Recap of Weekend in Lyon

Over Halloween weekend I went to Lyon to stay with an American friend of Wenonah’s who studies there (her name is Maddie and she goes to Tulane).  I had visited Lyon when I was 16 and came to France with my parents to visit Emmy, so I was really looking forward to going back.  It rained the whole time, but here are a few highlights:

oh là là la pluie!

• Discovering we had first class seats for the train to go there 10 minutes before we left the house.
• Shopping in La Croix Rousse Saturday afternoon in the rain, visiting lots of chocolate shops :)
   

Maddie and me in a bakery/café

crazy lamp shop!

mmmmm:)

yes, a chocolatefall

• Taking the funicular to and from Vieux Lyon (the old neighborhood).  It’s a train that just goes up and down a steep hill.

Wenonah and me, dancing with some new friends off the funicular

• Dancing in a cave under a bar in Vieux Lyon Saturday night.

• After the bar, waiting in the taxi while the driver ran after some guy, yelling at him for I don’t know what reason. I think it cost us about 30 cents.

Me and Maddie in Vieux Lyon Sunday morning for a pastry

• Eating lunch in a restaurant/Tea shop in Vieux Lyon Sunday.  We shared a table in the basement/cave with a French couple and an Italian couple.  It was a little awkward, but enjoyable.  I tried a tomato jelly that was pretty interesting...and less tasty after I found out it was tomato.

• Going to the Musée des Beaux Arts with Wenonah Sunday afternoon, getting a soy chai tea latté at Starbucks after, and walking all the way back to Maddie’s in the rain with only Wenonah’s broken umbrella and my not-water-proof rain jacket.  It took us about an hour, but was actually pretty fun to do some exploring.  And it was nice to have

Wenonah and her broken umbrella in the courtyard of the Musée

My favorite painting at the museum, this is what I look like eating cheese in France

• Having at least 20 stops on our train back, which means it took about 8 hours to get back to Angers.  And the train was overbooked so there were people sitting on their luggage in the aisles and little rooms in front of the doors.

overbooked train (sorry it's blurry)

It was a really fun girls’ weekend and I always love traveling in France!  I'm obviously a little behind on the blogging, but have a few posts to come about the week my mom and dad came to visit me and just other news of Angers.

Throwback to the last time I was in Lyon with Emmy and my mommy! (me at age 16 in 2006)

Chez Les Gailly à Dinard

A few weekends ago, I visited a French friend who I met at Laketrails 2 ½ years ago! His name is Nathan and he studies in Lille, but his family lives in Dinard, Brittany. All of his family was in town for the weekend because there was a British Film Festival (http://www.festivaldufilm-dinard.com/). Dinard is across the bay from Saint Malo, a town I visited earlier in the semester after Mont Saint Michel.  Dinard/Brittany are across La Manche (The English Channel) from England, which explains the reason for the British Film Festival.
I had a wonderful weekend and loved staying with his family! They were so nice and welcoming to me, I felt very comfortable and at home. Saturday, we saw Tolstoy, The Last Station as soon as I arrived. The other films I saw were Neds, and We Want Sex, which was the story of the female Ford factory workers striking in London in the late 1960s for equal pay (my favorite film).

Statue of Alfred Hitchcock, who supposedly filmed a movie in Dinard

Saturday afternoon after the film, Nathan baked a delicious chocolate cake and he and his siblings took me on a stroll around the town and on the beach. The best part of the weekend was spending time with Nathan and his siblings, practicing French, and learning tons of new vocab. I loved listening to their conversations; it was a challenge for my listening comprehension skills, but I think I improved after the weekend.

Nathan and Me on the beach :)

French family meals are my favorite, and the dinner and lunch I ate with his family were especially memorable. We ate in the garden and I tried galettes (similar to crêpes, but salty) and bulots! These are little snails that come from the sea. It was my first snail-eating experience, but I have since eaten escargots with my French host family. I actually really liked them! The bulots had more of the seafood taste, but that’s probably because the escargots were covered in butter and garlic…mmm. You have to pluck the body out of the shell with a little pick tool.

Me trying bulots!

It was great to see Nathan again and a wonderful opportunity to stay with his family, see some of their traditions, and visit Dinard. Definitely one of my favorite weekends here!