Bonjour tout le monde!
So now that I have had some time to settle in (and take some pictures), I thought I could talk a little bit about Lyon! The city is truly beautiful and I have enjoyed taking long walks around the city to get my bearings and see the sights. Pretty sure my feet don't feel the same way, as they have been hurting since my third day here, but whatever.
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| View from my Collège |
My "main school" is a middle school, in French: Collège Jean Moulin. Middle school is 4 years here, including the US 6th grade to 9th grade equivalents, so I mostly work with 9th graders, or 3ème année (third year) students, and other high level English classes. It's been good so far! I only had one bad class, but I think it was caused by an exceptional circumstance - the students were all freaking out and the teacher was late, but I didn't figure out what happened because I was just trying to keep them quiet! No one told me what happened, so let's just hope it doesn't happen again. Not tryna deal with overly dramatic french teenagers.
As you can see, the view from the school is pretty boss (the picture doesn't do it justice). Jean Moulin is in the 5eme arrondisement, known as "Vieux Lyon," or "Old Lyon." Most of the downtown area dates back to the 12th century. It's pretty cool! This means my school is right next to some main tourist locations, like Notre Dame de Fourvière.
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| Main Entrance |
Fouvière was built between 1872 and 1884, and it's still very active, which has lead to a strange combination of art over of the centuries. The picture on the right is of an icon of the Virgin Mary, but it was made in like 1998. It's super weird, and her backdrop is a really bad quality digital picture of some random landscape. All the mosaics in the main church are replicas of ancient scenes from the middle ages and stuff, like the first king of the Franks, but it has a strangely art-deco aesthetic. I didn't really like much about it, but there was this really cool astrological/calendar/clock thing. The picture on the left is of the lower chapel, the main church is undergoing renovations so you couldn't see anything, but it's still really big.
There is an AWESOME view of the city from there.
Next to Fouvière is the ancient remenants of the Romans' city at Lyon. This is the amphitheater, which is still in use! There are a lot of other buildings still standing near by and even another smaller amphitheater which the actors apparently used to practice in.
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| Looking at Fouvière and Vieux Lyon from Croix Rousse |
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| 2eme arrondisement |
Croix Rousse is the hip part of town on a hill on the other side of the Saône River. It used to be where all the silk weavers lived/worked, because that used the big the big deal around here. Now they are all about being the "Centre Gastronomique." Unfortunately, this means that the french peeps go crazy for cream, butter, and meat. According to French people, these are the only food groups. Plus bread of course. And potatoes. AKA good luck trying to be vegetarian.
Last Sunday I went outside of Lyon to this small town named Bougey to "faire un petit randonée," or, "go hiking" with one of the English teachers from another school. He was a really nice guy, but clearly his "little hike" did not translate to a few hours in the countryside; we were there for 7. Walking, THE WHOLE TIME. Let's just say I didn't feel too awesome after that. At least it was really pretty. Bougey is wine country around here.
It was pretty cute... and very French.
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| A vineyard overlooking the town. |
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| The Valley |
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| DUH |
Well that is about all I have been doing for now - I'm going to try and be more diligent posting because these big long ones aren't always the most fun. Later today I am going to an event for the film festival in Lyon, so that should be cool! The director of the film I am seeing, Final Cut Mesdames et Messieurs, György Pálfi, is going to be presenting the film! I also went to see Little Odessa this morning (directed by James Gray), and Tim Roth presented the film!
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| There he is! |
Alright, À plus tard!
Bisous,
Kendra
