Tuesday 9 August 2011

Les 'expériences'

After the difficulties that Chloé and I had getting to and from Ikea the other day, I suppose it's evident that I wasn't thrilled about trying to find my way to church on Sunday morning. Thankfully it's not very far at all and Chloé and I went together on Saturday evening to make sure I knew the way for the following morning. Everything went extremely well. I arrived there ok and everyone was very, very nice. I enjoyed meeting new people (even if there were several Americans who had no capability to speak French at all). Getting to church was fine. I had remembered from the night before. It was getting home again that was a slight issue. I took the Metro, got off at the right stop.... had a little difficulty getting home, but eventually found my way, once I found the bus stop.

Yesterday afternoon I got to see.... Nettra Pan! It was fantastic! After 3 and a half years I finally got to see her again! It was so cool to have her come over to my place and just spend some time together talking and catching up. It's such a coincidence that her grandparents live in the same neighbourhood as me. I really hope I'll see more of her. Coming back here after walking Nettra home I was lost...but then thankfully my house-mate, Aziz came and found me after I called to say that I was lost. Chloé just laughed when I came back home.

Today....Lyon. It is AMAZING here. So, so, so beautiful. It isn't as big as I expected either. The older part of the city is simply spectacular. There are two rivers that flow through the city are really picturesque and there are also 2 hills that surround Lyon. On one is a big, old church which is very well known and very beautiful. I was lucky enough to be able to explore with Chloé and Caro (my house mate) who is Lyonaise (from Lyon) and knew a lot about the history and about the different parts of town. She spoke with her grandma who helped her prepare a little tour. It was fantastic. For lunch we ate at a very reasonably priced café near le Croix Rouge (an area) where when I ordered a panini, they put it in my hand and didn't give me a plate....interesting. Here's a picture of my first French dessert. It was fantastic.


We crossed a river by a bridge and then went on to explore the winding alleyways of Vieux Lyon. Full of tourists (I heard many Australians there too) but simply beautiful. I bought a book in English about Lyon at a cute little book store.





Caro and Chloé also liked a store that had different music boxes displayed by the street. This is a video I took of them trying to listen to the different tunes. Look at Chloé's expressions!


We climbed the hill with the basilica situated on top. It was just incredible and we were so lucky with the weather as well. From there you can see the entire city. We could see where we lived, the city's central station...the park, everything and the church was just astounding.





Afterwards we went to see some Roman Ruins (Lyon was first founded by the Roman Empire...a long time ago) and then we went to Place de Bellecours. It's a big open space with a statue of Louis 14th and a big sign that says ONLY LYON. I then went to a church activity and got to meet even more people which was really cool. After that I found my way home (WITHOUT GETTING LOST!!!!)

There you have it, some experiences in Lyon!

2 comments:

BennyLance said...

Sounds like a busy day! Glad you enjoy town :)

Bonnie said...

Sounds like you get lost a lot! Invest in a map? Haha. That view is amazing, as does that dessert look!