The French Adventure: La vie Lyonaise!

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After trying to keep up a blog myself, I think I now understand why all the people I know who keep a blog have massive pauses in their blogwriting...there's simply always too much going on!





Meanwhile, my big which-level-course-should-I-do-dillemma has been solved, with me deciding to stay in the class I'm in. I must admit, there are classes where I wonder why on earth I wanted to learn French, since the grammar is just horrible. Fortunately though, I am starting to understand more and more. By now, I have even done some first exams, and did pretty well on them! 😊





But, before writing more about the present, I think I have some catching up to do on the past 10 days... In these days, I have been visiting Vieux Lyon, the old part of Lyon. This is a gorgeous medieval/renaissance area of Lyon with lots of influences of the Italian renaissance. It contains 3 gorgeous churches, of which is part Roman and part Gothic (Yes, those arthistory classes in highschool are finally paying off!). Besides that, there is a multitude of small streets filled with nice little shops and restaurants. On busy Saturdays, it can truly convey the meaning of “gezellig”, as we dutch people would name it.





Besides visiting tourist highlights, I also found out that the Lyonaise truly are nice people. While I was all alone waiting on some friends from the summerschool at a bar I didn't know, I randomly got invited by a French group of friends siting at the terrace of the bar to join them. I had a good time there, talking in French and a little English and met a lot of different people from that area of town, Croix Rousse. That same weekend (7 and 8 July, it was back then), I've had many situations where French people would randomly start chatting to me and I have had quite some entertaining conversations with them.





Also, I have been spending quite some time with some people from university. The 7^th of July, there was an amazing event at the opera here, where an opera would play inside and would simultaneously be broadcast on screens outside throughout cities in the Rhone-area. To be a part of this event, I got together with some fellow students and enjoyed the opera Carmen sitting on a large market square, with wine and crisps within reach.... Pretty amazing way of watching my first opera!





The day after, I got together with a fellow student again, to check out a “vide greniers”, which is the French version of a flea market. After purchasing my first french book (Ali Baba et le quarante voleurs), we went to Tete d'Or, a enormous park in Lyon with massive rosegardens, grass area's, exotic plants and a zoo in it. I must say, after petting the cute deers and looking at meat-eating plants, laying in the park's grass and reading my french book was a excellent way of spending my Sunday.

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Photos

Cathedral in Vieux Lyon
Gothic part

Back of the Cathedral
the Roman part...and transition to the Gothic part

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Exotic garden in the Park