Lots of stuff happened while I was in Lyon

...and it's probably foolish to try and fit the rest of it all into one blog post (it's gonna get all diluted and second-grade-book-report-summary boring), but oh, well. I mean, I have to write about it sometime, and like I said, writing about travels in France from my room in the US is just not as interesting as writing about them while I'm still in Europe. Granted, it would be even better if I were actually still in France, but England's not a bad runner-up. Plus, it's raining again (I'm not surprised; it's England, after all), and I've taken the day off from sightseeing in order to recuperate from the nasty cold that just slammed into me with all the force of a freight train full of bricks and lead and other really heavy things, so I've got the time to go back over the last few weeks and fill y'all in.

Okay...so...scrolling back through my iPhoto library to get some visual reminders...okay. Here we go. The Wednesday after my weekend in the south of France, our class went on a field trip to Beaune, a town that was, if I remember correctly, about an hour and a half from Lyon (very close to Dijon). It's known for its medieval hospital, Hôstel Dieu (don't pronounce the 's' in 'hostel'), or, more specifically, for the brightly patterned roof of said hospital:

Doesn't even come close to doing it justice. The colors are actually much brighter, especially when the sun's shining.

Anyway, we had a really nice day exploring the town and the hospital and eating lunch (the cold mushroom cream thing I ate = awesome. And since it wasn't vegan, I got to eat half of Kelly's too, since she couldn't.), and we all agreed that it was a lot of fun to do a nice outing with the entire group all together like that.

I miss everyone! =(
Also, why am I so freaking short?!

We all took the train back to Lyon afterwards, and most of us passed the time by napping, doing some reading for class, listening to music, or, if you're me and Amanda, trying to remember all the Kappa Delta info we had to learn for our new member test. Turns out we've already forgotten most of it, but what was most frustrating was that we couldn't remember the name of the shell that's supposed to symbolize the growth of Kappa Deltas. It was one of those things where it's on the tip of your tongue and you just can't remember it. It was incredibly annoying.

Anyway, the rest of the week passed without incident (except for the next day in class when I suddenly remembered that it was a nautilus shell and mouthed it to Amanda, who immediately knew not only what it was I was mouthing but what it was in relation to...ahh, sisterhood). One other cool thing we did that week, though, was attend an herb seminar from an American woman who's been living in Lyon for the past ten or so years and blogs about French cooking. We learned about different kinds of herbs used in French cooking and made herb broth, tarte aux fines herbs, and kir (with acacia flower syrup and verbena syrup rather than the traditional crème de cassis), and it was all delicious:

Behold my foray into French cuisine. Although, to be fair, I didn't really actually assemble any of this. I chopped parsley. That was my contribution.

That weekend was another long weekend for another Catholic holiday (Pentecost this time). Since everyone else had plans for the weekend, I decided to do a little traveling on my own. My plan included Grenoble, Annecy, and Geneva (aka Genève), and Chambery and Aix-les-Bains if I had time/wasn't too tired. Turns out that traveling in the heat and the sun is actually quite exhausting, so I only made it to the first three, but it was still a very nice weekend. I went to Grenoble on Saturday not quite sure what to expect. I'd come to France prepared to like Grenoble, since Aunt Michelle always speaks of it fondly and I was interested to see it, but when I'd missed the train there one weekend (my first attempt to visit it), Corinne had made a disgusted noise and said (in French) something along the lines of "Believe me, you're not missing out on anything." My host family lived in Grenoble for several years before moving to Lyon, and none of them had anything particularly nice to say about it. Mon père's evaluation: "The city is not pretty. The area around it is, though." Jacques: "It's cool when you're young and you want to ski and stuff, but other than that, it's not that great." Corinne: "It's ugly, it's dirty, and there's no history. It's a modern town, not like Lyon where there are old buildings and a lot of history. It's only for scientists and engineers. And the mountains just box you in." So, you can see why I wasn't quite sure what I was getting myself into.

The reality, as so often happens, fell somewhere between the two extremes. It certainly wasn't the hotbed of industrial filth Corinne had made it out to be. The streets were clean, and there were some pretty statues and fountains, but she was right about one thing: not much history. It wasn't a big deal, though, as I didn't spend much time actually in the city. I just walked through and got some lunch from an indoor market on my way to the famous cable cars of Grenoble, which I rode up the mountain to La Bastille, the 19th-century fort.

Aren't they cuuuuuute?!

I spent the rest of the day up there, admiring the views of the Alps, writing in my journal, taking in the smell of the flowers blooming on the trees (I don't even LIKE the smell of flowers, generally, since I think they tend to smell like a pile of compost someone spilled perfume on. But these flowers were literally the best-smelling flowers I've ever come across. I would go all the way back to Grenoble just to smell them again, seriously. And yes, I know I can probably find them in some other place. But I have no idea what they're called or anything like that, so returning to Grenoble seems like my best bet.)

At any rate, it was a really calm, relaxing, Zen kind of day (and, fun fact, the French use the word "zen" too...I heard it a few times while I was there). I'd love to go back someday in the future when I have access to a car, as I'm sure a lot of the more remote regions of the Alps are even prettier (albeit harder to access, especially when you're dependent on public transport like I was).

View from the parking lot area at La Bastille

I was too tired, as I said, to stop at Chambery on the way back...I'd gotten a lot of sun and was a little bit burned, and you know how a sunburn just saps all your energy. I went back to the apartment and I dunno, probably just ate dinner in my room and watched a movie (mes parents were in the country for the weekend so it was just me and Jacques).

The next morning I set off for Geneva, which was exciting - my first solo international journey! The train ride there was really pretty - at some points the train runs in ravines between mountains, and at other times it skirts along ridges on the sides of them, looking out over marshes, rivers, pastures, meadows...it's like a storybook setting. I took down the names of a couple picturesque towns on the way there, for someday when I return to France. (It WILL happen, I will make sure of it. France was too beautiful to visit once and never go back. I want to visit France as often as possible.)

Anyway, I wasn't particularly impressed with Geneva itself. Not that there was anything wrong with Geneva. And probably my lack of enthusiasm was at least partially my own fault, as I spent the first hour and a half trying to find a place to exchange my money (Switzerland uses Swiss francs instead of Euros) when I could have (should have) just exchanged it at the train station when I got in. And since I went on a Sunday, a lot of stores and museums (including the UN headquarters) were closed. But I did enjoy walking around, especially along Lake Geneva (or, if you're French, Lac Léman). The lake's claim to fame, besides being the largest freshwater lake in Western Europe (thanks, wikipedia!), is being home to the largest water fountain on earth:

It sort of looks like it's spouting from the boat, but it's not. Just trust me.

The major drawback about Switzerland, though, is that it's insanely expensive. My lunch, which I ordered from what was essentially an outdoor food stand, cost me 13 francs (roughly 13 US dollars...the exchange rate's pretty much even), and all it consisted of was a tomato and cheese panini (9 francs!) and a glass of beer on tap (4 francs...I'm not generally a beer drinker but Geneva's supposed to have really good beer and I was like, what the heck, while in Geneva, do as the Genevans do. After all, if you wanna really sample some beer, may as well do it in a place that's renowned for it, right? As it turns out, I still don't like beer. It was like drinking fizzy crackers. Not a fan.)

Anyway, my final verdict on Geneva was that it was fine to visit once, but I'm not exactly eager to go back. I mentioned this to Madison, and she was like, "Really? My parents went for two weeks and they loved it." So I was like, great, maybe I did it wrong somehow. But then I mentioned it to my host parents and they said, "Americans love Geneva for some reason, but it's not all that great." So I felt a little more justified after that.

Monday morning I soldiered on (despite having a pretty legit sunburn by this time) to Annecy, which was beautiful. The lake (Lac d'Annecy) is gorgeous, as is the Old Town with its canals and narrow, winding streets.

Lac d'Annecy

Vieille Ville d'Annecy

Basically all I did was walk around and look at stuff - no special activities or anything. I ate alone in a sit-down restaurant for the first time in my life, and I'm pretty proud of myself for it - I know that eating alone in a restaurant is high up there on a lot of people's lists of social fears, and I must say that while eating with other people is definitely preferable, it wasn't terrible. My waiter was really nice and my meal (ravioli and a glass of kir) was really delicious, so I can't complain.

After eating I decided to get some ice cream since everyone was walking around with ice cream cones and I thought it might be a good idea to follow suit, since it was really hot out. I tried to get a kiddie cone of mint chocolate chip, but it turns out in France that only kids can order kiddie cones (as the ice cream stand guy pretty nastily pointed out to me. Thanks a lot, jerkface.). I should have gone to a different ice cream place, though, as their flavor list was ridiculous:

Flavors include violet (yes, the flower), strawberry basil, orange flower, and Nutella.

And so I returned to Lyon that afternoon exhausted and incredibly sunburned, but happy with my weekend in the Alps.

The next week or so passed pretty much without incident; one Wednesday we were supposed to go to a chateau but that was canceled at the last minute, so we went to a fancy Lyon patisserie instead and Dartmouth paid (good thing, because my frozen chocolate soufflé or whatever it was was like 7,50 €:

Yum.

I also got to try some chocolate with REAL GOLD FLAKES on top. Yes. I have tasted the flavor of decadence, and it is AWESOME.

And that just about brings me up to my last day in Lyon, I think. Not much happened over my last weekend, as I was busy studying (read: procrastinating) and packing (read: trying to make myself feel better about not studying). But now I am DONE with classes (until June 25th, anyway, when I start my summer term), so yay.

And this was a pretty long entry so I'm gonna take a break. I'll probably come back fairly soon and bring this blog all up to date with the end of Lyon and the beginnings of England, since I'm still not feeling much like venturing out (stupid cold has stolen all my energy) but I'm not tired enough to nap or anything. So yeah. I guess that's that.