Wednesday: After a grueling two and a half hour work session with Annick where we had to make a selection of the photographs I will be using in my independent study dossier, I headed over to la Part-Dieu to take the Rhone Express to the airport. Unfortunately, due to some train delays, I was running late and my mom ended up having to call me from someone’s phone at the airport to figure out where should meet up. What I didn’t realize was that I wasn’t allowed to go meet her at the baggage claim. Luckily after a little searching, I was able to find her and we hopped back on the Rhone Express. Once we got to Part-Dieu, I got a call from the guy whose apartment we were going to be staying in. He told me that, unlike what I had thought, we needed to take a bus rather than the metro to get to the apartment. All the buses at the train station were lined up in the same area, except for bus 3 which for some reason was located on another street across the way. We finally figured out where to go and met up with Jean-Luc to head over to our little apartment at 2 Rue de la Loge in Vieux Lyon (Loge Gadagne). It is housed in the old buildings of Vieux Lyon, but the inside of the place was modern and adorable and so a great find. Once we dropped our stuff off, we headed over to try out what I had read was the best quenelles (Lyonnais specialty) in Lyon at Café du Sole. The quenelles were to die for. They were cooked to perfection in a melt in your mouth sauce. I can’t wait to go back there! After dinner we wandered back to our place and headed to sleep since my mom was so tired from her long day of traveling.
Thursday: Unfortunately, I had a little mishap with my alarm Thursday morning and didn’t make it to the high school where I help teach English (whoops!). We woke up late, had a delicious breakfast of pastries from a nearby boulangerie and headed over to my host families’ apartment so that I could do a little packing before lunch. My host dad and mom came home to have lunch with my mom. I was impressed that my mom was able to at least follow along with most of the conversation (even though it was hard at times for her with how fast my host parents talk). It was so nice for me to be able to have my everyone meet each other. After lunch, we had to run out to head over to my political history of health class. Luckily that class really only lasts for about an hour and a half, so my mom was able to head over to the little café to wait for me for a little bit. After class, we took the metro back to Bellecour and walked along la Rue de la Republique over to Hotel de Ville and Place de Terreaux. I was able to take my mom to my favorite bakery in Lyon (Boulangerie Keyser) to try the delicious Bichon au poire, to show her the great area on a beautiful sun shining day and to show her the cool underground parking lot (which she thought was pretty interesting). After hanging out in the beautiful sunshine, we headed back to the apartment to take a little rest before dinner. The day before on the way to the apartment, Jean-Luc had recommended this little Bouchon right next to where we were staying where he made reservations for us. Dana, Jose and Barbara (my program director) met up with us for dinner at this little place. It was an adorable place and quite fun because Jean-Luc stopped in many times throughout the night with more clients. We sat down and were given a carafe of water that was almost as big as I am. It was hilarious how difficult it was for us to pour this thing. Bouchons are great, but they are always a little bit hard for me since most of the menu is usually pork. Luckily we found one entrée and one main dish for me to try that didn’t have pork. For a starter, I tried a pate of chicken livers covered in tomato sauce. I was very scared to try this one, but I was very pleasantly surprised by how good it was. After that, I had beef cheek stewed with potatoes. The meat was so tender that it literally melted in my mouth. Finally, for dessert, I had a traditional Lyonnais praline tart (which I had yet to try before this meal) with fresh cream that was delicious as well. It was truly an amazing meal, with amazing company. We stayed at the restaurant talking for well over three hours before we even realized what time it was!
Friday: Friday morning, we got up and spent some time walking around Vieux Lyon doing what is called “trabouler” which means to walk through the little passageways through buildings called traboules. My mom was actually a little nervous when I told her we’d be walking through these little random passageways, but when she saw how interesting they were, I think she warmed up a bit more to the idea of it. After that, we wandered back to the Musee Gadagne (the Lyon history museum) where we spent a few hours learning more about Lyon history. It was great to be able to teach my mom all that I have learned and discovered in Lyon so far and in my Lyon history course. I really enjoyed both the history as well as the marionette part of the museum. After that, we walked across the Saone to the Presqu’ile to Place Bellecour to go to the adorable little restaurant with the amazing onion tarts. My mom loved the onion tart and cervelle de canuts that I had her try, but I think that she was most excited about the fact that the meal came with a little side salad (there really aren’t as many vegetables served at French restaurants as there are in the states). After lunch, we hopped on the metro to the funicular to go up to Fourviere and the Basilica. Since it was Good Friday, there was a service going on when we got there so we had to sneak in very quietly. I was disappointed that there was scaffolding covering up all of the ceiling (I thought that the repair work was supposed to be done) but it was still awesome to see the incredible mosaics all over the walls ( I really have never seen such amazing mosaic work). After that, we spent some time taking in the view of Lyon and then headed down the hill. The plan was to go see he ruins from the Roman theaters. My mom was quite tired, but after a little convincing, we headed over there and she was very impressed. After that, we walked the rest of the way down to Vieux Lyon and took a little rest before dinner. We had decided that we wanted to try a really good restaurant since Lyon is said to be the gastronomical capital of France. So, we had called and made reservations at about 5 different restaurants for Friday night. We ended up choosing one just across the Saone from where we were staying called Archange. It serves French cuisine with a little bit of Asian inspiration. For the first course, I had these little rings of quail with hot peppers, carrots, caramelized onions, and cherries. Followed by duck with shitake mushrooms in a soy sauce with vegetables. There was this one vegetable on both of our plates that was a disk with little holes in the middle, but we couldn’t figure out what it was.
Saturday: Saturday morning, we woke up, packed up our stuff from the apartment and headed over to my host family’s apartment so that I could pack up my bag for the week. We left our stuff there and took the metro over to the market at la Croix Rousse so that I could show my mom the awesome market that I spend a lot of my time at. Since it was a Saturday, she was really able to see the market in action and even to see the organic market. We bought some fruit, cheese and bread to eat for lunch later and bought a crepe to eat for breakfast. She was really impressed by the quality of the produce in the market. After that, we headed back to my place to grab our stuff and then headed to Part-Dieu to take the Rhone Express to the airport. Overall it was great having my mom in Lyon and getting to show her how great a city it is!
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