Il pleut beaucoup

Day Five

Today I was planning on going to the metro station office with my host mom to get a student metro card with the papers I had proving I am enrolled at UCLy.  But since the metro card needs to be charged every month at about 30 euros, I decided to wait until next month to get a card since I won't be using it that much in the next few weeks.  Decided to go out and look around but of course, it was raining.  Good thing I brought my mom's raincoat because you have to be brave to use a normal umbrella here because with just a little wind, they turn inside out all the time.  As much as I can't stand those umbrellas that curve in and look really funny, that's probably why they were invented..lol.  They're wind-resistant, or at least I would imagine because of their structure.  I found a bookstore because I wanted to buy some school supplies and I was really confused to see that none of their notebooks had typical lined paper.  They were all either filled with little boxes (like for engineering/math) or they had a million little horizontal lines that really just hurt my eyes.  I'm sure it might be normal here but I feel like I would get a headache just trying to write my own notes.  Hopefully I can find a notebook, I brought some paper and my notebook from last semester but that won't hold me long. 

I had lunch with my host mom because I learned that for all students but university students (then, it depends), they all get off early on Wednesdays around 1330 instead of 1630.  It's very interesting.  This is the day they essentially leave to parents to set up appointments for the dentist, etc etc.  So since my host mom is a middle school teacher, she came home early.  We had some salad, a small steak with vegetables, yogurt, and fruit.  The vegetables had some kind of seasoning that was seriously delicious!  There's no way I could become vegetarian, but I'm definitely eating a lot more vegetables.  For dinner we had salad, boiled carrots in cream with ham, yogurt, and fruit.  I was scared that the vegetables might not be enough/good but with some bread, it was very satisfying!  Haha, the whole time I was eating that I was just thinking of my dad or my sister and what they would think about just eating carrots for dinner.  But it really was good! 

At the bookstore I was looking for post-it notes and a notebook but since I found neither, I bought a French verb conjugations book.  Came home and then finished the Twilight saga in French.  Haha :)  When I have subtitles, I can understand everything.  But when I turn them off, it's exponentially harder to understand because how fast they speak and how they shorten the words to colloquial speak.  I await the day when I can understand at least 70% of it! 



That basilique way in the background?  Yeah, that's where I hiked up to yesterday!  The sky is dark because of the rain and that explains how nasty the river looks too. 

Faire du Shopping

Day Four.

I met a friend from the international church today at Part Dieux, where the Lyon train station is and a lot of shopping!  I had a bit of trouble because I bought a student metro ticket and unfortunately for me, the station had metro employees verifying everyone's tickets as they left the station and because I don't have my Lyon student card yet, I'm not supposed to buy those tickets.  I showed them my passport but that didn't appease them and after us trying to explain to them my situation, they told me I needed to pay a 35 euros fine.  That was really frustrating.  So anyway, I wasn't planning on buying anything unless it was going to be dirt cheap and lucky for me, I did!  Some flats for 10 euros and a large purse to hold my schoolbooks for 18 euros.  Perhaps not cheap when you convert it to dollars but for France, super cheap.  Everything is so adorable, it's really hard not to shop!  It's like Forever 21 and Charlotte Russe but everything is good quality and high-end fashion!  We ate at a chinese restaurant and then parted ways and I returned home.  Thankfully, no one was guarding the exits at Place Bellecour so I got away with using a student ticket.  If anyone stopped me, I would've just shown my fine receipt and would've gone from there. 

After that, I worked on some readings for my SS465 distance learning course I'm doing for an IR elective.  Although it'll take away from my free time, I'm hoping it'll lighten my load when I return to WP.  I was planning on going on a run by one of the rivers (the city of Lyon is split by two rivers, le Rhône et la Saône.  But it was pouring so I put that adventure on hold.  I decided to start watching the  Twilight saga because they have a bunch of great DVDs here in the French versions.  I had dinner with my host mom tonight and we had the typical lyonnaise salade followed by French fish sticks (but a healthy version), fruit yogurt, and fruit.  It was really good.  I've loved everything she's made thus far and she doesn't even think she's a good cook!  We shared a nice conversation and tomorrow she gets off work in the afternoon so we're going to have lunch and we're going to see if we can buy me a student metro card with a form saying that I'm enrolled at the university...we'll see.  All around nice, relaxing day. 

Place Bellecour! 

The left side of Place Bellecour!

L'éxamen Jour!

 

Day Three.

Today started with a low and ended on a high.  Had my placement exam and the written part went well, I believe.  It was essentially four short answer/essay questions, starting off very easy and then getting very difficult.  Did my best and feel like I answered all of them adequately.  About an hour after I took my oral exam and I was doomed from the start.  I was all smiles and excited and the proctor I had was a very unamused man who showed no emotion when I was answering my questions.  It really threw me off too when his first question of the interview was "What are your plans?" followed by "Describe your country."  Definitely not something I had ever imagined I'd be answering and he spoke so quickly that I had to ask him several times to repeat himself and he didn't seem to like that.  It was super short and I know if he took questions in a different direction I could've proven to him that I'm a lot more competent than I appeared, but oh well.  I was pretty discouraged after that because I didn't want to get classified into a lower-level class but whatever happens, happens--so there's no point in worrying about it now.  Afterwards, Dave and I walked around to find a place to eat in Vieux Lyon (old Lyon) and the cheapest sit-down place we found was a Kebab place--it was so good!  We found the Musée Miniature et Cinéma, which we learned was six floors of miniature works of art and also original set pieces from famous movies!  That was really nice and for six euros, it was a good deal.  Then we decided to walk up to the highest part of the city where we found one of the largest Roman amphitheatre ruins!  There were actually two of them.  I think I remember the city being called Lugdunum and it was established by the Romans in 34 BC!  The theatres were built around 15 BC and from the speculated sketches of the original infrastructure, they were huge with a second-tier balcony and we saw a lot of building ruins because of the surrounding homes. 

That was just a pit-stop though because we were really on our way to the Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière.  I can't explain how huge this basilique is.  It's undergoing construction so we could only go through the crypte which was basically a chapel but it was incredible.  I can only imagine what the actual main sanctuary looks like.  It was dedicated to Mary and when walking through there were pictures of depictions of Mary from different countries and Dave was explaining the background stories which were very interesting.  Unfortunately, the sky was very gloomy and cloudy so we couldn't see too far but the view was still unbelievable. 

Tonight at dinner was one of the best parts of the day.  I carried on a conversation with my host parents for about an hour!  I understood 90% of what they said to me and the rest I could kind of get at in the context.  :)  It took me a while to warm up but I think they were surprised/happy to see that I was more talkative.  They kindly helped me with some of my mispronunciations, which I'm always grateful for.  Pretty good end to the day!  :)

Movie sketches for production!

SUPER miniature wood sculpture!

Happy Sunday

Day Two.

When you have nothing scheduled for the day, it is really really hard to wake up at a reasonable time!  But then again, "sleeping in" for me is pretty early for people like my sister who could sleep all day, haha.  I studied some French vocab in prep for my placement exam tomorrow and will do some more later tonight/tomorrow morning.  I went to the metro station and bought an all-day ticket for my trip to a church I planned on trying.  There were some middle schoolers hanging around the ticket station who looked suspicious and then when I wasn't planning on buying a ticket ended up begging for money.  I was a little worried that they'd try to steal something so I decided to buy my ticket at another entrance across the way. 

I managed to find my way to the church after 2 metro rides and about a 15 minute walk.  Pretty proud of myself, especially since I've never taken a metro in the states by myself!  The church had a hospitable, sweet community of people from around the world coming to worship together and they even had Superbowl snacks for refreshments afterwards!  I won't be watching that tonight (it comes on around midnight here) but I'll be sure to find out the outcome on facebook tomorrow.  I met about 5 other university students who are studying French this semester as well and all of them are so sweet!  Since we're all new to the area, we agreed to meet up and go out sometime.  Things are looking good :)  Also I met a French university student who attends this church and said she wouldn't mind meeting up to work on my French.  Some of the girls mentioned French churches they also go to, so I'm going to look into that.  It's a good idea to work on my French but then to also have this international church for spiritual growth with other English speakers.  They have a young adult group which will be perfect to jump into. 

I forgot to take pictures today so I just took some of my room! Sorry, I'll be sure to remember from now on.

 

La fête de la Chandeleur

Day One.

Today's my first full day in my new home of Lyon, France!  It was a long day of travel between Thursday and Friday (last minute cancelled flight, 2 hour delay, then missed 2nd flight) but by the grace of God, Dave and I made it!  My host family is wonderful!  I live literally in the middle of the city and our apartment dates back to 1652!  (though everything inside is modern now)  Already I can tell my camera will be snapping shots left and right.  My host father explained that as you move from west to east in the city, you can see the historical transformation of the buildings from Roman ruins to the Renaissance to modern-day.  I love European architecture.  There's so much depth and detail that you don't get in America just because these buildings date back to when buildings took years and years to perfect--not months or weeks.  

My host father helped me buy a French phone after comparing different providers and I bought a cheap phone with unlimited texting and 10 hours of calling for the next 3 months for a decent price.  We walked around the streets filled with shops and restaurants, reminded me of South Korea and how great it was living in the city there.  It has a similar ambiance.  Plus, it's the weekend and winter sales are still going on.  Granted, their sales are still pretty expensive.  But it was cool to walk around and do some window shopping. 

So today is a French holiday where it is tradition to eat crêpes.  We had homemade crêpes with cheese, egg, and ham and then dessert versions with nutella, sugar, and jam!  I LOVE crêpes and since we made our own, I had a large share and it was delicieux.  :)