Back into life a la Francaise

After recapping my two days in Paris, its now time to get back to the present. Sorry this post is so long, but after this, I'm finally caught up to the present!

For the past five days, I've been happily and, honestly, pretty easily settling into my new life in Lyon. Since I have lived in France before, everything seems much easier the second time around. I know what to except from French bureaucracy (slowness). I understand and am accustomed to the French pace of life (again, slower). I can actually speak the language this time, which not surprisingly, makes adjusting to a new setting a lot less stressful. Basically, with most of what I am now experiencing, I can say, "I've done it all before."

As a result, the last half a week has been quite pleasant. Although I still don't have a bank account or a cell phone, I'm not really concerned about them. I am just going with the flow and slowly establishing myself in Lyon. Mostly, I've been meeting new friends and colleagues, running errands, and just exploring this beautiful city.

A view of Lyon

Lyon is the second largest city in France (behind Paris, of course). It is built upon the hills on the banks of Saone and Rhone rivers and the island created where they meet. Half way between Paris and the coast, the city was founded by the Romans, serving as the capital of Roman Gaul (I'll post plenty more on the history of Lyon later, the history geek in me promises). Today, Lyon is well-known as the gastronomic capital of the country (yeah!). Hundreds of thousands of college students study here at 3 large universities. With a metro population of 4.5 million, Lyon is known globally as a center of commerce and home to the Championship League football (soccer) team, Olyimpique Lyonnais.

The city is divided into 9 districts and several suburbs. I am actually living and teaching in a suburb of Lyon: Villeurbanne. Although technically a suburb, Villeurbanne is located just below the 6th district, often called the Upper East Side of Lyon, and the Parc de la Tete d'Or (the Park of the Golden Head). I am living just a few blocks from both the 6th district and the park, one of the largest parks in Europe, so quite a nice location for me.

My school, where I live, is in the area of Villeurbanne known as les Gratte-Ciels, meaning the skyscrapers. Here's why:

The view from my window

The buildings you see in the picture I took from my window are skyscrapers according to French standards, meaning really any building over 5 stories high...not exactly the Sears Tower or Cathedral of Learning.

I've been exploring the neighborhood here over the last few days and it is quite nice. It has everything I could ever need: a great boulangerie (bakery), two big supermarkets, banks, all three major cell phone companies, a laundromat, movie theater, restaurants, cafes, and parks. Plus, its right along two metro lines and a tramway, although my ability to use these has been severely hindered by the transportation strike (which yes is still going on!).

I live in an apartment on the top floor of a building attached to the high school where I will be teaching. The other apartments are full of teachers, faculty, and staff at the school. My apartment has four separate bedrooms, a bit like a college dorm, where we each have a bed, desk, two wardrobes, sink, and mirror. Then we share a common kitchen, shower, and toilet.

My bedroom, furnished with the same Ikea sheets I have at home!

Thursday and Friday I spent the days exploring my neighborhood and the districts around it, including a HUGE mall close by. I have never before seen a mall in France (except for the famous Les Halles in Paris) and have definitely been enjoying this one! Although I have managed to mostly restrain myself from buying anything, I made one non-necessity purchase: the book Twilight in French (called Fascination). I just couldn't help myself. I was too curious.

Saturday I met up with two other American assistants, Erin and Anne, that I had talked with through facebook. We had lunch with Erin's roommates, a French and a Polish university students. We had a great lunch (courtesy of Erin) and a lot of great conversation. After a long lunch I went to the center of Lyon just to see a bit more of the city. Well, not only did I see the city, I think I saw quite a few of its residents!

As I experienced in Angers, Saturdays are for shopping in France. The French flock to the pedestrian streets in their cities, filling the stores and cafes with huge crowds of people. Lyon certainly seemed to follow this custom. You could hardly move along the streets they were so crowded! Also in typical French fashion, the main square in the city was holding two little festivals: one a concert benefiting the handicapped, the other a rollerblading festival. Completely unrelated of course. I had such a fantastic time just being around so many people and seeing how the residents of my new city spend their Saturdays. I always loved shopping Saturdays in Angers so it was nice to experience it again here.

One of the pedestrian shopping streets

Sunday morning I also followed French custom and went out to the grocery store and bakery. Almost every store in France is closed on Sundays, based on the Catholic tradition of resting on the Sabbath. The supermarkets and bakeries that are open only stay open for about 3 hours, from 9 am - Noon, just enough time for the French to do their shopping for Sunday lunch. I joined the crowd at the supermarket, stood in line at the bakery (a line that wrapped all the way down the block!) and felt very French while doing so. It also made me really feel like a part of my neighborhood.

When I returned to my apartment, I ended up being invited to lunch with the family of the facilities manager for the high school, who live in the apartment just below me. Sunday lunch in France is a big deal. A major tradition. It typically is a several course meal, lasting all afternoon. It is a time for family and friends to just enjoy each others' company. The manager and his wife have three children, a 21 year old daughter in college, a 17 year old daughter in her last year of high school, and a 12 year old son. We had a fantastic 5 course French meal and I loved getting to know their family. They were so welcoming and kind. It was nice to be among a French family again. Sunday lunches are by far one of my most favorite traditions in France (even more than shopping Saturdays!) so I loved taking part. And of course, the meal was amazing!

Yesterday, I woke up to the building manager telling me, "Surprise, you have a roommate coming tonight!" Until yesterday I had been living in the 4 bedroom apartment alone. In the normal French fashion, the school administrators didn't really know if they would have any other language assistants joining me. However, just yesterday afternoon, they discovered a German teaching assistant would be arriving that night! My new roommate, Ramona, from Austria, arrived last night. I spent the day today showing her around our area and helping her get settled in. She is incredibly nice and I think we will get along great. Its also been nice to have someone else in the apartment with me. Plus, even though I know she speaks English very well, we've decided to only speak in French, which has been a great help in refreshing and getting back into the groove of speaking French again.

I've had a fantastic first half week in Lyon..and I've only seen a tiny bit of the city so far! It is definitely shaping up to be a great year. Even more so, however, I am just incredibly excited to be returning to the French way of life that I grew to love 3 years ago.

Pictures of Paris

I've uploaded many more pictures from my two days in Paris to both Facebook and Snapfish. If you don't have facebook, click the link below to check them out. Enjoy!

Paris pictures

Paris is my hometown: Day 2

Michelle and I slept a full 12 hours!! I felt wonderful when I woke up and was fully over the jet lag. This made very glad I stopped in Paris before heading to Lyon. If I hadn’t, I would have been exhausted by the time I arrived in my new home, right when I would be meeting all my colleagues for the next year. Plus, my stay in Paris allowed me to get reacquainted with the French language and French life in a familiar place, before heading to a place more foreign. It was a welcome pause in my long transit from Pittsburgh to Lyon that made me excited and ready for Lyon.

Completely refreshed, I set off on my own to visit the Rodin Museum (Michelle had already been there twice). I had never been there, but it is now one of my favorite museums in Paris. Rodin’s sculptures are housed in a mansion surrounded by gorgeous gardens. Smaller sculptures are inside. But the true masterpieces, including his most famous, The Thinker, are scattered throughout the exquisite gardens filled with shady tree groves and sunny flower patches. It is incredibly beautiful and the perfect way to experience Rodin’s great works of art.

"The Thinker" in the Rodin Museum gardens

After the museum, I enjoyed walking the residential neighborhood around the Rodin Museum. It had the atmosphere of being completely untouched by tourists, hard to come by in Paris. I spent the rest of the afternoon doing as the Parisians do. I grabbed a goat cheese, tomato, and bacon salad and took it to the Jardin du Luxembourg, without a doubt, the best place in Paris to people watch. It was a beautiful day and I loved visiting one of my favorite places in Paris for the afternoon.

Jardin du Luxembourg at lunchtime


La Fontaine de Medicis in the Jardin du Luxembourg

I met up again with Michelle that evening and went to Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur Basilica, the highest point in Paris, to watch the sunset. Another entry on my top ten list of things to do in Paris (it’s been used as a travel guide by many, let me know if you want to see it!). And it did not disappoint. It’s the best view of the city and a district full of life and excitement, with street performers, artists, tourists, and young people all enjoying the view from underneath the beautiful white church. We ended our short tour of Paris with a quick trip to the Eiffel Tower at night. We saw its lights sparkle and met some fun fellow tourists.

Paris at sunset from Sacre Coeur

All in all, I had a fantastic time in Paris. It was a perfect beginning to my year here, but I was ready to go to Lyon and start something entirely new.

Paris is my hometown (one of them)

I've lived in four places in my life: Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Angers (my sophomore year abroad), and Washington DC (well now 5, with Lyon). Paris is not one of those places. In reality, if you add up all the times I've visited Paris, it probably only amounts to about 2 weeks total. 2 days here, 3 days there. Yet every time I go, it feels like one of my homes. I have favorite sights to see, some famous with tourists, some not. I navigate the metro like a pro. More importantly, when I go to Paris, I just get that warm feeling of being in a familiar place I love. But of course, every time I go, there is always more to see. As the famous ex-pat Gertrude Stein said, "Paris is my hometown." (Shout out to svaldes for the quote/blog title!)

Before coming to Lyon, I spent a fabulous two days in Paris. It was by far the cheapest and easiest city in FrancePittsburgh to Paris by way of DC, I met up with a friend Michelle. for me to fly into, so how could I not stop? After flying from She is also doing the assistantship program and we met through the program's online forums. We both worked up a decent sweat dragging our massive 50 lb. bags through the airport and across Paris. But we made it, checked into our hostel, and set out to revisit Paris.

We started by wandering around the Marais, a beautiful district of Paris where you can still see the pre-revolutionary homes, streets, and parks of the nobility, such as Victor Hugo. Now the neighborhood is the trendy of home to a vibrant mix of the artist, gay, and Jewish communities in Paris. We grabbed a take away falafel from the most famous falafel stand in Paris, which we ate while people watching in an adorable little park full of Parisians taking their lunch break in the sun.

Place des Vosges: The park in the Marais

Next, we took a walk through the pedestrian only streets in the ritzy district around the Eiffel Tower. Jet lag finally began to catch up with me, so we stopped along Rue Cler (a favorite of travel writer Rick Steves) for a coffee and more people watching. We then continued on to a familiar but unbeatable walk along the Seine River, from the Eiffel Tower all way down to St. Michel and Notre Dame, with a break at the Jardin de Tuileries of the Louvre in between. After a dinner of crepes and pints of Belgian beer sitting in front of Notre Dame, we headed to bed early because we were still exhausted from the jet lag.

A view of the Eiffel Tower from across the Seine

I've officially arrived at my new french life

This is just a quick post to let everyone know that I've officially arrived safely and very happily in Lyon, my new home in France.

All in all, my trip overseas went very well, with maybe the exception of having to haul my two 51 pound suitcases, backpack, and purse all around the massive Charles de Gaulle Airport and Paris. I spent two lovely days in Paris with a friend from my program after landing on Tuesday morning. I managed to avoid suffering jet lag while I visited some of my favorite spots in Paris and discovered many new ones. I'll post more about what I did (with pictures) tomorrow. The stop in Paris was a welcome break in my transit from Pittsburgh to the final destination of Lyon. Plus, it allowed me to get reacclimated with France and French a bit before coming here and meeting the people I will be working for this year.

Yesterday, I headed down to Lyon. My liason, an English teacher at the high school where I will be teaching, graciously picked me up at the train station. He then took me to the school, where I will both live and work. I spent the day meeting the faculty and staff, filling out paperwork, moving into my apartment and unpacking. Everyone I met was incredibly nice. My room and apartment are fantastic as well. Again, I will elaborate on everything later.

Today, I discovered the city of Lyon was welcoming me in a typically French fashion: with a transportation strike. Since nearly all public transportation was shut down, I had to rely on my own two feet. I spent the day exploring the little neighborhood I live in and running errands.

I also took a walk to the giant mall in Lyon. Essentially, it is my French shopping heaven. It has all my favorite French/European clothing stores, a huge book/music/video store, a Super Walmart-esque store, and so much more that I didn't even get to see because I only walked around half of this 4-story mammoth. I have a feeling I may be spending a lot of time there....

The last two days in Lyon have been great. I'm settling in very comfortably. I promise to update with much more on everything I've said here tomorrow, including pictures!

I was a very smart 13 year old

I've been cleaning out my room for the past two weeks, sorting through tons of papers, photos, and random knick-knacks I've been saving from middle school, high school, and college. I found a "time capsule" I filled out inside my 8th grade agenda. One question asked, "What will you be doing in 10 years when you graduate from college?" I wrote, "Traveling in Europe and India."

Apparently, I was a very smart 13 year old. I already knew exactly what I would be doing this year. For the next 7-9ish months, I am going to live out my adolescent dreams. Well, for the second time. I jumped the gun a bit when I studied abroad for my sophmore year at Notre Dame.

I'll be teaching English to French public high school students through the French Teaching Assistantship Program run by the French government. I will live in the beautiful city of Lyon, the second largest city in France (see the picture above, from when I visited Lyon in 2007). During my long vacations, in the typically French fashion, I plan on traveling quite a bit around Europe...and maybe India? Just so I can satisfy my time capsule prediction.

I've decided to keep this blog for two reasons:

1. For all of you, my family and friends, to read about my adventures abroad!
   
2. For any future English Teaching Assistants in France. I've been reading past assistants' blogs all summer and they have been incredibly helpful for me. Hopefully, I can return the favor.
   

So please, read, comment, and enjoy everyone!

I leave Monday afternoon (today!), arriving in Paris early Tuesday morning. I'm going to be visiting Paris for two days with a friend from my teaching program before I head down to my new home, Lyon, where I'll update as soon as I can on how everything is going. Until then, au revoir!