Part 39a: The Lucky Life in Lyon

Hey readers!

So, yes, I went to Lyon this weekend and I can only discribe it as an adventure. Everything I did was totally different and new. It was an experience.

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early and got ready. I also recieved a message from Lauren saying that we couldnt use the car to drive to Lyon, so we would have to catch a train. This was a bit of a bummer because it made a real time restraint on our trip and we couldnt make any detours. Oh well. When I was ready, Benoit drove me to Goncelin station where I caught the train and arrived in Grenoble at 8.09am (thanks, Benoit!) and then the tram to University which was the meeting point me and Lauren decided on. I waited around for her to come and pick me up so we could drive to the other station in Grenoble, which neither of us actually knew the location of... This was when the adventure began! We drove around with the window down and stopping at lights asking (in French!) the people in the cars beside us where to go. The station is hard to locate! We drove around for an embarrassing hour but gosh it was funny yelling at people at stop lights and having people behind getting annoyed by us taking so long, even when the lights turned red hehe.

Eventually, we found the station and then the next issue arose, car parking is expensive AND none of it was over night...We just decided to wing it, find a car park and pay our a few hours and pray we dont get a ticket. We were kinda scared the car would get impounded or we would get a 3million euro fine or something but you know... whatever if we didnt park then and there, we would miss the next train! We went inside, bought our tickets and boarded the train and off we went. Onwards to Lyon! It was by this time 10.44 (lol...)

The train trip is an hour and a half to Lyon and is sometimes scenic sometimes not so scenic. We spent the time chatting bits getting to know each other and then me sleeping and Lauren sketching. She has an art/teaching degree and is currently in the middle of creating some sculpture thing... anyway. When we got to Lyon we got off and made our way through the incredibly busy crowds until we made it to the exit were we saw this hilarious looking sculpture thing which looked like a cow eating a seal... First impression of Lyon was quite lol. The weather was okay, a little bit too cloudy and the buildings were quite city like-duh...

the first thing we wanted to do was go see the Contemporary art museum which was in the Park de la Tete d'Or. We ended up walking the distance there, even though there were trams and such (more trams, I know!) anyway, we walked up there enjoying the views of Lyon which were okay. I think the weather left me a tad underwhelmed. Anyway, we eventually made it to the Parc and it turned out it was also a free zoo, which Lauren knew, but I didnt. I was so funny walking and just seeing deer in the middle and then flamingos... I was like... Flamingos dont live in France? Haha. The zoo was a nice source of entertainment and it was surprisingly good even though it was free. I enjoyed it. We also saw the greenhouses there, which were... green I dunno Plants are very pretty but I dont think I like just staring at them for the sake of staring at them. OH! And Squirrels! There are squirrels all over the park! I have never seen them before and I got really excited about them. Lauren found it hilarious because I was so excited, she has soooo many back in the states.

Eventually we made it up to the Museum and by this time it was about 1.30 so we were starving. Luckily, there was a nice cafe in the museum where we got lunch (I had a gourmet burger thing with lemon meringue pie for dessert) and chatted some more. The service there was so funny they like to wink alot. Haha. It made me laugh. Oh and you know how theres usually like a cup with sugar packets in teh middle of the table in cafes? Well, here there were packets of mustard and ketchup but it was the same type of packet as sugar ones. Its hard to explain, but it was really odd. We laughed at that too.

We eventually went to the museum which had some ridiculous display on by a guy called Ben. Just Ben. Ergh. He was soooo arrogant as an artist and his art was not very good. Because Lauren has her degree in art we had some pretty intense conversations about it and I was also translating all his pieces for her. His pieces are all writing. All of them. nearly.. Anyway, we also laughed because they were kind of terrible. It was amazing how many pieces this guy had done though it took up the entire three floors of the museum. By then end we were so over it but kept laughing when we saw things that he did which were when he bagged himself out. I dont know, you had to be there. And he sold 'blessed by Ben' water for 10euros per 10ml bottle or something ridiculous like that. Oh and scratched vinyls with the word BEN scribbled on it for 50euro. It was ludicrous. I mean, honestly if anyone actually bought something, they're stupid. Very stupid. Haha. We left the museum slightly disappointed but it was amusing at least and opened up a number of injokes.

After we explored that area of Lyon just outside the park near one of the rivers. Here, we saw a giant bear sculpture which was quite cool. Then we walked down the lake by this time we kinda fingured we needed to organise a place to stay for the night which, I cant remember if I mentioned or not, was odd because the whole original couch host we had kinda bailed. We had no where to stay or anything so I called my back up who didnt answer or anything. We thought we'd just call back later, no drama.

As we walked down the river back to centre-ville we heard some really cool drums and guitar music and we stopped to see two low 20 something year old guys just hanging out playing live music in this random spot. No one else was around so we stopped and listened for a while. We then noticed they were also doing some weird activity where they got a thick elastic band and tied it between trees then were like tight-rope walking it looked really fun so we pondered up and talked to them for a while and they were like 'you should try it!' so we did! It was so fun! I mean, we were awful because it was really hard, but it was cool watching them do it and do tricks and stuff. They were cool people. We hang out with them until we both decided to seperate, we had more to see and they had more to do. The walk was really nice on the way because some of the scenes along the river was quite amazing and there so many cool things just to look at. Like little pools where you could paddle your feet in and so many people rollerlading, running or bike riding. It was great. The bridges all looked great too.

We eventually made back into centre-ville still remembering, we were homeless for the night. It was about 7.30 and we didnt know what to do. I called our back up again and still no answer. We were quite stuck, so we decided that we would look for a hostel but Lauren left her hostel list back at her place so we though we'd go to the tourist office and check that out. On the way there was a protest about Europe using Turkey or the other way around... I dont know, it wasnt in French though but it was funny and there were police and people with fire sticks and stuff. All this just out the front of the tourist office. Random. Anyway, the tourist office had closed so we were again stuck. We gave up for now and then walked around taking photos of the area we were now in. This included a few sculptures like the horse thing, which is famous in Lyon, I guess and its huge too. Like, bigger than I thought it would be. There was also like a flower ball thing whch was quite pretty, but hard to photograph because now, it was getting quite darkish.

We sat out hte front of the flower ball thinking of what we should do for the night. We had no sleeping bags or anything and we wanted to dump our stuff somewhere soonish before the city turned to the night completely and became possibly unsafe for tourists carrying around all their stuff haha. We though we should try my back up one more time and thank God! Pedro answered. He told us there was no problem with us staying there with his girlfriend and him but they were moving so a lot of furniture was missing and they were throwig a party that night. We were welcome to go to or we could go out and explore the night life of Lyon. We decided the latter might be more suitable so we found our way to Pedros place and dumped our stuff there. It was odd, we met him and Charlotte and their friend who were setting up and they talked to us for a while and gave us pointers of what to do for the night. They were really nice but still, there was just this unnerving feeling of dumping our stuff in a complete strangers house whilst they have a party and we're not there? I dunno. Well, we did it and we said our 'see you laters' and left.

We then explored the town for the night and were surprised to realise how many restaurants were closed so early (10pm...) we walked around for ages looking for one that was open and not McDonalds. It was okay, because we saw other things and the town lit up in the night, which was very pretty. Everything looked much nicer than that day whilst illuminated. We eventually found a restaurant and had tea. I had this 5 steak morcels thing where it gave you 5 different steaks from different places to try. It was good. Dinner was fun because behind us there were a group of guys but there was one and his laugh was just hilarious so all the time, Lauren and I just got the giggles and at one point were in tears listening to it. Seriously. It was the funniest sound I have ever heard. After tea, we made our way out to the bars of Lyon. We got told to go to the boats along the river and there were bars in them so we did that and found one called the 'Sirius' It was really cool. Lots and lots of people on this tiny boat dancing and stuff. We stayed there and had a few drinks and yelled at each other above the music until about 1.30 when we decided to go to a different bar. We left but then when we got to a different one, we kinda got lazy and just decided to go back to Pedro and Charlottes place. Oh there were also other musicians just playing randomly along the river which added an amazing atmosphere to the place..anyway

There, the party was still going. There was about 20 people left though and they were all drunk as a skunk, especally Charlotte. Poor Charlotte... It was fun though I had a chat to Pedro for a while and then he realised that they were in the room Lauren and I were meant to sleep in. Lauren was really tired and didnt understand anything that as going on (she has no French) so we wanted to go to bed. Pedro gave us his and Carlottes room and said goodnight to us at around 2.00 then, I stayed up talking and writing in my travel journal and we eventually got to sleep at around 3-3.30 which isnt all the bad considering the party was still going but we wanted to be up and out by 9.30 that morning so the earlier, the better. It was quite odd being in a random bed in a strangers house like that. I dont know, very strange.

This morning I woke up at 7.30 and lay staring at the ceiling and waiting for 8.30 to roll around. When it did, I got up and had an interesting shower (trying not to wake anyone) The shower was one of the ones that you can take off the wall and hold or whatever, except it didnt fit in the wall, so I had to hold it the whole time. Hehe. Then Lauren and I cleaned up our stuff got organised and then at 9.30 went to leave. Unfortunately Pedro and Charlotte were just dead on the couch fast asleep and even in our attempts to wake them to say goodbye, we failed and thus just left them a note to thank them. Seriously, they were life savers and quite fun. Anyway, Couch Surfing= Check!

We spent today exploring Lyon. I cant remember the exact names of all the places we went too, because my map got wrecked but I can give the gist. We started off at a large church and being Sunday morning, we went inside and explored the church during some of a service. There was a choir and the acoustics of the place were amazing. It gave me chills walking around the stunning architecture with haunting melodies echoing around me. It was just magic there. This particular church was built between 1180 and 1480. It was an epic church...

We left that then we went up a reaaaaalllyyyy steep hill thing REALLY steep and really long... to go to another church which was also good because being so high up gave us a view of the entire city. When we reached the top there were two other English speakers and so we hung out with them just exploring for a bit until they decided to leave. Lauren and I then had breakfast (a donut, we were trying not to spoil lunch..) then we went into the second church. Wow. I dont have photos of this but it was soooo spectacular inside and intricate on the outside. It was just so grand and detailed to the tiniest little statue eye. I mean it was incredible. There was also an elevator which took you down to the other lower levels of the church, weird? Yes but cool. After that church we saw people giving out cake, so we got some :) It costed one euro because itas donation and then we munched our cake as we went in search for the historic theatre romain.

The theatre Romain was built in two parts the first part being built in what I think was year 15 and then the second sometime in the second century (like year 100s) I mean this thing is old. It has been restored since then but it just is amazing. Its very pretty there and there is lots of things to photograph. Also, these Italian people were like yabbering away and then came up to me and started to speak French and ask me to take pictures for them. I mean it was cool talking to an Italian person in French rather than English. They just assumed I was from here which again is kinda cool. It then started to bucket with rain ruining the day ahead. All our clothes got drenched which made it unenjoyable to walk around =_=* but oh well.

We walked to a cafe nearby which looked really nice and sat inside. It was great in there becuase they were really amazing customer service and I loved it because I felt like my French had improved again. I dont know, today my French wa just working. I could get a lot of what was said (like...nearly everything) and I could say more than usual. It was nice. Unfortunately they didnt take eftpos so I had to run around Lyon looking for an ATM, the one they suggested was broken and so it took me a while before I could find one. Eventually I did and then I went back, we ate (this awesome spaghetti and mushroom sauce stuff + apple cake dessert thing) then left. Just before we did though, I went to put my jumper back on (which I took off as I entered the cafe as I was dripping) but I rung it out first and the people laughed at me then gave me a plastic bag saying it would just not work now... they were nice :) I liked that place a lot.

We then walked around looking at more things taking more photos and soaking in the atosphere, which was severely dampened in this new weather. The rain had stopped but it was grey and windy. We also worked out that we had to catch the 4.43 train to Grnoble to make it in time for the last train to Goncelin for me, so we decided just to make our way back to the station taking some photos and taking our time. When we got to the station, we went to the bathroom which I forgot to mention we did when we first arrived. I normally wouldnt point this out but I will point out that you had to pay here to go to the toilet! Iknew you had to do this sometimes in France, but it was funny actually paying to go to the toilet. Its quite rude, I think.

Anyway, we eventually got back on the train and discussed our adventures (which are so much better in my head then in words because stuff we did are like all injokes or odd experiences you cant explain so... I dont know) We agree that Lyon was okay. I think the weather wasnt the greatest to see it in, but you know, whateves. What made the journey were all the misshaps and the pure adventure of it all. It was great!

We got back to Grenoble and both of us wanted to check the car to see the damage. It was amazing becuase even though we were there nearly 24 hours after our ticket expred, we werent fined. I think you dont have to pay on Sundays but even still there was a good amount of time on Saturday where we hadnt paid. It was quite lucky. Very lucky. Our whole trip was just luck. I cant explain it.

It was a really interesting weekend, good fun though and we're planning our next one already! :)

Photos tomorrow, havent gone through them myself yet and I totes ceebs now.

Catchyas