Beaucoup fun in France!

Greetings from Lyon! I am here visiting Shannon and having a great time. Here's what we've done so far:

On Tuesday I got up early and flew to Lyon (via Munich - actually found the best deal on Lufthansa). When I got to Lyon, I took a bus to the heart of town, where Shannon met me right after her class. The weather was (and still is) absolutely beautiful - like mid 60's. We hopped in the subway from there to get to where her host family lives - they were nice enough to let me stay here too. After dropping off my stuff and getting a tour of the house (no one was home yet) we went out and walked around so Shannon could get me acquainted with the city. We found a litte cafe where we could sit outside and chat. After a little more wandering we also got waffles with Nutella, one of Shannon's favorite snacks here. :) We also did a little grocery shopping.

We ate dinner with the host family, which was really really nice. Her host parents have three children but they are grown-up and not at home, so it was me and Shannon and the parents, plus another exchange student staying with them who is from China and two dinner guests that her dad invited over from work. One of them was this guy from Mexico who was hilarious! Everyone could speak English so there was no trouble there, though occaisionally they switched into French, but usually I could at least figure out what they were talking about. Also, the dad speaks some German too, so he spoke a little German with me. They were super cute. The food was great too - we had lasagne, and I think it was the best lasagne I have ever had. There was no ricotta cheese (which is the number one thing I don't normally like about lasagne), but instead some kind of creamy cheese layer. It was really tasty. We also had "tomatoes provencal" - tomatoes sliced in half and topped with olive oil, thyme, and I think a little bit of garlic and then baked in the oven. Tres delicious! Last but not least came the cheese plate. There were like 6 or 7 kinds of cheese; I tried three of them. My favorite was comte, which is a harder cheese and tastes a little bit like parmesan. I also tried camembert, which is brie-like in consistency but has a little more of a kick to it, and roquefort, which is made from sheep's milk and has some bluish greenish stuff in it. It is not very attractive. But it actually tasted pretty good. I don't think I could eat a whole lot of it at a time, since it's pretty intense, but I liked it more than I thought I would. Dinner was really late, so afterward Shannon and I watched a few DVD's of one of her new favorite TV shows, and then it was time for bed.

Yesterday Shannon didn't have any classes, so we slept in and had a lazy morning, then we met Janine (girl from Penn who also stayed with me when she and Shannon came to Berlin) for lunch at Shannon's favorite sandwich place. I had this yummy calzone-like thing with ham and cheese, plus they had a sort of combo-meal that included a drink and a dessert for only 5 Euros, so I finished it off with a tasty little strawberry-kiwi-raspberrry tart. Delicious! From there we went over to "Old Lyon", on the other side of the river, where there is a big beautiful basilica (Fourviere) and also a big Roman amphitheatre. That was really cool. For one thing, the view from up there is amazing - you can see the whole city, and with such nice weather it was just great. The basilica is absolutely gorgeous too. It is so ornate and full of incredible artwork. The amphitheatre is really cool - the acoustics are incredible! There is a certain spot on the stage at the bottom where if you talk, there are perfect acoustics - it sounds like there are speakers or something. We sat up there for awhile just admiring the view and the nice weather, then after that we decided to cross the river again and visit the park. They have a really cool park in Lyon. It is huge, and parts of it are like a zoo - they have giraffes, zebras, monkeys, crocodiles... crazy huh? They also have this random part of the park with a big ditch going around it which is full of deer. People throw there old baguettes to feed the deer! Very funny. We had hot chocolate in the park along the lake that's on one side of it, then we made our way to the subway to go to a big grocery store, where we had to pick out what we needed to make an "American dinner" for her host family tomorrow night. We found Jack Daniel's barbecue sauce in this store! So guess what we're making? Sloppy joes!!! I canNOT wait to see her cute little French host parents eating sloppy joes! It's going to be hilarious.

We dinner at home again that night, but this time the dad was gone at some work thing so it was just the mom, me, Shannon, and the Chinese girl. As an appetizer we had leek soup with mussels, then for dinner we had what I am calling "seafood pot pie" - it was basically chicken pot pie but with salmon and scallops instead of the chicken. It was pretty tasty. I'm not normally a huge fan of salmon, but this was very good salmon. We ended up not having cheese that night - we had yogurt instead, with homemade jelly. Yum.

This morning Shannon had class, so while she was in class, I went to an art museum. It was pretty neat - they have a lot of great sculptures, but paintings as well. I left in time to visit the gift shop because I always like museum gift shops, but when I got down there it looked like it was closed, so I had some time to wander. :) I went to a pharmacy because my throat has been sore, and I was like, "parlez vous anglais?" and they helped me get some stuff for my throat. Then I decided to get a milkshake from McDonald's because there is one right down the street from Shannon's apartment and it is super trendy - very jazzy decor. I think it's hilarious. I wanted a milkshake for my throat. Despite my lack of French abilities I was able to successfully get what I wanted - "milk shake fraise", a strawberry milkshake. Then I mosied over to meet Shannon, stopping in a random cute store to buy some earrings on the way. :)

Shannon and I had lunch at Pomme de Pain, which is sort of the French version of Cosi. After lunch we walked to the university, since Shannon had another class. During her class I sat in a little courtyard and read a book in the sun. :) Then we met back up, wandered around the city a bit , poking our heads in a few stores and finishing the afternoon with crepes. From there we stopped at home to look up recipes for chocolate chip cookies (that we could actually make here), then made a quick trip to the grocery store to purchase the necessary ingredients. Then it was time for dinner! Dinner tonight was at a nice restaurant that her host mom recommended. I had French onion soup, a Lyonnaise dish with these sort of dumpling-like things with sausage and mushrooms in a cream sauce, and then for dessert we split upside-down pear cake with caramel and dark chocolate and white chocolate swirled mousse. Tres yummy!!!

Tomorrow we don't have too much planned - in the evening we will be preparing our American dinner. We are also going to make an American birthday cake, since tomorrow's my birthday! I am having a great time here - this was a nice way to celebrate. :)

That's all the news for now... hope everyone is doing well!