Paris!

 

Sorry that I took so long to finish my blog!! I got home and then got distracted by everything so I never finished my last week in France! 

After Tina left and the Light Festival ended, I took a trip to Paris with Nessy as one last hurrah.  We did so much in the few days that we were there that it might take a few blog posts to put it all!

One of the first things we did upon arriving in Paris was go to Angelina's, a tea shop on rue de Rivoli (same road as the Louvre).  The hot chocolate there is world famous...and about 7,9€ (around $10.30 at that time) a cup.  Ridiculous..but very much worth it.

Nessy with her hot chocolate!

 



The hot chocolate was so thick it was like chocolate soup.  So good

 

http://www.angelina-paris.fr/media/508692a15c1cd.pdf  Here's the link for the menu at Angelina's so you can see how ridiculous the prices are!  (There's even an English translation haha)

 

Next, we went to the Musée d'Orsay, which is part of the Louvre.  The Louvre got full, so all the paintings from around 1850-present are stored in the Musée d'Orsay.  I will have to say that I much preferred the Musée d'Orsay to the Louvre!  Unfortunately, it is not allowed to take pictures inside (though for some reason it is in the Louvre) so I don't have many photos from the Musée d'Orsay!

 

The Musée d'Orsay

 

Vanessa with the MO!

 

Me on the top floor of the MO!

 

We also went to a few other museums while there, such as the Musée des Arts décoratifs, which has furniture and clothes- all these we got into for free because of our visa woohoo!

 

Giant tree and ferris wheel!

 

 

 

 

 

The markets on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées were beautiful!  We bought a few things there over the few days.

 

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant where I had one of the best pizzas ever.

 

Nessy had pasta!

 

That's all for day one in Paris! Stay tuned for day two!





Les Halles Paul Bocuse

A few weeks ago, one of my professors took the American students on a field trip to Les Halles Paul Bocuse, which is basically a really fancy market in Lyon!  Afterwards, we sat in a restaurant upstairs and sampled some of the food from the market.  This market is no ordinary market, it carries lots of specialty and high end foods, and was the only place in Lyon I was able to find refried beans...for 4 euros a can!!!! haha

 Escargots!

 Yum 95 euro duck liver!

 Trust me. This cheese is nasty

I hope you enjoyed looking at these food photos, I know I certainly enjoyed walking around and

Tina's Visit!

One of the highlights of the semester was when Tina visited!! (Tina is a friend of mine and my roommate freshman year, and she is studying in Siena, Italy this semester.)  Unfortunately, TCL (Transports en Commun Lyonnais, basically the people who run the metro system) went on a mini strike that weekend!! So, our weekend started off by me being late to the train system because I got lost walking to the Part Dieu train station because the B line wasn't running!  Poor Tina had to wait twenty minutes, and I felt so bad!

When we got back to the apartment, Tina took a nap, and I cooked dinner, which consisted of smoked salmon, mashed potatoes, and creamed spinach (the spinach was frozen, so don't be impressed hahaha).  I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of dinner, but I got a lovely photo of dessert, which was from Bernard Pauloz, my favorite bakery!

Chocolate and banana, chocolate and raspberry, and pineapple!

Next, we walked to the Valmy metro where we saw the "Ascenseur Etrange", or the "Strange Elevator", where they basically had slightly strange and a bit creepy videos of fish and various other animals.  We then took this elevator down to get on the metro and...voila, the D line no longer is working! Which means we had to take the long, cold, over an hour long walk to get down to Vieux Lyon!

Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière lit up at night

"Thank You, Mary".  The Light Festival was originally a Catholic holiday originating in Lyon!

Lyon from the Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière

Tina and I

Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Lyon- this animation was pretty cool!! I have lots of photos from it

Here's a video of the end of this illumination!! Hopefully it works!

The buildings on the river opposite Place Bellecour were illuminated, and it was pretty cool!  They changed every few seconds, and I got photos of a few of them:

Place Bellecour

 Dragon in Bellecour!

 rue de la Republique, Bellecour

Heart!

 Inside the Hotel de Ville (City Hall)!

Unfortunately, it won't let me load the video for Place des Terreaux because it is too long.  Which is really quite a shame, becuase it was my favorite installation!

The next morning, Tina and I did some sightseeing around Lyon, including eating Tina's first crepe, and then we took the train over to Switzerland to wait for her plane!

 Tina, re-enacting her distress at arriving at Part Dieu and not finding me there! haha

Lounging in the Geneva airport!

Stay tuned next time to hear all about my final trip to Paris!