Shannon en route to Ayers.

                Thursday was a marathon. Thursday morning was Karen James’ class. Honestly, I don’t really understand this middle French poetry all that well, but KJ explains it so well. But it was fine. Totes wouldn’t have made it through the class without the pause in the middle. KJ just knows haha.

our classe de poesie!! cute!

After class we had our special lunch with Janet at her favorite French restaurant, Thomas. It was me, Emily, Megan, David, Karen, and Tara. The food was good and the conversation was great. Pierre’s group was like a table over from us, but we were in an enclosed area fancyyyyy. We’ve come to realize that Emily and I basically share a brain, so lunch was almost too funny. We’d both know that we were thinking the same thing, so if we looked at each other, it was over and we’d start laughing…definitely happened multiple times. Well after dinner we basically had no downtime before we went on a tour of the Croix-Rousse, the monster of a hill that we live on. We got to see a bunch of places and learn some of the history, and also spent an insane amount of time watching these old men play Petanque/Lyonnais boules, which is apparently like batchi-ball, a game I’ve never played. But then after that we got back and ate pizza and watched la Haine. I forgot how intense, but totally awesome that movie is.

                After the feel good movie of the year (jokes), I went to see Kate, since it was basically her last Thursday in Lyon before voyager-ing with her friends in the morning. I walked over to her apartment, I got ready there as she went to drop off her bags at a friends place since she was moving out of her apartment. So when she came back we set off to Johnny Walsh’s, known affectionately as Johnny’s. It was in Vieux Lyon, where I hadn’t been yet, which was awesome. It’s a super residential area on the other side of the Soane (whereas my life and school are on the other side of the Rhone…I gotta give the Soane mad props, its def cuter).  So before we entered Johnny’s we were shushed by the bouncer, since you’re basically not supposed to be loud outside. But inside was just precious. It was an Irish Pub, but on the inside there was a little stage in the front, and a brazillian man named Jose was basically playing guitar and every song that you usually sit in your car with the windows up and belt at the top of your lungs (don’t judge, everyone does it). Like no woman no cry, faith, some red hot chilli peppers, some beatles. It was legit, because it clearly had such a small stage feel, it was one man and his guitar, but we were just having the time of our lives singing along. And there is nothing better than watching French people trying to sing every word to English songs. But it was fun having the three American girls (me, Elizabeth, and Kate) and Kate’s Canadian friend Kristin all on the stage with Elizabeth and Kate’s French friends that I’ve hung out with before. After Jose finished (and played an encore because he is the man), we tried to find another place, but honestly, everyone had to be up early the next day, and decided to call it a night. I’d made plans then and there to take the rest of our program to Vieux Lyon at some point, because that’s where its at, son.  And this is the awkward end to the post. Peace!

                Next post on Friday and Today, tomorrow!

Cheers,

Abena