I've been meaning to update the blog but I try to do it at the end of the day and then at that point, I'm too tired or I forget. So a quick recap of the past few days. On Thursday I did some more exploring looking for museums. All the national museums in France are free to students, which is amazing! Apparently, before this was the case--university students never visited museums because they were too expensive so the government decided to make them free. I visited le Musée des Beaux Arts, the second largest art museum in France after le Louvre in Paris. Everything was so beautiful. There were ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, Egyptian artifacts, Renaissance paintings, etc etc! There was so much to see and I did my best to read the French informational captions. The museum is located at Place des Terreaux, another large historical square. There's a beautiful monument and on the other side is the City Hall, from what I gather. Here's a picture:
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| The Museum (the building was a huge square with a large open courtyard in the middle) |
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| Place des Terreaux |
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| Eglise St-Nizier (was on my walk to the arts museum) |
On Friday I had a meeting at school and boy, was it really inefficient. It was essentially an informational meeting filled with admin and things we can do at the school. Like our placement exam, everything was explained in French, Chinese, English, Spanish, and Japanese. It took forever! We could've just had a powerpoint or pamphlets and we would've been set! Everyone was really bored and a lot of people actually left early, which was rude on their part but still. Then they dismissed us and outside the auditorium, there were tables of snacks and sign-ups for travel excursions through the program. There's a trip to Florence, Italy for 200 euros for 4 days all-inclusive! And one to Paris for a weekend for 90 euros! I'll probably go on all of their trips becuase they're such amazing deals! I decided not to sign up for them just yet, I still have time to plan out all the logistics. But during the meeting, they failed to tell us where our schedules would be posted with the classes we're in. So, Dave and I went down to the English speaker and we heard the information from someone already asking the same question . We turned around to see 5 other Americans who were just as confused, haha. We ended up finding our schedules and lo and behold! I have classes everyday...starting at 1330. Life is too good. Classes should be about 4 hours long. I really need to get some discipline though to make sure I get a morning routine of a devotional, working out, cooking, getting ready, and reading or something productive.
During all of this, we met a girl named Amelia who's an American and we all hung out the rest of the day. We went to find a place for lunch and ate at The Hippo, lol. It was like typical steakhouse food and I got a fixed menu deal for 18 euros I got a main meal (le plat principal), a dessert, and a drink. From the options I had, I decided on a steak with fries, crème brûlée, and a fanta. I've tried the dessert before but have never really liked it. I figured, might as well try the dish at its birthplace! It was super good and I had a large portion. Not the cheapest thing around but that's pretty much the normal. The thing about France is that taxes and tip are included--which is nice. We then looked around shops trying to kill time before we watched a movie, Happiness Therapy with Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. I thought it was a really weird movie. It got better at the end but I wouldn't see it again. Afterwards, we parted ways and I made my way to the international church's young adult Bible study. I got off at the right metro stations and then realized I had no way of finding the address. Thankfully, I walked right into a girl from the church! It was such a great time! We had salad, spaghetti, bread&cheese, and homemade oatmeal &chocolate cookies! We had a great study on relationships and marriage and then just hung out afterwards.
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| Dessert :) |
Today I looked up a site for skiing on the Alps that Dave recommend to me. It's 38 euros for a day all-inclusive (with travel)! That's pretty legit. But I talked with my host family and they're going on a week vacation to ski in the Alps that they invited me to as well! I would just have to pay for my ski lift tickets but that's it--they even have clothes for me to borrow! I'll only be able to go for a few days since I still have school but I'm looking forward to it! I'd like to go again though sometime with friends, so the site is still a good resource. I had lunch with the family and Hermine, one of the daughters who I finally got to meet. For the l'entrée (appetizer) I had half an avocado with mayonaise, a main meal of baked bread with a sausage in it (really good!), bread & cheese, and fruit. It was very fulfilling! Then I looked online at the Lyon Opera's shows this season and the game schedule of the local football team, Olympique Lyonnais. I went to meet up with Dave to buy some groceries, toothpaste, and try to find a sports store for cold weather gear. I bought some French cookies (I am SUPER cheap when it comes to buying anything with my own money, so I got the cheapest versions of whatever I was looking at). Haha but it's nice to finally eat cookies! My host family is very healthy so the only thing I have to snack on is fruit and yogurt (which isn't bad at all, but sometimes you just have a sweet tooth craving!). It was snowing AGAIN! Three days in a row, and I was told it hardly snows here. After freezing outside, I came back and made some tea and started working on those cookies! :)
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