The French Adventure: Beaucoop de Fetes!

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Last week was my birthday and I must admit that it was quite odd to celebrate that whilst not being around the people I have known for more than just 2 weeks!! Fortunately, skyping and calling with people from back home and all the birthday wishes I received both virtual and in real life, made me feel like I was not too far from home.

My birthday actually started with a excursion with the summerschool to Perouges, a medieval village an hour from Lyon. Perouges is quite a lovely village, but very very small, and thus after walking around for 2 hours, you've seen everything about twice. However, that doesn't make the old building less lovely. Also, I tried some Galette, a local specialty that looks like a pizza slice but it's sprinkled with sugar, which makes it a sweet snack.

Back in Lyon, I went on a quest for some pie at a real french patiserie with some friends! After pie-hunting for a while, we found a nice place where I got great chocolate birthday cake, including candles and plastic 21 as a birthday gift! After finishing this pie with just 4 people, we headed to le Republique, a student bar in Lyon, for some drinks and dinner with more people. We had a good time there, but as I was craving cocktails and le Republique was quite expensive for a student bar, we went to another bar with better priced cocktails. After 2 of my deeply desired drinks, it was time to head home, as Lyon's public transport stops very early and had be present 9 am scharp for more French classes.

The next day, after my usual day of classes a friend from back home came to visit me here in Lyon, and she's still here as I am writing this (She cooking me dinner as we speak 😊. Together, we wanted check out a French quatorize juilliet (Bastille day) tradition, which entails that the fire departments organize a incredible party. Some of them, even put on a striptease!! Unfortunately, we were too tired by the time we would have to go there, yet we did go to a pre-party with lots of food and nice strangers, and had a good time there.

Interestingly, there does not seem to be that much happening on quatorze juilliet, thus we made a trip to Fourvierre, together with a girl we had met the day before. Fourvierre is a part of down located on a hill and is not too far from where I live. For the past 2 weeks, I had seen it's gorgeous basilica from the area around Bellecour, but now it was finally the time to visit it. Although the basilica is not as old as I thought it would be (19th century), it looked great and quite different from what I have seen before. Afterwards, we visted a roman amphitheatre nearby where actual concerts were still given! As those are the main things to do in Fourvierre (besides watching its mini eiffel-tower and its pretty view over the city), we walked way down to Vieux Lyon, where it was very busy but "gezellig".

In the evening, we met up with some people from the university to have a picknick allong the saone (one of the two main rivers flowing through) to watch the fireworks later that night. And I must say, those fireworks were the most beautiful I've ever seen in my life! Absolutely gorgeous with, the lit out basilica of fourvierre in the background... Great evening!!

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