Tuesday: I woke up bright and early
Tuesday morning and headed over to Dana’s house to help her move out. She had a
bunch of bags and we had to bring them over to Eduardo’s to store while she
travelled. The bags were pretty heavy and it took us quite some time just to
walk the short distances between her house and then tram stop and then between
the tram stop and Eduardo’s dorm. Once there, we hung out with Eduardo for a
while. Eventually it was time for Eduardo to head to work (albeit late…) and we
got back on the tram. I went with Dana to Part-Dieu to hang out for a bit
before her train left to go to Paris. It was really sad to say goodbye to her
and a weird feeling to be in Lyon without Dana, but I’m excited for all the
awesome adventures that we will have back at Penn next year. Once I dropped her
off, I came back home to have some lunch. I had some of the leftover delicious
salad with beets from Monday night dinner and I cooked up the ravioli that I
had bought at Les Halles. The ravioli were certainly delicious. After lunch, I
took my finished photo dossier and headed over to see Barbara. I handed in my
independent study (officially finished my classes in France!) and Barbara and I
spent a few hours hanging out and talking and reminiscing about the semester
and how fast everything has gone by. We left her office together and headed to
Bellecour. From there, I went to return some stuff at H&M and ended up
buying a cute flowly flowery top that was on sale. After H&M I spent some
time walking around Rue de la Republique and Bellecour and taking in the sites.
Then, I hopped on the metro and took it to Montplaisir Lumiere to go to the
Lumiere Institut housed in the villa of Antoine Lumiere (father of the Auguste
and Louis Lumiere). The Lumiere brothers were the earliest filmmakers in
history. Their father ran a photographic firm that the brothers worked in when
they were younger. It was not until their father retired in 1892 that the
brothers began to create moving pictures. They patented a number of significant
processes leading up to their film camera, most notably film perforations as a
means of advancing the film through the camera and projector. The cinématographe
itself was patented on 13 February 1895 and the first footage ever to be
recorded using it was recorded on March 19, 1895. This first film shows workers
leaving the Lumière factory. Their first
public screening of films at which admission was charged was held on December
28, 1895, at Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris. The cinématographe was a
three-in-one device that could record, develop, and project motion pictures. The
brothers thought that the cinema is an invention without any future and
declined to sell their camera to other filmmakers. Consequently, their role in
the history of film was exceedingly brief. They turned their attentions to color
photography and in 1903 they patented a color photography process, the
Autochrome Lumière, launched on the market in 1907. Overall I found the museum
fascinating and really enjoyed the audio-guided tour. It was really cool to
learn about Lyonnais guys that were so important in the development of
photography and to learn about it in their childhood home. After the museum, I
decided to walk home to Garibaldi from Montplaisir Lumiere. It was nice because
I had never seen that part of Lyon before. On the way home (literally one block
from my house) I found an enormous Casino grocery store that I never knew was
there. I have been going to Monoprix (equally close, but more expensive) ever
since I got to Lyon. So ridiculous that I didn’t figure it out until it was too
late to be useful. I went home and had a nice dinner with my host family.
Wednesday: I had a relatively busy day
Wednesday. I had forgotten to give Barbara back some of her books that I had
borrowed, so I headed to her office to say goodbye to her and give her the
books back. It was sad to say goodbye, but Barbara always comes to Philly in
April, so I will get to see her then! From there, I took the tramway over to
the Bron campus to meet up with my friend Léa for lunch. I had never been to
the cafeteria in Bron before and while it was certainly not gourmet food, it
wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. We had a nice time hanging out and
talking and I hope I will be able to keep in contact with Léa. After lunch, I
took the tramway and metro back into town to meet up with Jose at the Parc de
la tete d’or. We walked around the park for a while. It happened to be a
beautiful day and I really enjoyed all the gorgeous flowers in the park. It was
also nice because it was a lot calmer and more peaceful since it was in the
middle of the week and most people come to the park on the weekends. Jose and I
walked back to the center of the city together and I headed home for a bit to
start packing. I finished the first part of my packing and headed back over to
the Tasse Livre in the Croix-Rousse to meet up with one of my host brother’s
(Francois) friends named Justine who is doing a year abroad in the Hebrew
University Law School. She had a ton of
questions and we had a really nice time discussing Israel. Our conversation
made me even more excited to go back and visit Israel. Justine and I headed
back to Garibaldi since she lives right near the Van Heeswyck’s and I went home
to have dinner with my host family. After dinner, I spent some more time
packing and organizing everything so I would be ready to leave.
Thursday: Thursday morning I slept in
for a bit. Once I woke up, I tried to check in for my Air France flight to
Israel, (which was the next morning at 7:30am) and the system wouldn’t let me
because it said that it wasn’t within 30 hours of my flight, which didn’t make
any sense to me. I tried to call the Air France office, but it wasn’t open
until 9am East coast time, so I figured I’d just have to call them later to
figure it out. I met up with Gregoire and Marie and we went to Vieux Lyon to
have lunch at a little bouchon called Le Comptoir du Boeuf. It took us a long
time to decide but we found a nice place with a great little terrace outside. I
had a delicious lentil salad. The lentils were so perfectly cooked and the
flavor was incredible. After that, I had some fantastic quenelles (I’m really
going to miss quenelles when I go back to the states! I tried to ask my host
mom if she had a recipe for them, but most French people buy them raw and then
add sauce and cook them, so she didn’t have one. I’ll have to do some research
once I get back home.) Finally for dessert I had a delightful bread pudding
with caramel sauce and dolce de leche ice cream. It was a wonderful meal and we
all had a great time together. After lunch, we decided to go to do accrobranche
(a ropes course up in the trees). I had no idea that this existed and it is
really just a few blocks from the basilica up on Fourviere. We got strapped
into our harnesses and headed down to the safety demonstration and practice
area. We were all very shocked that we weren’t provided with helmets. We
learned how to work the harnesses and pulley systems and passed the practice
test and headed up to start the course. We made it through a few obstacles when
Marie decided that the ballet flats she was wearing really weren’t cutting it.
Since it was a long course, we didn’t want to leave her alone at the bottom so
we all had to try to head back down. The only way to do this was to go back
across the obstacles in the opposite direction. We caused a whole scene and a
major back-up in the line, but it was a pretty amusing situation. Honestly, I
wasn’t too upset to go down because I was pretty terrified about the whole
thing. We decided instead to do the ziplines because you didn’t really need
good shoes to do those. They were really fun. I had quite a difficult time
attaching my pulley on the second zipline because I’m so short and Marie had to
help me. We went through the zipline course twice before it was time to leave.
It was a really interesting experience for me overall because it was so
different than something like that in the states. There were literally 2 people
overseeing the whole park. There weren’t people all over making sure that
everything was working perfectly like there would be in the states. It was
totally safe and there really wasn’t a need for extra staff, but it was just
surprising given my expectations of similar places in the states. After that,
we headed back down the hill and said goodbye. I really hope I can stay in
touch with Gregoire and Marie. As it happens, Marie will be in San Francisco
this summer, so I hope that I can see her while she is there. Next, I headed
over to Hotel de Ville to try to get croissants to bring with me for my family
in Israel from Boulangerie Kayser. However, I forgot that since it was a jour férié,
the boulangerie was closed. I tried another two on my way back home and had no
success. I go home, took a quick shower, and sat down to my last dinner with my
host family. We had a really nice dinner and spent a while reminiscing about my
time with them and in France in general. We took a few pictures together and I
gave my family a nice bottle of wine (from the Perroud’s) and a jar of honey
that I had bought in Provence. My host mother gave me a cute little bag with
some perfume. I had said my goodbyes and as said as I was, I was prepared to
leave France. I decided that I needed to try to call Air France again to make
sure that everything was ok with my flight even though it hadn’t let me
check-in earlier. I called and gave the guy my reference number. He told me he
had no idea why it wouldn’t let me check-in, but that I could easily check-in
at the airport before my flight. So I asked to just make that my flight was
scheduled to leave on Friday the 18th at 7:30am. He promptly replied
that no, my flight was scheduled to leave on Saturday the 18th at
7:30am. I literally asked him if he was joking with me and he replied that that
wasn’t a part of his job responsibilities. I confirmed with him and hung up.
After that I had to inform my host family, my family in Israel, my mom, my
friends, etc… that there was a little bit of a change of plans. I spent the
rest of the night finishing packing and sending some emails. It was a really
weird feeling because I had emotionally prepared myself to leave Friday and I
just felt disoriented once it had changed. But honestly, I couldn’t complain
too much about staying in France an extra day…
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