A piece of home comes for a visit :)

This week happened to not only be reading week for Elisa and I, but as well as for our best friends and housemates Stacie and Amanda! They decided it would be the perfect time to come for a visit!!

Excitement overriding exhaustion started the week on Sunday morning when we greeted Stacie and Amanda at the arrivals gate here in Lyon! It was so exciting seeing them come through gate, and so amazing that they were able to come visit for a week. After lots of hugs and smiles we made our way back to into the city where we set up camp for the week at our friend Pasan's apartment (which we were sooo greatful for getting to use).

We spent the first few days taking Stacie and Amanda around the city showing them everything that we know and love. Vieux Lyon, Fourviere, the basilique, Croix-Rousee, the Roman Amphitheatre and the Roman Amphitheatre again when two days later the weather was absolutely gorgeous and we barely needed coats! ...

We also decided to take some day trips, including to Geneva Switzerland where we all bought various versions of swiss army knives - from the classic red, to the new see through hot pink!..While we were there we also stopped by the Red Cross Museum where Stacie and I both found a part of our family in the Prisoner of War archives - eerie.

After taking a relaxing day on thursday to catch up with sleep and explore the rest of the Lyon in the gorgeous weather, we decided on friday to venture to a local medieval town called Perouges. It was tiny, and all made out of stone. I think we all felt as though we stepped back in time. ...

We ended our fantastic week which seemed to fly, by going out for a nice dinner and chatting. Amazing week ladies, had such a blast :)

The Canadians do La Tagnière!

So last weekend our really good friend Babette invited Elisa and I to her house in the country for the weekend!!!

She lives in a tiny village of just 200 people called La Tagnière, which is about an hour SW of Dijon. It was absolutely beautiful. Babette and her Dad were so nice and took us everywhere on the narrow (shut your eyes when another car comes your way!) country roads to see everything in the area. One of the highlights for me was taking the winding mountain road up to the highest overlook point in Uchon about 10 minutes away. After nearly forgetting Babette's dog Woef in the car, we walked to the overlook and could see for miles! We seemed to have perfect timing as we got there just as the sun was starting to set. Gorgeous.

We also visited a few other cute country towns including Autun, where the Tour de France has cycled through, and where Babette was lucky enough to catch it one year!! ...I noticed a big difference in the French versus Canadian countryside. In France it seems that they preserve everything, so when you visit the old towns its almost as if you've stepped back in time. The original city walls are even kept in some of the towns.

It was an amazing weekend and I can't thank Babette and her family enough for having us over. We had such a great time and it was so nice to visit someones home while living so far away from our own. We enjoyed delicious home cooked meals - Anouk (babette's sister) is amazing at making pizza dough:), and we even got to experience a traditional french meal -Raclette! ... This is potatoes or bread with melted cheese, meats and veggies which you cook right in front of you. mmmm.

Great weekend :)

Question of the Day

Since coming to France, one of the most popular questions people ask me is "Do you love it enough that you would move there when you're done school?" ...the answer, is complicated. At first my answer was always, "yes, definitely", however I always felt as though something in my answer was missing, and today i realized why.

As of recent events, i've discovered that right now I couldn't pack up and move to France for the rest of my life. While i absolutely love it here, my life is still back home in Canada. I've realized that i hate not being able to be there for my friends and family when they need it most, and it really bothers me that the best i can do is an e-mail or a skype conversation. I've realized that I love almost everything about the French culture, and when I'm a little older and I've created my own life here (instead of leaving bits of my life back home) i'll be ready to move to France.

So, Yes i would move to France one day...but not today. Today i'm just a student living temporarily away from the life i know and love.

eeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! :)

eeeeeeeeee! It turns out this is the noise I make when i'm really excited or really happy about something!

...I got some pretty exciting news today, as I found out I get to teach English to a French Lady here in the city!!! it came as a big surprise since I thought the job had gone to somebody else. I've never taught English before, but since my goal at the end of university is to become a French teacher, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to practice and get some experience in. I'm scared, nervous, excited and thrilled, so we'll see how it goes.

This semester seems to be a semester full of new experiences, as I've also taken up dancing! for the first time ever! (I think this was partly Elisa's influence haha) ...Twice a week i have beginner Jazz, and even though i've NEVER taken dance before, its turning out to be a lot of fun! ....So between teaching, dancing, workout class and school, this semester is going to fly by! ...

it feels good to be busy :)

Spontaneity

One of the best things about living in France is the opportunity to travel to all these amazing places because everything is so close. It allows us to dive into things without having to think sooo much about them beforehand, or spend a fortune.

Last Saturday Elisa and I decided to be a little spontaneous and on Friday night we decided that we were going to Grenoble the next morning. Grenoble is a town about an hour and a half southeast of Lyon, is situated right in the French Alps and is of course breathtaking. ...so on Saturday morning without tickets or timetables we left our residence, set off for Part- Dieu Gare SNCF (our local train station) and bought the next train out of Lyon to Grenoble. ...Sometimes spontaneity pays off, as we only had to wait about a half hour for our train. Perfect.

So we were on our way. The beauty about European transportation is that everyone takes trains. The trains are fast, direct, and the best part...the "windows" are really just walls of glass so you don't miss a thing in the amazing countryside. There were amazing views, and the closer to the Alps we got, the more snow that appeared. It was fantastic.

So after our train ride, we arrived in Grenoble- home of the skiers (or so it appeared- by the end of the day we were DYING to go skiing). Anyway, we wandered the town on a mission to get as close as possible to the snow capped mountains. ...it was kind of like chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow hahaha...in the end though, we managed to walk far enough out of town that no buildings blocked our view and the scene was well worth it. Words cannot describe what real mountains look like. absolutely amazing :) ...

So after more hiking, shopping and sightseeing, we were able to meet up with some friends from back home who live in Grenoble, and they showed us around their favourite spots. ...a few hours later, we had a warm up in a bar, and before we knew it we were back on the "harry potter classic compartment style" train for Lyon.

Great day! :)

January 2010

Wow. Happy 2010!! It seems that I have been so busy lately that I haven't had a chance to even think about my blog. Its been a long time, but there have been so many travels and experiences...from Rome, to Fête des Lumières., to Canada for the holidays and back again to France for the new year!

One thing that needs to be explained is Fête des Lumières - or Festival of lights. This is a yearly tradition in Lyon that has happened for hundreds of years and I have never in my life seen anything as beautiful. Every year there are stories told through light shows projected onto buildings - sometimes incorporating more than one building into the show, fantastic light sculptures and designs in the middle of parks or squares, and amazing lights all throughout the city, on walkways, going through the park, everywhere. Words cannot do it justice, but at times it felt as though I was in a fairytale. My personal favourite was a virtual garden. They had gigantic lily pads and flowers and grasses all made of lights, it was as though I was in some sort of giant virtual garden dreamland. The festival is free, open to the public for 4 days and the streets are filled with millions of visitors from around France. This was one of my favourite events in the city and i’m so glad I was able to be here for it.

Shortly after the festival, it was time for exams and before I knew it I was on a plane home for the holidays! I had an amazing time at home, and I was able to see all my friends and family. The 2.5 weeks that I was home flew by and all of a sudden I was back on the plane returning to France. It just so happened that the week of my return, France and a large part of Europe was experiencing some of the worst storms in years. Luckily I was able to get to Paris safely, and although the Lyon airport was closed all day until 5pm, my plane was able to leave and it arrived in Lyon around 6:30. Home at last! Or so I thought…due to the storm, all of the shuttles out of the airport were cancelled, and I only had two options. Taxi home, or stay in the airport all night…well I didn’t want to stay in the airport all night, nor did I want to pay the 65 euro cab fee. After getting up the guts to talk to strangers, I managed to be able to share the cab with 3 other girls heading in the same direction. Whew. What an adventure home.

So after finishing up this last week of first semester with an exam and an essay, tomorrow I’ll be starting a new week of classes…eek!

1,2,3, viva Algérie!

So this past week has been super hectic with a few big essays due that are equivalent to our exams. By the time the essays were finished, we decided it was time to relax and take part in the annual Beaujolais nouveau wine celebration. (Or that’s what we intended on doing anyway).

So basically, every year on the third Thursday of November, the Beaujolais region of France (just north of Lyon) produces and releases the first wine of the season. It’s called Beaujolais nouveau, and it’s the only wine that’s allowed to be legally consumed in the year its produced. So in Lyon, at midnight on Wednesday there are big celebrations in the streets with fireworks and free wine and everyone has a good time celebrating this new wine.

So, naturally, we wanted to see what all of this was about. While we were getting ready to go out though, Elisa and I started hearing cheering and shouting, and cars honking in the street. So loud that the noise was coming through the windows! We had no idea what was going on but we were on our way to meet some other friends and decided to walk to see if we could find out what all the cheering was about. Well, it didn’t take long to figure it out. It turns out that Algeria won a big soccer game against Egypt and the fans were EVERYWHERE. People were running around yelling and chanting, cars everywhere had people hanging out of them with flags. There were fireworks in the street and torches, and flares...it was crazy. Amid all of this included thousands of people gathering and cheering. Somehow among all of the people they were able to coordinate a cheer...(1,2,3, viva Algérie) We thought it was pretty funny and cool to see how crazy the European soccer fans actually are, and after taking a bunch of pictures and some videos, we continued to meet our friends.

Little did we know that a couple of hours later, the celebrating would still be going on! ..we ended up in a square trying to find the Beaujolais nouveau but instead found more fans celebrating. Only this time it was on a much larger scale. Thousands of people were gathered and this time the riot police turned up. We were trying to get through the mob to another part of town and as we were going one direction everyone started running the opposite way! I’ve never seen so many people running away so fast. We sort of got caught in the crowd and all of a sudden we were face to face with the riot police who were shooting rubber bullets into the crowd!!!!!!!!!! It was so scary and we had to run away very fast! It went from happy cheers to screams! Needless to say, we were very afraid and got away from the area VER quickly. We were all fine, just a little frightened.

The next day the newspaper said that over 27 cars were burned!

Who knew French fans could be SO crazy.

On the plus side, I did end up trying Beaujolais nouveau eventually J