The last couple days in the amazing place called Lyon

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 18^th at 7:30am. He promptly replied that no, my flight was scheduled to leave on Saturday the 18^th 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…

Friday: Friday was my real last day in France and I spent the morning finalizing plans in Israel and Louisville and just relaxing a bit. I met up with Jose for lunch. We decided to go to the Tasse Livre for lunch. Dana and I always went their to hang out and get nutella steamers, but this was my first time going for lunch. The goat cheese, honey, mint and nut sandwich that I had was pretty good and the steamer was delicious as always. After lunch, we went over to Boulangerie Kayser to buy some bichon au poire caramelisé for dessert. I also bought some bichons, croissants, and pains au chocolat to bring to Israel. I was super excited to the Boulangerie was open on Friday (another great benefit of the flight fiasco). Jose and I walked back to Bellecour together and said our goodbyes (my last real goodbye, which was kind of sad). I went home and dropped off my croissants and picked up my camera before heading over to the parc de la tete d’or. While Jose and I were walking to lunch it was really raining and I had no clue what I was going to do for the rest of the day, but luckily after lunch, the sun came out and it turned into a gorgeous day. I headed over to the park and just decided to walk around. I happened on the botanical garden (which I had no idea even existed). The Jardin botanique de Lyon was created after a 1794 decree by the National Convention. The mayor of Lyon created the botanical garden on the slopes of the Croix-Rousse. Completed in 1804 in the Couvent de la Déserte, the garden was too cramped and was therefore transferred to the park in 1857. The garden currently is spread over 18 acres and its collections are as rich as that of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris. There are numerous indoor greenhouses as well as many different types of outdoor gardens including one full of cactuses and one full of roses. The roses were in full bloom and they smelled incredible. I walked around taking in the beautiful gardens and snapping some pictures for hours. It was a fabulous end to my time in France. After that, I decided to walk home from the park rather than take the metro home. On the way, I found a little pet store and there were adorable miniature squirrels inside. I made my way home, took a shower, and had my real final dinner with my host family. After dinner, I had a really nice cup of tea with Martine and we did some reminiscing and talked a little bit about what the future holds for each one of us. It was sad, but I think after having had an extra day in Lyon, I was more prepared to leave than I was on Thursday, so it all worked out for the best. It’s still so hard to believe that the semester is over already, but I’m excited for this summer and my time in Israel, Louisville and Seattle!

"Trip to Lyon"

Dana and I have been traveling to amazing destinations almost every weekend all semester. We decided that we wanted to spend our last weekend “traveling” to Lyon so we could really appreciate and take advantage of how amazing of city Lyon is. We had an awesome 4 days exploring new places and returning to some of our favorites.

Friday: I woke up and headed to Bellecour to drop off some more photos to print to finish my dossier. I also did some shopping along Rue de la République. I found a cute little romper that was buy one get one free and t should be a great thing for this summer (especially during the crazy heat in Louisville). After that, Dana and I met up at the Opera house to see a dance performance. It ended up being the end of the year performance by some dance students. The first dance was a contemporary dance that was really bizarre. We were a little concerned that all the dances were going to be really weird, but the other ones were pretty good. My favorite was this group of boys probably ages 8-15 or so dressed in jeans and white polos. They were fabulous and the little boy was absolutely adorable. Also, they danced to Duke Ellington which made me even happier. After the performance, we headed over to Entrecote for lunch. I had gone with Marie and Gregoire a few weeks back and really enjoyed it, so Dana and I decided to go back. We had the formule again so I had a wonderful salad with walnuts followed by perfectly tender beef covered in a delicious sauce (I honestly have no idea what it was, but it was fabulous and I wish I knew how to make it) with fries. It was a lovely lunch. After lunch, we went over to this silk workshop behind Place de Terreaux where we learned all about how the print on silk using design blocks to add each color individually. The scarfs, ties and other silk products that they produced were beautiful, but quite expensive, so we just spent some time looking and enjoying them before heading back out. Having learned about how to print on silk, we decided to go over to the Musée de Tissus (which turned out to be right across the street from Marie-José’s and we never even noticed it!). It was really quite interesting. Attached to that museum was the Musée des arts décoratifs located within a beautiful house. The furniture was beautiful, and I really appreciated seeing something so cool right in Lyon (we always see cool stuff like that when we travel, so it was great to explore Lyon in new way). We finished our sightseeing for the day and headed back home. I spent some time cleaning up in my room, making plans for Louisville, finalizing my dossier and had a nice dinner with my host family.

 Saturday: Saturday morning, I woke up and officially finished my independent study dossier! After that, I had a nice lunch with my host family before meeting up with Dana and Eduardo. We tried to go to the Centre de la Résistance et de la Déportation (since Lyon was very important in the resistance movement during the second world war). However, for some reason it was closed (I checked the hours and it was certainly supposed to be open…), so we decided to go to Vieux Lyon one last time to take in the beautiful old part of the city of Lyon. I have always loved this quarter of Lyon, but after having taken a course on the history of Lyon, it has become even more of a special place for me. Since it was a nice sunny day, we decided to get some ice cream at one of the little places along Rue Saint Jean. I had some fabulous dulce de leche and pistachio ice cream. Since we didn’t want to pay more to sit at the tables, we ended up eating our ice cream on a stoop right next to the ice cream shop. The joys of traveling while I’m still young! After that, we hopped on the funicular to go up to Fourviere. We went into the basilica hoping that there wouldn’t be a service going on, but there ended up being one, so, seeing as it was my last time going up to Fourviere, I took pictures anyways. We enjoyed the beautiful view of Lyon and really took in the amazing city. We headed back down the hill by funicular and took the metro to Foch to go to Les Halles. Les Halles is an indoor, covered, gourmet market. The middle section is where they sell high quality products and encircling that inner ring are little nice restaurants. I bought some fantastic looking ravioli with goat cheese and some with basil and ricotta. Once we finished taking in the fantastic market, we all headed home to relax for a bit and to get ready for dinner. Dana’s birthday was Sunday, so Saturday night José, Eduardo and I went to Mattsam Restaurant Messob which is an Ethiopian restaurant. I had never eaten Ethiopian food before, and it was pretty good. After dinner, we went to the Smoking Dog in Vieux Lyon. We had a few drinks and hung out. It was a really nice bar and we celebrated Dana’s 21^st birthday in style!

Sunday: Dana and I met up Sunday morning to go to the market at the Croix-Rousse. Dana had never been and so it was really fun to show her around the market that I have come to love so much. We bought 3 big heads of lettuce, some beets, some fresh goat cheese, and strawberries for our dinner on Monday. I also bought a few passion fruits since I absolutely love them and unfortunately cannot get them in the states. Once we finished our shopping at the market, we went to the Sushi Shop in Bellecour to have lunch. They had a really great deal for their lunch menu and we got miso soup, carrot salad, and 18 pieces of sushi (which of course I wasn’t able to finish), but it was a pretty good. After lunch, we headed over to Parc de la tete d’or (park of the golden head) to meet up with Jose and Eduardo. Parc de la tete d’or is a 290 acre park right in the middle of the city that was opened in 1857. It was actually my first time going there and I realized that I had really been missing out. It is a gorgeous place. It contains a zoo, beautiful displays of flowers everywhere, sports facilities and even a little lake. We spent a while just taking in the beautiful park and enjoying the sunny weather (even if it was a little bit windy). Once we finished at the park, we headed over to the Croix-Rousse to see a one-woman production of Le Petit Prince (we got in for free with cultural passes that we had). Dana had called to ask if it was a show meant for kids, and they had said no, so we were a little frustrated when we arrived and the only people there were kids and their parents, but it ended up being pretty good. It was easy to understand and I love the Petit Prince, so it turned out to be a lot better than expected. And it was surprisingly well done given that there was only one woman. After the show, I headed back down the hill and took the metro home. Once I was home, I had a nice dinner with my host family.

 Monday: I met up with Dana for lunch in Vieux Lyon at Café du Soleil (or Sole… I’ve seen it written different ways….) to have quenelles. This restaurant is where they make the quenelles that they send to extremely well, known and highly regarded restaurants like Paul Bocuse. The quenelles at this little café, however, are sold for a mere fraction of the price. We sat outside on the terrace and the quenelles were delicious. I had been before to the restaurant with my mom and I was very happy to be able to go again before leaving France. After that, Dana and I took the metro to Gare de Vaise and then from there the bus to go to Ile Barbe which is an island in the middle of the Saone river. The Ile Barbe monastery is one of the oldest in Gaul. Records of its existence go back to the start of the 5^th century. It was destroyed during several periods: by the Saracens in 725, by the Hungarians in the 9^th century and by the Protestants in 1562. Repaired each time it was destroyed, the Abbey was completely dismantled during the Revolution. It was an important center for the arts during the Romanesque times, and was also a center of pilgrimage to the Notre-Dame de l’Ile before the Notre-Dame de Fourviere existed. Now it is an adorable little island with the old church and beautiful houses. It was also interesting because on our way in, we waked a long a little one lane bridge to get to the island. However, it was actually a two lane road and cars could traverse the bridge going either direction. I was totally scared that cars where going to crash and there was going to be a disaster… only in France. After that, Dana and I headed back to my house to cook for Monday night dinner. We looked up the recipe for the cake we were planning to make and headed to monoprix to buy the ingredients. However, there was a little bit of a problem when buying the sugar. We knew we needed to buy powdered sugar, but in France what they call normal crystalized sugar is “sucre en poudre”. We couldn’t find powdered sugar anywhere (and also didn’t know the exact word in French), we tried to explain that it was really fine sugar that is used in cakes. Eventually it was the security guard who realized that what we actually needed was “sucre glace”, but he told us that we had to go to a special store to buy it. He explained to us where to go. Meanwhile we begrudgingly went to buy the other products and figured that we’d have to go  figure out where to buy it. Luckily he cam running over and had found the powdered sugar, so all was well. After that we went back to the house to cook. We made a salad with beets, goat cheese and caramelized almonds, some roasted broccoli, and the delicious fondant au chocolat cake that we had made the first week in the cooking class. We made a cake with 2 layers with fresh strawberries and whipped cream in the middle. However, we had some pretty funny experiences while cooking (and luckily Martine didn’t get home until we were pretty much done cooking). I caramelized the nuts and put them on a sheet to put them in the oven. While I was doing that, I set the pot back on the stove thinking that I had turned it off. Unfortunately I hadn’t and the pot ended up being burnt being the point of being able to be fixed. Fearing my host mother’s wrath, we somehow decided that the best plan was to throw the pan out the window… so that was pretty ridiculous. Next, the whole oven started smoking (while it was heating up) because there was leftover scum at the bottom that was burning. Finally the silliest thing was that with both layers of the cake that we cooked, once we finished cooking them and took them out of the oven, there were enormous indentations in the bottom where there was no cake, it was like someone had carved out little holes in the cake. It was super strange, especially since it happened twice. But oh well, Dana and I had a really fun time cooking together. From there, we eventually made it to Bellecour with all the food (it was certainly not an easy task, and everyone in the metro was definitely staring at us…) to meet up with Eduardo. He helped us bring the cake over and we spent the entire walk to Marie-Jose’s yelling at him to make sure not to drop our precious beautiful cake. We had a fabulous last dinner with Marie-Jose. We gave her a card and a bottle of wine from the Perroud’s vineyard to thank her for hosting us each week. The food we made turned out to be amazing. We even put candles in the cake we made and all sang happy birthday to Dana. I was even happy with the songs we sang at the end of the night (Emmene-moi, bonsoir mes amis and one other). It was a fabulous last Monday night dinner and I will certainly miss them.