Arrival at Lyon

Hello! Sorry for the not-so-regular blogging, it's been a busy few weeks so I'll get straight into it.

After Lara's departure to see her family in Bordeaux and the Pyrenees (I was quite sad to see her go but had lots of comfort food between my aunt and Mamie!), I relaxed in Paris, enjoying Mamie's wonderful cooking and fitting in a bit of sightseeing on the side (I am very sorry for all the food talk...).

In particular, I went to 'les Invalides' which has museums about French military history. It was originally built in 1670 as a hospice for soldiers returning from war. There is even a church in there, where the Pope celebrated a mass on his recent tour to France, and where you can find Napoleon Bonaparte's tomb beneath the massive dome.

Now, after all this holidaying around, I have finally arrived at INSA de Lyon to start studying (the actual purpose of this whole trip!). Lyon is about 600km south of Paris, in the Rhone-Alpes region. It only takes two hours to get here with the very fast train (TGV, do the calcs, it's really fast)!!! INSA is an engineering school north-east of central Lyon, about a 15 minute tram/metro trip from the centre.

I think I must be wearing a radar or something because within the first 10 minutes of my arrival at INSA I came across a fellow Australian gal, Alice from Sydney. Could not have been any luckier. She introduced me to her friends she met over French Summer School (swedes, irish, germans, norwegians...it was a while before I met anybody who is actually french at INSA) and helped me find my feet with all the admin things (she also took me running around the 'Parc de Tete d'Or' a very beautiful park but I didn't really get a chance to notice as I was too busy having a cardiac arrest, trying to keep up...it's been a while since I've been jogging!). I settled into my room, meeting my new room mate from mexico, Fanny. Then came organising my timetable and choosing the subjects I am to study. I am part of the GEN department (energy and environment). It has just been one massive, complicated problem that I am close to sorting out. I will mention nothing more on the topic!

My first weekend I caught up with a guy, Mihai, I met in Taize. He's from Romania and is also studying in Lyon on exchange. He's been here for a month already so he took me on a bit of a walking tour through 'Vieux Lyon' and up the the hill 'Fourviere'.

I spent the rest of the weekend with some family friends I'd never met before (or once, when I was very young). Henri is an archtitect who did some study with my dad (back in the day). It was lovely to spend time with the family after arriving to a new place and having such a hectic time in organising the year ahead. Henri knows Lyon like the back of his hand, a very good tour guide! Also, being an architect, he quickly re-arranged my room 'to create more space' and helped decorate with a trip to IKEA (with dad) and all, it's much warmer now (I don't mean that literally, they still haven't turned the heating on, my room is freezing!)

On Sunday we visited a very interesting place called 'the abode of Chaos'. Basically, it's an artist who began an on-line business selling artwork (not his own). He has now made art out of his own home and office (he has at least 200 people working for him). It's very dark, chaotic, political. What makes it so famous (or infamous) is the area it is located, Mont D'Or, because as you can imagine the neighbours are not so happy to have such 'chaos' surrounding them. It was really fantastic and interesting to see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abode_of_Chaos

So, after the weekend came school!!! It's actually been pretty relaxed as it's just the first week. I'm doing 7 subjects, plus I joined the waterpolo team (completely driven into it by Alice, it's actually really fun but SOOOOOOOOOO tiring, not to mention...the french get credit for sport!?!) and a language. Had a couple of classes this week and have found it challenging to say the least!!! Their style of teaching is completely different (they still use chalk and blackboards) and the content is crazy (they could be speaking in English and I think I would still be lost) but I'm sure things can only get easier and better...right?!?!

Dad came down on Friday night so we've spent most of the weekend catching up with him, Henri and the family. Last night we ate at 'Brasserie Georges', yet another gastronomical experience (very much appreciated, uni cafeterias can ! Today we will catch up with some other friends from dad's work. Barb and Mat arrive in Paris today, Anne will be there next week. I'll be heading up next weekend so we will all be together to celebrate Mamie's 80th birthday - quick aside, managed to get a 1st class train ticket up to Paris because for some reason it was cheaper than 2nd class!!! Quite excited!

Must head off, dad is waiting downstairs!

Will write again soon, let me know what you're all up to!

Love from alex xoxo

The end of the road...

Well...we are now back in Paris after a wonderful last (warm) week in Greece. The monasteries in Meteora were great fun. We visited all of them (there are 6 up in the rocks) by foot over a whole day. Lots of hard work and bush bashing as 'marked trails' on maps in Greece are pretty much non-extistent. Lara's good sense of direction (don't laugh, she was born upside down, hence in the northern hemisphere she's actually really useful!) and bush walking knowledge helped get us back to the hotel! Otherwise we learnt there's really not much else to do in Kalambaka other than eat good meat and baclavas (yes, our culinary experience continues!). We were eager to leave the beautiful Meteora for the ancient city of Athens, catching a 6.30 am train, that in true greek style didn't actually leave until about 7.30am and would continuously stop at random places...not stations!?!? Finally we arrived at our 12 euro (that's 2 times an ice-cream super cone!) a night hostel, not quite knowing what to expect but we were pleasantly surprised with a clean, useable kitchen and friendly hosts! We visited all the anceint sites...the original Olympic stadium, the Acropolis, Roman Agora, Ancient Agora and the Temple of Olympian Zeus. We also managed to fit in the Archeological Museum, hilarious parliament changing of the guards (they have ridiculous pompoms on the end of their shoes and have weird dances/marches!), Moonlight cinema at the foot of the Acropolis (Mamma Mia in Greece, Alex LOVED it, Lara was not so charmed), traditional Greek dancing and the planetarium!!! Overall a pretty charged couple of days but as you can see we didn't slack off over our vacation! With a smooth flight into Paris, we were met by Alex's uncle and came back to her grandma's. We visited Paris yesterday, going up the Arc de Triomphe and eating out with Basile, a friend of the Westcott's. Now Lara is off to Bordeaux to catch up with family and commence her studies!!! I'll upload photos soon, if you have a chance to check them out, we did take about 600 though so there might be a fair bit of sorting to do!

Weather in France is dismal!

Love from Lara and Alex