So before coming to France I knew that there was the definite possibility of seeing Sophia when we were both in Europe. She wasn’t sure exactly where she would be or what she would be doing but she KNEW she would be spending the fall into winter months in Europe. So I was excited to hear that her and her friend Maggie had decided on a departure date and that would be the 15th of October. Only about three weeks after arriving they planned to come visit me here in Lyon! I let them know that I would just be finishing my vacation and it was a good time to come and they decided to spend the weekend. They arrived on a Wednesday and I picked them up from the train station. They were getting in around 5:30pm but of course I arrived at the train station about 20 minutes early because I was so excited! I spotted them coming down the stairs with their gigantic backpacks. It was a wonderful reunion and I hugged them both so tight! They came at the perfect time. I was missing home a little bit and I knew it would be a familiar face. So we took the metro back to my apartment where they were able to set down their big bags and relax for a couple minutes. I had informed them on our trip home that we would be heading to a bar to watch the big Lyon vs. Liverpool match at a bar with some friends. They were up for anything! We made dinner, caught up about all different sorts of things, they were able to meet my flat mates, and then we headed out to the bar. I must make a side note and say that they had just come from volunteering with an artist in the south of France who lived in the Languedoc. They basically exchanged manual labor for food and housing. They said it was the most incredible experience an amazing way to start out their journey through Europe. So, we get to the bar and meet my friends Patrick and Rachel. We had a great time and the match was a tie (better than a loss!). We walked around a bit after the game then headed home because I had a full day of teaching the next day! I gave the girls a map and a post-it with some “must see” places. I left the house around 7:30am and arrived home around 6pm. The girls had bought cheese and bread and we sat down and caught up about each other’s days. It was just lovely!
Thursday night I took them to two key pubs in Vieux Lyon. They were able to experience some of the English speaking spots. We went to the Smoking Dog (which as mentioned before has a pub quiz every Tuesday), then we went to The Wallace (which as mentioned before has pub quiz everything Thursday but we decided to head over after the quiz and miss the crowd in order to get a seat). The bars weren’t packed and we were able to sit down together and catch up on a bunch of different things.
Then on Friday we decided to go to the ZOO! We took the metro up to Le Parc de la Tete D’or and walked around quite a bit. They had explored a lot of Lyon the day before when I was at work so we took it nice and easy on Friday. Then Friday night we were invited to go to a Quebequois party near Place Bellecour. We were told it would be quite a mélange of cultures! Sophia, Maggie, Marissa and Myself all went to dinner at an Indian Restaurant then headed over to this party. We had a great time and Soph and Maggie were able to meet a bunch more assistants as well as other people from Spain, Italy, Canada, Mexico…etc. It was a great time. After this party we went to a club together, danced to some Michael Jackson music and walked home. I have to say I think that was one of my best nights in Lyon!
Saturday we woke up just in time to slip on some shoes and a jacket over our pajamas and cross the street to the market to get some eggs for breakfast. We cooked scrambled eggs and homefries YUM! In the afternoon we met up with some other assistants and walked around vieux lyon…we were all pretty tired from the night before. We took Soph and Maggie to our favorite crepe place and decided to counter our hangovers with a beer at a nearby bar. It worked for most of us. We accumulated more people by this time and ended up spending the whole afternoon and night out. We headed up the hill to our friend Ryan’s house (same Ryan who I went to Cinque Terre with)…and we had a lovely night chez lui.
I think one of the highlights of Sophia and Maggie’s visit (and there were many) was the encounters between Sophia and my friend Ana from spain. She does not speak English and Sophia does not speak much French yet they someone became buddy-buddy within about 5 mintues of meeting each other. It was the funniest thing…they somehow found a way to communicate with each other! It was fascinating and humorous! The girls I think had a great time and they were such good guests. They were outgoing and so excited to have the opportunity to discover a new city in Europe.
When Sunday rolled around I took the girls to the train station, helped them buy their ticket and use their eurail pass…we said good bye and they were off to Nice!
French Cheesecake DOESN’T exactly Taste The Same at Bieh
What is this Bieh, you ask? Well it is “Best I ever had!” of course. It is an American style restaurant that has a sort of 1950’s feel with modern picture posters of Time Square and other population photographs. I went there with Jacques and six of his girls friends. They were all super nice and knew that I was American. We sat down to order and Jacques kept asking what the good choice would be. They had bagels on the menu even. A ‘Manhattan,’ A ‘Brooklyn,’ and A ‘CHELSEA!!!’ How cool is that. It was something like chicken cream cheese zucchini etc. We all ate burgers. The girls were extremely nice and were very open. We finished up our burgers and some of the people we were with were going to order dessert… Jacques turned to me and asked my advice. I saw cheesecake on the menu and told him that was pretty American, little did I know it wouldn’t taste much like American cheesecake at all.
It was more of a flan type looking slice of cake with a brown topping (perhaps brown sugar) on top. I told Jacques it would be hard to find a true cheesecake because its hard to find cream cheese here. We left dinner and headed to the threatre to see New Moon the second Twilight movie. YES, it came out in France TWO days before it comes our in new york!
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