Spring Break: Location 5 & 6

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Bonjour! I have just spent the last 2-ish days in Lyon, France visiting some great friends and am currently in Paris! Emilie and Laura were exchange students at Elon last spring (2010). We lived together for the semester, and I like to think, became really good friends! I jumped at the chance to be able to meet up with them in their school/home in Lyon, France.

So, to start telling of my French adventure.

I had planned to arrive in Lyon by 11:30/12:00, but like all good French trains, they decided to work on the lines from Geneva to Lyon, so there were no trains that morning. Fred and I had rushed to the station to try to catch the 9:30 train, but we were told that there was not one. Instead, I got on an 11:00am bus that would get me into Lyon by 1:30. The bus ride was amazing...and interestingly enough, they do not check passports when riding on a bus. Or at least they didn't from Geneva to Lyon.

I got into Lyon Part-Dieu at 1pm, instead of 1:30. So, since my French consists of hello, thank you, thank you very much, and goodbye, I waited for Laura to come find me at the station. I ended up getting harassed by only one gypsy. But after I kept telling them that I have 'no money' they left me alone. It wasn't too big of a deal. They try to get you to sign a petition to help handicap people or some country that is under a dictator and then give them money. I found out later that you just ignore them. I put my headphones in and pretended I couldn't hear or notice them when they were around later on.

Laura took me to her school. It was interesting to see the difference between her school and Elon. I liked the school, and instead of trying to wonder on my own while Laura and Emilie had class/group project meetings, I did some homework that is due the Tuesday I get back form break. I actually ended up getting about half of one of the papers done. I'm very proud about that! After the classes/meetings were done, I went back with Emilie to her apartment. We had dinner, chilled, and just talked until it got closer to 8pm. We were apparently going to this 'party' that the law students in their school were throwing at this bar in the old part of town. I put 'party' in quotes mainly because I wouldn't really count it as a party. It was mainly students meeting at a bar, talking, and some people drinking. Emilie was the perfect host with trying to include me in on everything and translating. It was a lot of fun, especially to see how French students 'party.' I'm kind of sad that I wouldn't be there for any of the business school parties. Apparently they consists of about 300+ people in a club atmosphere.

The next day, we met back up with Laura at the school. While Emilie had class, Laura showed me around Lyon. I had never really heard of Lyon before meeting Laura and Emilie, so I really didn't know what I was supposed to want to see and do. It was nice just being able to walk around with Laura, talk, and catch up. We met up with one of her old school friends for lunch, which was pretty good: a salad and a sandwich. From there we headed back to the school. Laura and Emilie had another class, so I worked on more homework and tried to catch up on a few things. After class, I went back with Laura to her house. Her family was so nice! It did kind of make me miss my family and being able to be around them (though I still don't really want to leave London, sorry mom!) That night, instead of going to a french restaurant, we went to some old high school friends of Laura's and made crepes! Besides getting the hot pan thrown at me (not really!), it was a fun time! They basically kept feeding me, and i figured I would try everything (except the one with fish) at least once. By far my favorite was the nutella one, and the ham and cheese one.

On Saturday, we met back up with Emilie for lunch, where I was made fun of a little for not being able to speak any French, even though the guy couldn't speak any English. Oh the French...We ran into a slight problem when we went to get my train ticket to Paris. Apparently, they only have like 1-4 seats for Eurorail pass holders each day, and those get reserved early...I ended up taking a regional train to Dijon then onto Paris, instead of the high speed train directly to Paris.

I love my hostel in Paris! If you go to Paris and want a hostel, try to stay at St. Christopher's Inn. It is a little far from the main attractions of Paris (about 20 minutes by metro to the Eiffel Tower), but the atmosphere is amazing. The beds are very comfortable too. The hostel is connected to a bar, a cafe, and has a club in the basement. However, once you get to the first floor with rooms on it, you can't hear any of the stuff below you, so it's still a good place to be able to sleep.

Anyway, I arrived about 9pm, so didn't try to go exploring since I was tired from traveling. I called my mom from skype to her cell phone for her birthday. She was really surprised, so brownie points to me! =)

Anyway, the next day, I woke up, checked out, put my stuff in the luggage storage, had some awesome bread and nutella for breakfast, and waited for the free walking tour. I did a free walking tour in Dublin with the same company, and this one (in Paris) did not disappoint! Since I was really only in Paris for a day, I figured this would be the best way to see all the main highlights of Paris and get some great information. My tour guide, Halley, was from Canada, and is a French and History major. He moved to Paris a year ago and really seems to love it! He gave out some very interesting information, like the curse the Knights Templar put on King Philip IV. Apparently, as Philip was burning the leader of the Knights at the stake, he shouted out a curse that the King would be dead in a year and the Pope (who was there an helping Philip take over the Knights) would be dead in 40 days. Both happened....freaky much? He also made a point to tell us about the Mexican who pissed on the eternal flame after the French won the world cup in 1998...the guy is banned from ever returning to France. There were also some Australians that roasted hotdogs over the flame...They are also banned, but unlike the Mexican government, the Australian government did not apologize for this event.

My favorite part of Paris was Notre Dame. The Eiffel Tower was cool, but it now costs a good amount of money to even walk up the steps, and the line was wrapped around the tower, so unfortunately I did not go up...but this just means that I have to go back! The Louvre was interesting, but I thought it was going to be bigger. The same thing happened at the Louvre that happened at the Tower, the line was super long and the price was a little high for a college student on a strict budget. However, I am proud to say that I was under my budget by about 30 euros when I got back to London!

I will admit, though traveling all over Europe has been a lot of fun, I am happy to finally be going home to London. I'm looking forward to understanding what the majority of the people are saying! This was probably the best spring break of my life. Next year has a lot to live up to!

Pictures will be up in the next post!

Cheers!

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