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

Annecy!

So, another week and another small day trip! This time to a small town called Annecy about 2 hours North-East of Lyon.

We do actually do lots of studying here, even if it seems like we may not haha...This was sort of spontaneous day trip to a place where we had heard tons of good things about, and after seeing pictures, we decided we had to visit.

This time we Elisa and I went with a big group of friends and it turned out to be such a fun trip, despite the somewhat freezing cold weather!

Once again we caught the train nice and early at 7:30 (we just made it in time too....silly Metro was not working on time!) and spent the whole day wandering out the town. It was absolutely gorgeous and parts of it were just like Venice which was really cool. Annecy felt as if it were out of a fairytale. Even though it was pretty cold and dreary the day we went, it was still beautiful. Its a small town with a lake surrounded by snow capped mountains. Its very old and all the streets are cobblestone and meant for walking.

After attempting to brave the rain in the morning, we had to give in and take refuge in the local QuickBurger haha..luckily for us it cleared up a bit while we were inside and we were able to go back outside in the now very strong wind and take lots of pictures around the lake and do some shopping for warmer clothes! Hannah ended up with new waterproof boots, i ended up with new pants as my skirt and tights were NOT warm enough, and our mexican friend Omar ended up with a new tuque! We were all much happier after that. :)

We did lots of sightseeing, bought some delicious pretty chocolates to try...except for Giacomo who had to try 100% cocoa chocolate with no sugar...haha we all tried it and regretted it...blah. Its been decided that the sugar is definitely necessary.

We stopped for a warm up in a local pub and after climbing a hill to see the castle and church, the rain started up again and we decided it was time to head home!

It was a great day, lots of fun and VERY pretty.

Next stop will be Paris and i`m sure i`ll have lots to say about that:)

Geneva!

Alright, so i'll try really hard to write more often on here from now on haha...

So at the end of October Elisa and I took our first, big planned trip to Switzerland! We originally were going to go to Geneva AND Zermatt to see the big Matterhorn mountain, but unfortunately its really hard to get to and reallllllly expensive without a car so we decided to stick with Geneva and leave Zermatt for another time.

We woke up bright and early (although not so bright as it was still dark outside) to catch our 7am train...once it brightened up a bit, we could see the scenery and the French countryside was beautiful!! we even saw vineyards on the sides of the hills which was very, well, very French. haha.

Around 9 am we got to Geneva and Elisa's step-mom's cousin Caroline met us at the station and showed us EVERYTHING. It was amazing. We saw the lake with the Jet d'eau, the flower clock, the UN and a bunch of UN buildings like the WTO and Unicef. We walked around everywhere and got to see most of the city which was beautiful. Of course us being three girls we did some shopping in there as well, and Caroline guided us to the best and cheapest chocolate in the city....the grocery store!!!!!! I have never seen a bigger chocolate section, not even at christmastime. There was pretty much every type of chocolate you could ever imagine (including chocolate with hot peppers!). needless to say, we did lots of sampling haha.

After sightseeing for most of the day, Caroline took us for a traditional swiss dinner at a cute little restaurant called "le Cafe du Soleil" and we had Cheese fondue! It as delicious and it came with a giant stack of bread to dip in the cheese. It was so good, and we were all VERY full afterward haha.

The next day we all went up the Salève mountain which is actually just on the French side of the border between Switzerland and France. We took Geneva public transit to the border and then walked for about 5 minutes to the gondola. About 1100 metres later up the gondola, we saw a view which overlooked all of Geneva and surrounding area. It was gorgeous. We decided though to continue hiking up the mountain a bit and we came across a very strange patch of astroturf which sort of sloped off the mountain. It turns out that this was where the Paragliding School goes to practice and this is where they launch off the mountain!!!!!!!! we were really lucky, and after a little photoshoot of our own, the paragliders showed up and we got to watch them jump off the mountain! It was one of the coolest things i`ve ever seen and we all agreed we want to try it one day!!!!!!!!!!!!

After a little more hiking, it started to get a little foggy and we decided it was time to head back down the mountain and get going home!

It was an amazing trip and its making me realize how many other places i want to visit while i`m here! Caroline showed us pictures of some places she`s visited while living here and they were incredible..if only i had unlimited time and money....

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!!!!!

Whoops…I’ve been a little busy lately, and it was the blog that suffered.

About a week and a half ago, Elisa and I took a day trip to a small town called Vienne about half an hour outside Lyon by train. We didn’t realize until after but the tickets you buy are good for 2 months and right before you get on the train you are supposed to validate them yourself with little automatic ticket punchers…we didn’t know this, so we didn’t validate our tickets! Lucky for us no one came by to check tickets and as a result we can use our tickets to Vienne again!!! So between first class, and reusing our tickets to Vienne, we seem to be doing alright with the trains here!

Anyway, after arriving bright and early in Vienne, we decided to treat ourselves to a couple of pastries at this bakery that smelled way too good to pass up. We kept walking down the street and discovered that we got there just in time for the market! Markets here are so cool, they sell pretty much everything from clothes to make up to food, and most of it is super cheap! We looked around for awhile, and then started touring! Vienne was amazing; it’s an old, small, roman town with tons of old buildings and roman ruins! We hiked up yet another mountain to visit a church and got a view of the whole town which is right on the Rhône River. It was nice because the town is small enough to wander through. It was however a bit of a shock to walk through the cobblestone streets and all of a sudden come out into a square with an old roman building in the middle of town…that does not happen in Canada haha. We spent the entire day walking around and by the time 5pm rolled around we were ready to get back on the train to go home.

This past weekend was of course thanksgiving in Canada, so HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!! Feeling a little blue about missing out on family time and the delicious food, we decided to make our own “thanksgiving” ! haha …we spent all day Saturday having a look around the mall and getting our groceries for our meal and ended up with a pretty delicious dinner..even if it wasn’t as good as normal. We bought a roast chicken (already cooked!) and made mashed potatoes, beans, corn, carrots…and of course stuffing! Minus being actually stuffed into the bird…it was delicious I even made a sign to sit next to our decorative mini pumpkin ( haha yup, we had decorations!) so that the French girls would know what was going on…it turned out the sign was needed because most of them had no idea what the hell was going on!! So, after several glasses of wine and a stroll alongside the river, we finished off our dinner with delicious French desserts J… despite the lack of family, it turned out to be a pretty great day!

Tomorrow I’m off to my first ever soccer game! It should be a good, rowdy time with all the crazy European fans, so the next post should be interesting!

Lyon Life

So for the last week or so, I’ve mostly just been getting myself sorted with school and classes, while continuing to explore the city.

School here is really different, and I’m having to take 9 classes instead of the normal 5 back home...a bit strange and very intimidating, but it amounts to about the same amount of hours, so hopefully it will be ok. French school is a bit funny though, tutorials don’t start until 2 weeks in, and one class doesn’t start until October 7! …crazy French people….it turns out that this class is mandatory for all North Americans and Australians. Its a French Culture course haha..apparently we know nothing about the French culture.

Last week Elisa’s and my neighbour on our floor –a French girl named Mathilde-left us a note on the wall between our rooms attached to a tourism brochure. She told us that the upcoming weekend was “les journées européenes du patrimoine” …meaning that all museums and tourist spots were free! …we were so happy she told us and we ended up visiting two realllly cool museums and we also got to see one of the old roman amphitheatres that are here. It was incredible, and they actually still use it today for certain shows.

This weekend, I ended up getting to do a few cool things. First, my neighbour Babette who is super nice offered me her rollerblades to use because she was going home for the weekend and knew I would like to use them. I got to rollerblade all along the rhône river, it was so pretty and nice out! We also ended up going to an international pic-nic at la parc de la tete d’or. We’d been there before during our orientation when we first arrived in France, and it was so nice to go back this time! …we got sort of sidetracked when we discovered there was a zoo there haha and ended up wandering around the park for a couple of ours on our own. I had no idea but it turns out that they have a free zoo ( a good one with actually cool animals like giraffes!) and a bunch of cool botanical gardens! There were even special greenhouses for carnivorous plants as well as a Mexican garden. Which children are not allowed to play in...haha there was a sign.

Luckily for us we didn’t have too many unfortunate adventures this time apart from the crazy French men who all like to chat with you…but surprisingly you get used to that pretty quickly

Highest Highs, Lowest Lows

Ok…so since the last message, Elisa and I have mostly been settling in and having a good time here exploring the sites in the city.

A few days ago we were exploring Vieux Lyon, or “old Lyon” which is sort of the touristy area of Lyon. It’s perched up on a mountain/hill, and the further you go, the higher up you go. It’s got the typical narrow, cobblestone streets, tons of little cafés and restaurants, tourist shops and very old churches and buildings. We had some time to kill so we decided to start walking up the steps, up the mountain towards this basilica which is perched at the top. After about 30 minutes and lots of huffing and puffing later (it was a lot higher, and further than we first thought), we finally made it to the top. It was well worth it. The view was amazing, and this “basilique” overlooks the entire city. It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. We were lucky it was a nice sunny day, so the view was spectacular. We took lots of pictures, and then ventured inside the actual basilica to take a look around. Unfortunately you aren’t allowed to take pictures inside, so the carvings and wall murals made out of tiny tile pieces will have to remain a secret!!! ….after a good look and more pcture taking outside, we decided to take the funiculaire (sort of gondola/tram) back down the mountain instead of walking back to our rez….our beds were never so welcome that night!!

A few nights later, due to our issue with the slow internet, Elisa and I decided to walk to campus to use the internet at the university and have some skype dates.We were doing our thing when all of a sudden the lights went off!!! We decided we’d better pack up pronto, and get out. Unfortunately, France uni’s don’t have security lights, so it was pitch black…just after we noticed this, we discovered that all the doors were locked, and we were in fact TRAPPED inside. We didn’t know what to do, we couldn’t see, we didn’t know where we were, and we were quite clearly the only people around. Using our heads we were able to manually unlock one of the doors from the inside so we could at least get outside…unfortunately our university is a giant square with a courtyard in the middle, and the entire thing is BARRED at night time. So even though we were out of the building, we quickly discovered that we were in fact still trapped inside the university. We walked the entire perimeter of the building, and it was barred and too high to climb over. On top of that we had no idea what number to call the police at! We were stuck, and at this point, very upset. After discovering that security people had also gone for the night, we really started to panic. We called a friend to warn them they might need to call the police for us…no answer. We kept wandering and finally decided we had to get the attention of some random people who lived on the edge of campus (as some sort of maintenance) …luckily they somehow knew how to contact security. They managed to call security back and security had to RETURN to the uni to let us out….not a good night…needless to say we were very glad to get out of there, and not get in trouble…we went home and ate chocolate to make ourselves feel better…hopefully this is an adventure that won’t be repeated any time soon!!!

School starts soon, so I’ll post a new update once that begins!

Exploring Lyon

So even though Elisa and I were exhausted from our previous day of travelling, we had to be up bright and early for an all day orientation held by our exchange program – the ORA (Ontario-Rhone Alps). It turned out to be completely worth it though because they gave us breakfast, lunch, a transit pass for the day and sent us on some pretty cool sights. There was no pizza in sight for lunch, but instead they gave us traditional French bread, meat, dessert, and of course wine! It’s so strange here because wine is served literally EVERYWHERE and you are never asked for ID.

In the afternoon we were split up into groups and we went on a scavenger hunt throughout the city where we would get to a location and someone would be waiting. They gave us a question and then we had to speak in French and ask locals the answer in order to get the next clue. One of the clues included a wine tasting to decipher the wine that was produced in Savoie! ....after lots of tasting, we chose our answer and stumbled out of the bar….just kidding hahaha…we all had a sip or two and then moved on…we also got to discover the most amazing French park called “parc de la Tête d’Or”…it was huge and had a small lake in the middle of it with water that was so turquoise…it was pretty cool and we ended up forgetting about the hunt and just took lots of pictures haha.

After losing the scavenger hunt (it was a close second) we headed home and started getting ready to go out with one of the French girls that was leading the orientation. She had just come back from an exchange in Canada and invited a few of us to go to the pubs that are on the boats in the Rhône river. The 7 of us ended up going to her house to meet some of her friends, and we had a fantastic time…we got to speak in “real” French with all her friends …meaning we learnt the slang and how real French students speak so we don’t sound so proper and foreign. That night we were also introduced to the French greeting….double kiss. It was a bit weird at first, but after a couple of people it was fine….so after a long night of wine and French, we headed home to crash into bed once more.

Since then, its been a lot of organizing, sorting out school, cooking, and getting to know the city ….tomorrow will be a trip to Ikea for some necessities and then we’ll be off to campus after that to start some school things :)

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Hey everyone! So I Decided to write some parts of my year on here so everyone can see it, and I don’t have to send individual emails!

So first, Elisa and I said goodbye to our parents in Toronto at 4:40 on thursday and got very lucky when the stewardess sat us together in the upper deck of the plane! It ended up being more spacious and we even had our own tv’s to watch so it made the long flight more bearable.

We arrived in Paris at midnight our time, found all of our luggage (thank god) and made our way to the TGV (the high speed train) to get to Lyon. This was when our adventure really begins… Being the tourists we are, we were so preoccupied with our massive amounts of luggage and worrying how on earth we were going to lift it onto the train that we didn’t realize we had assigned seats…whoops! It wasn’t until after we struggled with our luggage, and were laughed at by the snooty French women that we found out the TGV isn’t extremely fancy, we were just sitting in first class!! Fortunately no one else came to sit in our seats, and when they came to punch our tickets they didn’t say anything…needless to say, we were riding in style on our way to Lyon.

Finally after arriving in Lyon at 4:30 am Canada time, knowing that we had a full day ahead of us (it was 10:30 am in Lyon) we decided we were too tired, lost and confused to try and figure out the bus routes. We decided to go with a taxi who ripped us off claiming we had too much baggage! (those men just don’t understand haha) …anyway it was a short ride to campus, and miraculously as we were getting out of the taxi an American exchange student – mark - noticed Elisa’s Canadian flag and heard us speaking English …he saw how many suitcases we had and since he was heading to the international office anyway, he asked if we wanted a hand, and led us straight to the office! We sorted everything out, and a few hours later we finally we able to drop our bags off in our rooms…

Elisa and I ended up getting really lucky because our rooms are on the top floor (3.5 floors in the building) and we face the courtyard so we look out on rooftops and trees! …our rooms ended up being nicer than we were expecting, so we were really happy about that….we also made a few interesting discoveries though…the French don’t believe in the same things Canadians do…like toilet paper…we ended up making a very fast trip to a nearby store and bought some PINK toilet paper with butterflies on it… haha oh the French. Other than the fact that our building is a little old, we felt we got pretty lucky and its only about 10 minutes to walk to school.

So after a little sorting, lots of picture placing on the wall and making our bed, we crashed leaving the exploring for the next day… :)