American Girl Weekend!

A few months ago, I found a deal online for a new bus route from Paris to Lyon for 10 euros round trip! That is unheard of cheap! Once I found those prices, I went to my other deal websites to see if I could find a place to stay for a night in Lyon that was a good price. Most hotels were the super expensive ones so getting a hostel was looking like the best idea until a came across a really nice one with a buffet breakfast, good location, and free wine in the evening. I immediately contacted some friends to see if we could make it a weekend in Lyon, and they all agreed!

Paige, Meghan, Loretta, and I met up at the bus station Friday night for our overnight ride to Lyon! We left Paris at 11:15pm and would arrive in Lyon at 5:45am. It would have worked out perfectly if we managed to get some sleep. We really tried. We spread out because the bus wasn't full, and each of us took up 2 seats. There are only so many positions I can fall asleep in while in a moving vehicle, but none of them really worked. We were all disturbed half way through the voyage when the bus driver stopped for his hour break. We all agreed that it was impossible to sleep. Once we continued driving the rest of the way, I think we all were able to doze off maybe a little bit, but we arrived in Lyon early in the morning ready to start our huge day sightseeing. Once we got to the hotel, we waited and rested for an hour. The sun started rising, and we were able to see a little glimpse of what Lyon looks like from our window.

Then, we left around 9 to get our day started! Just from the bus ride into the center of the city, we could tell that Lyon is absolutely beautiful! We got off the bus along the river across from the giant church on the hill and ran into markets and perfect photo opportunities. We loved the color of the city! We went through the markets and bought snacks that smelled awesome. What I loved about Lyon is that when walking around, we could tell where to go to see the cool monuments. We could sorta tell which areas were newer (filling with shopping) and which were the older parts (cool buildings and people wearing renaissance costumes walking around).

Walking toward the older area across the bridge, we ran into so many awesome things. From all the people in Renaissance costumes, we found out that saturday only was a huge festival. Out of all the days to come to Lyon, we happend to pick the day when everyone is so festive!! Everywhere we went, there was dancing and music, cannons being blasted off, horses, drums, and happiness! We ran into a square in the old part of Lyon with an awesome church and small streets to walk through.

We decided to go visit that giant church on the hill...mountain actually. We went up soo many stairs, but every time we turned around, the view was amazing. 

We got to the top, and by that time is was getting warm. I have not felt the warmth of the sun yet this year. It has only been a bitter cold until now. We were south of Paris, but once you leave Paris, I think the world is a little brighter and warmer. That goes along with everything Parisian. We all agreed on this trip that Lyon is a big city, but it is a big, beautiful, and nice city. Paris gets so much glory, but once you live there so long, you no longer see the beauty that had you amazed when you first came. It's especially hard to enjoy it in the winter for me. You only see the crazy, dirty, harsh, "inner-city pressure" part of Paris after a while. This was a good reminder that France is still beautiful once you're out of the tourist filled and sometimes heartless big city. It was good to get some fresh air! It was especially refreshing to be able to see the Alps in the distance!

We spent time looking at the Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière that was honestly too big to fit in one picture. It was Beautiful and breathtaking just like everything else in this city. By this point, it was around noon, so we still had an entire afternoon to explore! Not far from the Basilique was a Roman Theatre! I got so excited when we saw this! I have never seen Roman ruins before, and I was over joyed that it was a theatre! It was so crazy to imagine people there in that time putting on a show and wearing masks! It was one of my favorite parts of the day!

We finally got around to eating lunch. We waited around for a happy hour to come along at 3pm so we could get a 3 course meal for 10 euros at a super cute restaurant in a great area. We came at 2:30, but they let us beautiful girls get the discount anyway. :) The food was amazing. I got a Salade Lyonnaise which had a tangy, creamy dressing and bacon. Lyon loves their meat! For the meal, I had Cod with potatoes, and us girls shared a bottle of Rose wine that was perfect for the sunny, warm afternoon in France! For dessert, we all had the chocolate tart!

Here is a video with a few examples of the Renaissance festivities going on throughout the city. 

The rest of the day was filled with exploring, experiencing the city, and having fun. We found a giant park to sit in the grass at and talk. It was beautiful, and the weather was perfect! At the hotel that night, we enjoyed our free glass of wine and soon went to bed. We were all beyond tired! The next morning, we had our amazing French buffet breakfast! Of course it wasn't as good as the Texas shaped waffels you can get in Texas hotels, but it was a pretty satisfying breakfast! Loretta had to leave after breakfast because she took a train in order to get to Paris sooner, so it was just Meghan, Paige, and I exploring till our bus ride at 4pm. We walked through a market that was filled with amazing deals! I was surprised by all the cheap prices on fresh and organic fruits and vegetables! Meat, wine, and cheese was still expensive though of course.

 

We didn't do much on Sunday other than explore a little more. We saw mostly everything the day before, so we enjoyed the weather some more before getting to the bus station. Our energy level was really low by the time we got on the bus. We rested a little bit during the day, but later on that evening, we got to enjoy the scenery a little bit when the sun was setting. We could see mountains in the distance at the beginning of the ride, but at the middle to the end of the ride, it was just the hillside country. We stopped once in what felt like the middle of nowhere, France. There was a little restaurant and gas station where I only bought ice cream. It didn't feel like I was in France at the point because it just looked like a normal gas station on the side of a highway. We continued on the bus to Paris still enjoying the different scenery in the distance like the small villages where the one church in the middle is the tallest building around and the random castles on hills (where we plan on living when were older and making our own wine. Plans. Big plans).




Once again, it hit me that I'm in the middle of France, and I got here on my own, by myself, according to God's will. It still amazes me. I'm very thankful for my weekend in beautiful Lyon!

Deauville, Normandy, France

For the first time since I've been in France, I got out of the city of Paris and it's surrounding suburbs and went the the north/western part of France! I went with the kids to their grandparents house in Normandy, France. For those that don't know, Normandy isn't a city. It is more like a county if France had counties. It's a whole region. I went to the city of Deauville, Normandy which is about an hour drive north from where the Normandy beaches were attacked in WWII. So no, I didn't get to see the American Cemetery or any memorial.

The parents stayed home and worked, so it was me and the kids on the train! The train lasted maybe 2 hours; it wasn't that bad. We had fun trying to be respectful and quiet because there were 4 other people in our cabin of the train. The ride home was a different story. No one else was in our cabin so we closed the doors and played music, played games, and ate a bunch of snacks!

The time was spent in the grandparents vacation home. It had an amazing view of the French country side and the sea in the distance.

The area around their vacation home was beautiful! I loved going on walks! You would find farms with horses, apple trees for making cider, and little gardens all around the hills. It was so beautiful!

 

Our time in Deauville was spent going to the beach each day and playing in the sand, going to parks, and walking around the adorable city. We played mini golf, fed ducks, played on a playground, ate crepes for lunch, and even took a small boat across the harbor!

 Beautiful Agathe at the park!

 I told her to jump and she jumped for her life lol

He was a little too good at golf.

I was amazed at how beautiful the beach was! There were so many sea shells on the beach, and the sand was never too cold to walk on with bare feet. It was a great vacation for me to get away from the big city and see the more beautiful side to France. It was also about 10 degrees warmer than Paris which was pretty nice. I would love to return again in the summer when it is warmer! (I can't wait for SUMMER!) I loved being with the children's grandparents too because the grandmother really made sure I was comfortable, had everything I needed, and she talked my ears off which is good! She speaks very clearly and always has something to say. I learned a lot of French from her in just 4 days. It made me realize how easy learning French would be if people all the time spoke clearly and constantly talked about doesn't matter what. As long as she was yappin, I was understanding. It was a great experience. She also is a great cook! I learned from her how to make a great soup, salade dressing, and how to cook muscles..like the sea food that's in a shell. They were interesting. I also got to watch French TV shows because my host family doesn't have TV. We watched once consistantly each day called "Un Diner Presque Parfait" which means "An Almost Perfect Dinner". It's where there are 5 people who take turns eating dinner at each others place. Each person has their own theme, and the guest rate the dinner, the theme, and the whole production and the person with the highest score overall wins. For example, one girl's theme was vampires, so the dinner was a steak, the dessert was something with bright red sauce all over it, they played a trivia game about vampires, and the dining room was decorated with the colors black and red. It was good to watch because I learned some vocabulary, phrases, and some good ideas for cooking. I didn't understand everything that was said, but I heard how people give their opinions on something and learned what words to use. If I had TV,  I would watch it every night!

Made it half way

So it has been 6 months now since I came to France. I have made friends here, I know how the city and the people run, and I'm comfortable. I have noticed too some changes with myself. 

One change is my body. For one, I'm not working out -like at all- so I feel fatter than I used to be, but no worries, I'm still the same size. My legs and feet are different though. I do a lot of walking and climbing stairs here. My muscles in my legs are the strongest and the most defined ever. I also used to walk with a slight turn out of the legs. I always thought it was because of ballet, but now I've concluded it is because some muscles in my legs were never worked or used as much as they should have. My walk is corrected now since my muscles have developed more and my feet are straight. That's a good thing and an easy solution to a problem I never thought was a problem.

Another positive thing is my French. Everyone has their moment when everything "cliques". That moment already happened when I was in high school but since then has slowed down. I think finally it has picked back up again. I can now express almost anything I want to say even if I dont know the vocabulary to use. I know enough to be able to explain in a different way what I am trying to say, and I get by. And it works great because people usually help me out and teach me something new. Last weekend was an eye opener for me when I went with a friend of mine to a party at a bar with only French people there. I was a little scared at first not wanting to push myself and socialise, but I was able to talk with people and have full conversations with people speaking French. I felt so cool. Since then, my confidence has gone up. My confidence was never high because the only time I speak a conversation in French is at school with intimidating teachers and classmates (they really aren't intimidating but I think are) and with my 7 year old because she only speaks French. I can't always have her help me though if I have trouble saying something. I often say "oh well it doesn't matter" and we move on to something else. Since she is young, she doesn't always pick up what I'm putting down or smell what I'm steppin' in. We manage though. I learn a lot too by playing games with them. I now know how to say stuff like "your turn" "role the dice" "draw a card" and other things I probably wont use in daily life but could come in handy one day. They love to play the Wii too. They have Just Dance 4. It's so much fun and a pretty good workout since I never work out.

 
lolol the first one is very false. They call it a Wii. The second one it totally legit.

I also can understand people around me when they are talking. Sometimes. I can't understand the gangsters or the teenagers. I'm a creeper though and listen in on people conversations. Or if they are on the phone, I try to figure out what they are talking about just by listening to one end of the conversation. I witnessed a "no you hang up first" conversation...ughh french people and their love.

Food is something I know I am going to miss here. YOGURT. yogurt... is heaven here. I hardly ate yogurt in the US. The kind I liked was expensive and organic made from happy cows and cane sugar. It basically tasted like cream or heaven. No "yogurty taste" if you know what I mean. Thats how all yogurt here is!! It's fantastic. I do not know what I am going to do without it. That will be my biggest expense in America - organic yogurt because I'm spoiled. Seriously, even the plain greek yogurt is yummy and it's impossible to eat plain in America. They also eat dessert right after lunch and dinner. Dessert is usually a yogurt or a piece of fruit. It's a pretty good eating habit I think as long as your dessert isn't loaded in sugar. Eating a yogurt or a fruit for dessert is yummy and it get's in other parts of the food pyramid with every meal. After each meal, I find myself craving a dessert. When I first came here, I never anticipated on eating dessert so I was always too full to eat more after a meal. I got it down now. I always get a fruit or a yogurt. It's become normal for me.

I think I am also very spoiled on wine. Good, dry, red French wine. I never want to drink anything else really if I am out with friends or somewhere. Well, besides water. If we're getting drinks, I always just want wine. How weird.

But on the topic of food, there have been a few things I have found in the grocery store that caught my attention.

Fruit and vegi secion. HUGE

All of that is salmon. Salmon swimming near France doesn't have a chance. 

What would this so called "American Sauce" be? Looks nasty

 Tomato pumpkins? 

Little machines you carry with you to check out as you're shopping. whoaa

 pro!

 individually packaged! lol this country is so funny when it comes to alcohol.

Things I cant seem to get used to here would be the smoking. Everyone and their mom smokes, and It's weird. Also, the smell. I've gotten used to it a little but there are still times when the smell is too strong and nasty. I fear it will get worse when the weather gets warmer. I'm not used to homeless people yet either. There are a lot of homeless people and they sleep on the sidewalks and in the metros. It's really sad. This is the third day in a row we have had snow. It's almost March. In my opinion, it needs to stop. Lastly, I'm not used to this:

It just looks silly to me when grown men, teenagers, and kids all have these huge headphones blasting their ears off on the trains.

Metro Party

I haven't done anything too exciting because it's been so cold outside. When it warms up, I'll wake up and go out more. I did get to go Friday night though to a crazy event called a Metro Party. Basically, it's a bunch of people of all ages getting together at a metro station and taking the metro all at the same time. Someone brings music, and everyone else brings the party. We rode all the way down metro line 2 and then rode it again. The best part was seeing people reactions as they saw a metro pack full of people. They knew they would get bombarded with rowdy people, so their look of terror was priceless. I felt sorry for them, but no one got mad. They usually though it was funny and couldn't help but smile. My favorite was when people joined us and forgot about where they were going to go. Doesn't matter when a party comes rolling in.

Crazyyy. I stopped recording before the doors opened. I knew it would be a rush into the metros, so I stashed my camera beforehand.

It was a lot of fun though. I got to meet and talk to people from all over the world. I talked with Parisians, Scottish, American, British, Canadian, and more. After the metros closed, everyone part of the party went to a club that was very tiny and did not play good music. we were only there for maybe an hour. Music included Gangnam Style and Barbie Girl, so I wasn't too hurt by leaving.
While we were there, Paige and I sat down in front of two French guys that we started talking to. There was a guy that had followed Paige around to talk to her for a while and we were trying to lose him, so talking to these two other guys got the creeper to go away. Mission accomplished! We hung out with them the rest of the night. They were a lot of fun! They took us to another club that was more fun than the first one that played a mixture of rock music mostly.

Our horrible attempt to get a group picture. Better luck next time.



At first we thought we would have trouble getting into the club because there are always bouncers who check ID's and can be picky about who goes in. Paige didn't bring her ID and neither did one of the guys we were with, but they just said to go in anyway. At 4 am, it doesn't matter. Around 5 am, the club closed, and trust me, the streets of Paris are only filled with a few young people who are going home from the night before and business people who got a full nights rest and are heading to work. You can tell who had a fun night and who didn't when you're on the metro. There are 3 types of people. Tired partiers that look a mess, loud partiers that are still loud, and quiet, annoyed business people who don't want to be there. It's so funny to see people almost falling asleep on the trains. I was wide awake still. I don't think I could walk through a city like a tired zombie. I wake myself up and look alert.


Of course the next day, I caught up on my sleep. I never planned on staying out all night, but once you've missed your train that goes home, you have no choice but to stay out. I'm glad we stayed out though. We got to have fun, meet people, speak in French a little since we hardly get to practice our French, and explore a part of Paris we never get to see.

Belgium in 24 Hours!

I decided to take a random trip to Brussels, Belgium for the weekend! I had no idea I would be able to see nearly the whole country in 24 hours! I took a iDbus from Paris to Brussels Saturday morning, and Thanks to couchsurfing.org, I met up with a Polish friend that is living in Brussels. He was kinda my tour guide for the day and knew so much about the history of Belgium and Europe in general. He was also willing to drive me around to other Belgian cities! Since Belgium isn't very big, It's easy to get around the whole country. 

First in Brussels, I was on a mission to see pretty buildings, monuments, and eat food. Belgium is where french fries were created, and they eat them with MAYO! Yep, I was surrounded by my kind of people. Fries should always be eaten with mayonaise. Theres also speculoos in Belgium. Its usually in a cookie form but sometimes in a butter form that looks like peanut butter. It's delicious. Taste kinda like gingerbread. And at McDonald's, you can order a Mcflurry with speculoos. So good!

I saw all the main monuments of Brussels and my favorites were the Grand Place and St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral. Also, It wasn't snowing saturday till nighttime and by sunday morning, everything was covered in snow. It was beautiful! The most perfect winter weekend to visit!

I also saw the Atomium and some pretty garden. It was very cute. It adds so much charm to this charming city

That night we drove to another city called Brugge which is a medieval city in the east. I have heard so many good things about this city so I was excited to go. I only saw it at night though in the snow, but it was still adorable in the dark. It's filled with bridges and canals. 

And since we were so close to the coast, we drove 20 more minutes east and made it to the North Sea! Of course, it was dark so you couldn't really see the sea, but you could see the light house and hear the water. It was very cold and windy though. Especially in the snow. But the city of Oostende has boats everywhere!

I would love to go back to Belgium and do all of this again when it is warmer. Maybe in the summer, I will contact my friend again and see how going to the North Sea for a day sounds!

But my trip wouldn't be complete without eating a Belgian Waffle. Sunday Breakfast was yummy.