Back again! Brandon came to visit this weekend from Vichy. There was some problem with the trains, so he got in really late Friday night. We all went to see Ann-Sophie, because she is moving back to Germany. That was the rest of Friday. Now, onto Saturday.
Warning! There are a lot of pictures after this, get ready! But I promise, it will be entertaining.
And Saturday begins!
Claire made us lunch!
The bread thing is a Lyonais speciality. It is a brioche (which means it's delicious) with a sausage in the middle. It was super good!
After lunch, we decided to go do something! Obviously! Our plan for the day was to go to the grocery store, and then ride a boat to a the new mall that just opened this weekend. In France, Easter is a huge holdiay, go figure, so everyone has Monday off. Additionally, since Monday is a jour ferier, a holiday, like Sundays, everything, and I mean everything, will be closed. So, we did need to stock up on some food for the weekend if we wanted to eat.
I think each of us has already made that mistake in France, not having food for the holidays, because if you don't prepare, there is literally nowhere open.
Brandon buying metro tickets for the day! They were 4,90 euro each. Eh!
Meanwhile, Claire took some passport pictures to send to her new school. So this is odd for America, but not in France. These machines are EVERYWHERE! Seriously, there was one in a bathroom that I went to the other day. There are picture booths to take passport pictures in. I guess this makes sense, because, like every form that you submit to the French government requires at least two pictures, but seriously, a bathroom location!
Anyway, Claire is submitting something for her grad school next year, she needed two pictures, and she had a 5 euro bill so viola, she took some.
Then Brandon tried to mess her up. She was unfazed.
Going into the metro!
Brandon's eyes were very blue today, he usually has brown eyes.... but I am not sure that you can really tell that they looked blue from this picture. Later, Claire's eyes turned green. Mine were still brown. :(
We finally made it to the grocery store. We came to one like a 45 minutes away: a walk, two metro changes and a tram ride and a walk, from Claire's house. It's called Auchan and Ikea is next to it! We came here to see Ikea and because Auchan is huge!
But, by the time we got there, we were tired, so we took a coffee break. Really, really good coffee. We sat next to a girl who was super thin, and was eating four pastries and a coffee. Hmm...
On to Auchan!
Okay, so we walk into Auchan, and what is the first thing we see.... unsupervised wine tasting! Enjoy, it's France!
Play on words for those French. Kind of how you say eggs....
Keep in mind this place is massive!
My obsession! This cereal never gets old. I think that I am going to try and bring boxes of this stuff home! It's like that best thing ever!
So, we're walking around Auchan, and let me tell you, it is nuts. It is so crazy, there are so many people here! I have never seen this many people in one store, not even in a Costco or mall at Christmas. They were like ants, everywhere. You would have thought that the food was free.
Haricots Verts!
This was the check out line. It took us at least 30 minutes to get to the front! Our line was called Mimosa!
Leaving Auchan, they has a climbing and ropes course for kids that ran the entire length of the store. Claire told me that I was going to get arrested for taking pictures of children.
Back at the apartment, we dropped our stuff out, prepared for cooler weather and headed out again! Time for the boat and the new mall!
I love Brando's face is the picture above, so funny!
Not exactly ready for that one....
Better!
This is the opera house in Lyon.
A cool fountain.
Pretty, I believe that this is the Saone! There are two rivers that run through Lyon, the Rhone and the Saone. Ann-Sophie told us that we should ride a boat from here to the new mall.
But, when we got there, the boat wasn't supposed to come for 45 minutes. So, we went across the street to an English Pub! Claire and I were going to get our Gin & Tonic and Vodka Tonic respectively, but then.... we saw... that they.... had.... Strongbow..... on tap! So we each got a pint! That was a lot! Then of course, we got hungry and had onion rings.
Notice the "Voisin," bag, that is filled with chocolate for Easter! We ate some of that too!
Here comes the boat!!!!
Okay, so here it the new mall. It may not look impressive, but it was THE COOLEST MALL slash place that I have ever seen! It is so futuristic I can't even tell you! It is like Star Wars meets Back to the Future II, but all modern and in 2012, not the 80's! It was so cool!
Here we go!!! Getting closer to the mall!
Inside!
There was a Hollister!!!!
Okay, so this is the roof, and it changes colors all the time!
A climbing wall inside!
Now the roof is blue!
Okay, get ready. This where we ate for dinner. Why? Guess!
How would you pronounce this? We kept saying that name over and over, well actually, I kept saying it a lot... it was so funny! But first.... I had an emergency!
I had to pee really badly after that pint, so here's the bathroom.... it was really, really cool!
Check out the sink! It was just one long sleek thing and then all the water would drain towards that line in middle under the faucet! Super cool!
Escalator anyone?
So, we finally made it to Fuxia. It was crazy in there too because it had just opened, but we were starving. Didn't even take a picture of food because we were so hungry! The wine here was totally mediocre, but did that stop us, no! The food was really good though, a bit surprising.
Finally, we headed home. Here is a picture from the metro that pretty much sums up our friendship! Love it!
Wow, those were some really lame pictures. Blogger was only letting me upload three at a time and the preview images was really small, so I had no clue what I was putting up.
Yesterday, Claire and I walked to Vieux Lyon, the oldest part of the city. It is really, really pretty and really, really old.
Vieux Lyon backs up to a really tall, hill, more to come on that later.
There are a bunch of shops, the church of the town and some ruins. I didn't know this, but Lyon dates back to like 5AD and was the largest city under Roman control outside of Rome. It's neat, there are ruins right in the middle of the city.
So we walked around here, lots of cute little shops, and then we were making our way to candy shop, by the way, Claire and I were trying to fast because we were supposed to go to a huge dinner, however, we ran into an ice cream place that was calling your name. Claire got straciatella and speculous (like the delta bishoff cookies) and I had mint chocolate chip and salted caramel. So good, but they were HUGE! We demolished them quickly and then got really cold because it was like 58 degress outside and not sunny.
Then we felt gross. So what did we do??
This!
We decided to climb the hill. Oh my gosh, it is really high.So we started with these steps, which led to a really steep street, which led to a really steep garden path, which led, to me taking my long sleeve shirt off, which led to Claire losing her scarf, which led to this.
Pictures of my face for you, Marisa!
Then were went into the church, which was kind of a let down as it was build 100 years ago and was kind of gauty. Then, Claire had said that there were some ancient ruins nearby. So we looked and found this!
Notice those weird box things on the top left! Don't they look like they belong in Star Wars! They, I think, are part of a museum, but still, they are super ugly!
The boxes attack again!
Super cool!
After that, we were tired, so we took the funicular down. Claire had never been on one.
Fun day, we ended up eating cereal and eggs with cheese and chips and dip for dinner. Not healthy or really that french, but delicious!
I got stopped by a controler on the metro and he demanded my ticket. Metro tickets look like chuckie cheese tickets and I had about twenty of them that i had stuffed in my purse from previous rides. Took me a while to find the right one. Claire said he probably just let me go.... note to self, always remember where you put your latest metro ticket.
A kid in Claire's class was giving a presentation yesterday. His opening lines were, "My hero is Michael Jackson. He is both black and white." It was hysterical.
I just realized that the Carrefour symbol is a giant "C." I have been shopping here for two years. Claire had never noticed either.
Yep, that's pretty obvious.
I stepped in dog poop on a completely clean street. I swear, it just jumped out at me.
Claire had a meeting at a bank to see about getting a loan for school next year. I went with her, the weather wasn't all that great, but y'a know. I sat in the lobby reading while she met with the lady.
Before I left, I borrowed a friends kindle, and for as much as I prefer to read an actual book, the kindle is so great for traveling... obviously! Anyway, it's great because carrying my stuff around is already heavy enough and being able to carry 80 books at one time is really a feat.
Currently, no one book is dominating my attention, so I have three going. The Reason for God by Tim Keller, The Namesake by an Indian Woman whose name i have no clue how to pronounce or spell, and On The Road by Jack Kerouac. All are pretty good, The Reason for God is winning with being the most relevant, The Namesake is starting to get really, really whiny so that is almost completely on hold, and On The Road is so far still fun.
Back to France. I read in the lobby, Claire had her meeting, and then we headed back to her apartment to eat lunch. She made Salade Lyonaise, as you may have seen in my previous post. It was delicious. She made it a bit differently for what we had on hand, which also did include an onion stolen from her roommate. It was a fried egg cooked with thick bacon and onions and cheese, over arugula with a tarragon balsamic vinaigrette that claire made. Who's the chef now!
Apparently I am supposed to make lunch today... so not happening... we are going to be eating hot dogs.
With the lunch, yesterday, we has a bottle of wine that we had bought, and boy! was it strong. So instead of going to the market like we had planned, Claire watched Grey's Anatomy and I read The Reason for God. Slow reading it was, let me tell you.
Finally, an hour and half later, we made it outside and went to the grocery store to rebuy the stolen onion, and then to get some other things... juice, cereal, and gummies. Claire and i have a renewed cereal addiction and are about to be working on our third box. Big lunches and small dinners of cereal are our montra, however, like most things involving food, we failed at that last night.
After the grocery store, we went to meet her friend AnneSophie in town to go shopping. AnneSophie is a German teacher at Claire's school, but her French is AMAZING. Totally fluent and she sounds French. So jealous. She invited us to this dinner with some other German teachers and my god, my stomach barely made it through that.
So, skip a few hours and Claire and I meet up for dinner with the Germans. We are going to a typical Lyonaise dinner, which mean a lot of food! And when i say a lot, I mean a lot!
For 23 euros we had..... a amuse bouche, soup, palate cleanser ice cream, magret de canard, fromage blanc, and and praline tarte. At least that was what i ordered. So basically six course, 23 euros and rivaling one of the best meals that have even eaten. Like close to Canlis. And that is how all the place are here. Can you even imagine what that would have cost at home.
Claire and I were dying to take pictures of the food because it was so pretty, but we were surround by the Germans and French, and that would have been weird! So we resisted. But it was so fun and so delicious! At the end, Claire and I were so uncomfortable because we had eaten so much!
We rode the metro back home and I immediately fell asleep! I was so tired!
