Another great week in Lyon

Sunday: After getting home from my fabulous trip to Milan I unpacked and took a shower. I was sitting in my room just working on some stuff for class and I saw such a fabulously beautiful sunset. The colors were spectacular, but it was more the way the light reflected off of the luminously puffy clouds that was so great. I whipped out my camera and tried to capture at least a little of the scene. After that, I made some hamentaschen dough since I planned to make them for my host family to try and to bring to Monday night dinner. We had a delicious lasagna for dinner and then I skyped a bit and did a little work before going to sleep.

Monday: Monday morning I woke up early as usual for SLM. After class, Dana and I found a Chinese place for lunch. We had been craving Asian food forever, but it seems like everything is always closed Mondays, which is unfortunately when we always go to get lunch, so we were pretty happy to find a place and were quite happy that the food was very good and not too expensive. After lunch, went home to get some work done and to make hamentaschen for Monday night dinner. I know that I was about a week and a half behind, but it’s been busy and I wanted my host family and everyone at Monday night dinner to learn a little bit about Jewish culture and I figured that Purim was a fun holiday to introduce them to. Monday night dinner was very fun and everyone really enjoyed the hamentaschen.

Tuesday: Rather than waking up at the crack of dawn to go to the market, I decided to explore the end of the market and so I was able to sleep in for the first time in almost 2 weeks which I was pretty excited about. After a late breakfast, I headed over to the market. I had a very successful day: took tons of pictures (at least a few of them were good…), talked to a bunch more vendors and bought some delicious strawberries and apples. I always enjoy the ambiance of the market and it was really interesting to see the differences as the market is ending. After that, I stopped back at home to grab a small lunch before heading over to class. In class on Tuesday, it was the first day of student presentations and it was really helpful for me to see what the other students did and to hear what the teacher thought of these presentations to better understand what is expected of me for my oral presentation in a few weeks (which I really need to work on now!). After class, I actually came home and successfully worked on my project and edited some of my market photos before dinner.

Wednesday: Wednesday morning I woke up late again (really enjoying being able to sleep in!) before heading over to my tennis class. It was a gorgeous day and I had a wonderful day of playing outside. After class, I felt really good and was really excited about the beautiful weather, so I decided to go for a short run once I got back home. I guess most people here just run along the river, but since I wasn’t running that far, I just ran from my house down to the river, so I definitely got quite a few stares from people…. After my wonderful run, I took a shower and met up with everyone else on my program for a quick dinner. Jose had decided to take us all out to dinner to apologize for the joke he played on us. He had convinced us all on Tuesday that he was being sent home from France due to various issues including getting in a bar fight. We were all freaking out and worried and he felt awful for carrying it on for so long, so we all went to grab dinner. I wasn’t all that hungry so I decided to try to convince the waiter to let me get the kid’s menu. I tried to say that I was about the size of a 12 year old, so he really should let me. While eventually this was unsuccessful, he did agree to make me just a small pizza, so that was good. After dinner, we all headed over to the wine and cheese tasting that Barbara was hosting for us as well as the French students who are going to be studying abroad at Penn next year. We tried a white wine, 2 reds (including the well-known St. Joseph from the Rhone region) as well as a Muscat that was delicious. We had a great night and all the French students seem really nice. Hopefully, we’ll be able to arrange an event for them next fall at Penn!

Thursday: Thursday morning we headed back to the high school to teach English. This week the teacher asked us to have them prepare arguments and then act out scenes together. The topic was a kid trying to convince her parents to let her go to a party. It was hilarious to here the arguments the kids came up and I really enjoyed it. After that I headed over to campus to meet up with Annick to meet about my independent study. We went through my pictures and laid out a really good plan of what I need to accomplish before the next time that we meet, which was really helpful. It’s going to be a lot of work, but at least I have a plan of what I need to do. Then, before headed over to class I grabbed a quick lunch and sat outside to eat it to enjoy the beautiful weather. Class was interesting and we continued talking about the chronology of laws and policies relating to health in relation to the political history of France. After class, I came home for a bit before meeting up with Dana, Eduardo and Janee to go see Guignol. Guignol is a puppet that was created in la Croix Russe by one of the silk workers. Shows based on his character have been put on to this day and are constantly evolving. Guignol is a character with a sharp wit and most often used in satirical pieces about politics or other important issues in the day to day life of the common people. It was really interesting and very timely. They alter the show all the time and included in it stuff about the capture (and killing) of the guy who was responsible for the shooting of the Jewish School in Toulouse as well as about the garbage collectors strike that is currently in Lyon. There is currently trash all over the street since the workers have been striking for about a week at the point, hopefully that will end pretty soon. After that they had some snacks and drinks for us to enjoy.