Wanderlust: The One Where I'm in Lyon

Bonjour, mes amis! I know you haven’t heard from me for the longest time.  I promised myself that I would blog for every place I have visited to while I’m on exchange, but as you can obviously see, I failed terribly. The last trip I blogged about was my trip to Marseille. I was in the process of writing my trip to Torino, but then I just got lazy. So yeah, my apologies. However, I have managed to blog about me losing my phone in Brussels (if that helps)…LOL.

Anyway, I thought Barcelona would be my last trip before heading back to Paris, but then I had a YOLO moment the day after I got from Barca. I felt that I haven’t explored France as much as I wanted and I’ve been dying to go to Nice since the start of the term. So, I quickly looked up train tickets on SNCF and voila! The next thing I know, I have booked myself a 2-day trip to Nice. Now or never, right? I want to make the most out of my time here in France as much as I can. Also, this is the FIRST time I have traveled by myself here on exchange. I definitely knew that it would be a great experience for me, especially in terms of being independent.

As promised, here’s the first part of my trip in Nice. Stay tuned for more! (Note: Click on the photos to enlarge them!)

On my first day in Nice, the weather wasn’t looking up for me. It was raining in a city where they are mainly known for their beaches, so you can see my dilemma here. I decided to settle in my hostel first then talked to the girl in the reception to ask for things to do and see around the city, as usual. She gave me a bunch of options so that got me pretty excited. Also, it was then that I decided to take a half day trip to Monaco the next day as she made it sound very doable with my late afternoon train ride back to Lyon.

So off I go to venture out on the beautiful city of Nice. I stopped by the famous Promenade des Anglais first despite the rainy weather just so I can see what all the hype was about AND simply because my hostel is two minutes away from the beach. They definitely didn’t have sandy beaches (as warned by Wikitravel). I guess that beach area is mainly famous for the walkway by the water and stuff. It doesn’t look as impressive as compared to other brighter and better days. I have proof, so again, stay tuned for them! 😛

Promenade des Anglais (cloudy and rainy version)

I decided to head over to Place Massena and Garibaldi Square which are along Avenue Jean Médecin and Boulevard Jean Jaures (respectively). The lady from the hostel told me those areas were nice and had a bunch of shops. I also decided to look for the bus I was going to take for Monaco just so I wouldn’t have to waste time looking for it the next day. It was in factin the same area as the places I wanted to hit.

After doing that, I decided to go shopping just to kill time before dinner. I have been shopping a lot since my trip to London…… Not good. It just feels that I’ve been buying too much food (ahem, chocolate) in my trips. I finally bought those “commando boots” that I’ve been finding for months! Yipee!

Place Massena

As it got darker, I headed back to Place Massena and to my surprise, their Christmas market was already open. I was so excited to see what they were selling. Not only that, the whole area was lit up with different colours of Christmas lights. It was like a mini-light show and they also played music and had a massive ferris wheel as you walk further down. It was definitely a beautiful sight and I just couldn’t stop taking photos. It was the perfect time to play with the “bokeh” effect with my camera too. Speaking of which, one downside of traveling alone is that you would have to ask random people to take your photos for you. And in case they don’t do a great job at it (which what usually happens), you’d have to tell them that it’s good enough when you know for a fact it doesn’t match your standards at all (simply becauseyou don’t want to sound too demanding).

Noël à Nice <3

I paid a visit to Vieux Nice (Old Town) along Cours Saleya as the lady from the hostel recommended some restaurants for me to try there. And mind you, it’s always a must to check out the old town part of a city. After all the trips I’ve been on exchange, I think I can now safely tell if a restaurant is a tourist trap or not. I knew the first few ones I passed by were tourist traps simply because the staff kept bugging me to eat at their place and their menus had been translated into a number of languages. I finally found one of the restaurants she suggested called Le Safari. The vibe was definitely different as they didn’t have their menus right outside the restaurant and you won’t see anyone from the staff begging you to eat at their restaurant.

Couldn’t get enough of the Christmas lights!

So I took my chances and just went in to try the place. I was greeted by one of the heads of the restaurant, I assume. He was very nice and made conversation with me. Very typical of people here, which I like. You can tell they are genuinely friendly unlike people back in North America who seem to only do that just because they want tip. The menu looked a bit pricey. I was banking on a set menu, but their only set menu cost €27euros, which was too expensive for my taste. The man told me about the daily specials and kindly explained everything to me, which was very nice of him. I ended up trying some authentic Niçoise Salad (half portion) and the Bouillon saveurs d’Asie et Raviolis au Saumon, which was part of their specials. It was sorta just like pho with salmon dumplings. The guy was hoping I would like it since I’m Asian so I would know how good Asian food should taste. It tasted pretty healthy and I definitely caught on the Asian flavours.

Niçoise Salad, cute Christmas ribbon lights, and the Bouillon

To end the night, I ate the macarons that I bought from the Christmas market. Don’t get me wrong, I am normally not a huge fan of macarons, but when one sells such exotic and uncommon flavours like amaretto, piña colada, bounty, and etc., I couldn’t resist. I bought myself four pieces: banana chocolate, chestnut, pear with hot wine, and pâte a tartiner. They were really good. I liked the banana chocolate and pâte a tartiner the most!

In no particular order: banana chocolate, pear with hot wine, chestnut, and pâte a tartiner.

And hmmm.. more Christmas lights to end this post! 🙂

I know I haven’t been updating my blog lately. I am actually four trips behind already (Torino, Nuremberg/Munich, Prague, and Brussels). I was actually motivated to update it already before I left for Brussels, but I didn’t have time as I had an early train ride last Sunday. Anyway, I just thought I had to update everyone that I lost my beloved iPhone while I was in Brussels just last weekend.

Yes, I LOST MY BLOODY IPHONE!!!! I felt so stupid and disappointed with myself because I think I could have avoided it if I kept my phone inside my bag, instead of leaving it for even just a minute to take photos with random Scottish men in skirts while it was exposed out of my bag. To be honest, I have no recollection where my phone got lost or stolen. I noticed that it wasn’t with me when I was in some souvenir shop and I tried to look for it inside my bag.

I quickly retraced my steps and asked a bunch of people if they’ve seen my phone, but none of them did, sadly. I kind of knew it was surely lost since I was in Europe and I don’t think people there are as nice and honest as Canadians…. especially when you are in a pub. What sucks even more is that I was a little buzzed when my phone MAY have been stolen. I was too carefree and I didn’t even think about my phone. I just assumed it was in my bag.

I know it’s quite common for people to lose or have their phones stolen in Europe, but I never thought I’d be one of those victims too. I thought I would be more careful and aware, but again, I manage to screw up big time. I am still pretty bummed about it since my phone has everything. I’m thankful that a lot of my stuff have been synced to my iPad and macbook. I may have mainly lost most of my photos and messages. 🙁 Sigh… and I can’t even use Instagram anymore. 🙁 I don’t even feel deserving of a new phone. Ugh. 🙁 I’m so sad. 🙁 When bad things like these happen to me, they just make me long for home even more. 🙁

Nonetheless, a BIG FAT THANK YOU to those who helped me look for my phone (Diana), tried to reach my phone,  and helped me reset some of my accounts to make them more secure. You know who you are. Much appreciated. 🙂

I have the worst eating habits here in Lyon. I thought I’d eat less and be healthier compared to when I’m in Vancouver, but no way in heck was that happening. I should have known better. I pretty much have no self control. I don’t know if eating dairy products (yogurt, cheese, milk – which I tried to cut out already, more cheese, and cheeseeeeee) everyday is bad, but I have a feeling they have a decent amount of fat content, which is obviously not any good. :/ Anyway, that’s not the worst part. My kryptonite: nutella and speculoos and maybe a bunch of other sweets/desserts/pastries/etc., have made me the unhealthiest person out there.

Sometime last week, I think I managed to finally finish almost half of my speculoos spread. I think I ate at least 5 slices of bread, smothered in speculoos spread IN ONE SITTING. What made it even tastier was I toasted my bread on the pan with the speculoos spread in it, which means that the speculoos spread melted too…. and I’m sure we all know how damn good that tasted. You don’t even want to know what I did with my nutella… I’ll tell you in a bit though. 😛 I’ve also managed to consume one whole bag of Lays barbeque chips by myself in one night. Even if I felt that I was on the road to being healthier (as in, I just bought a ton of fruits to serve as my snack, resisted buying speculoos biscuits and the spread, and all other types of unhealthy junk food), I failed myself again yesterday. I have a ton of chocolate at home to give as gifts to people when I get back to Manila/Vancouver. Sadly, I couldn’t resist and ended up opening one of the Lindt chocolate bars I have (which was meant to be a gift) and ate one whole bar by myself while watching Suits. Yes, the bar was huge and I finished it myself. I am a pig. I won’t be surprised if I come home with diabetes, cavities, and be overly obesed. It sucks to have a huge sweet tooth and a massive appetite. :S

Anyway, my fatness aside, I’ve had some pretty good meals recently. Last Friday, the two Diana’s, Jiseon, and I cooked dinner at our place. Jiseon made Korean bulgogi (with rice cake too! OMG!! :P) and Diana cooked fried rice. Mhmmm. To top it off, a “French” dining is never complete without wine. 😉 We had rosé and red wine to go with our dinner. After that, we had some awesome pastries from Carrefour, which only cost 5euros. ‘Nuff said. Dinner was delicious and it was a great night spent with awesome friends. 🙂

Beef Bulgogi, Fried Rice, Dessert

Another memorable meal was when I had lunch with my French Buddy, Tina, who’s actually Vietnamese, but she grew up here. She’s doing her Masters for Finance in Lyon II and I am really happy to have her as my French buddy. We have so many things in common and I’m glad we see eye to eye when it comes to applying for jobs and views on our careers and the like. She brought me to La Table de Suzanne, where we both paid 22euros for their menu du jour. I thought the servings would not fill me up, but I was wrong. I was so full after our meal and I haven’t felt that full in ages (even though I eat a lot generally). I had to skip dinner just because I was still stuffed. In terms of the dishes, the food was very exquisite and très délicieux. My personal favourite was the entrée: pumpkin soup with poached egg and prosciutto. It is definitely going to my list of the best soups I’ve ever had. I also had the best crème brûlée ever! It was chocolate inside, instead of the usual vanilla custard. They also gave me some sweetened biscuit with almonds. I enjoyed it very much.

Pumpkin Soup with Prosciutto & Poached Egg, Porkchop with potatoes and some yummy kind of sauce, and Crème Brûlée

Lastly, I had a hearty four-course meal last night at Chez Mounier in Bellecour with the two Diana’s again. Get this, their four-course meal cost 13 euros per person. ONLY 13 EUROS. Such a great deal. I finally satisfied my craving for Salade Lyonnaise. The poached egg in the salad is always a bonus and makes it as my favourite salad out there.. I think. They gave me a ton of fresh bacon chunks too. As for our third course, we had St. Marcellin cheese (fromage blanc), which is cheese that the Rhône-Alpes region is famous for. A few people said this cheese was amazing and the best or whatever, but I beg to differ. I had high expectations for it when I tried it for the first time a few weeks ago, but it was just not my kind of cheese. The after taste just makes me…… Anyway, we also had cheese with cream. I’m just not sure what kind of cheese that was. It was my first time trying it though, seemed like the yogurt type of cheese. It was good mix with the cream and you can also add sugar with it, which we did… so it felt like we were just eating sweet yogurt. YUM. For our dessert, I got some peach dessert, which was delicious! I miss eating peaches. 🙁

Four Course Meal: Salade Lyonnaise, Fish with meunière, Cheese/Fromage, and Dessert!

Oh, in case you were curious, here are the awesome little packets of Nutella I stole from our hotel in Torino. I’m sure you all know what I did with them right when I opened the first one…

Packets filled with awesomeness!

I was at Marseille, the second largest city in France, for the weekend of September 17th. Yep, still can’t get enough of the beach. I think I am finally drawing the line of getting tanned after this trip. I seriously have horrendous tan lines on my body. I have an odd-looking watch tan, which I tried to even out in Marseille (by not applying any sun screen on that little part), but I obviously failed. I also have a TOMS shoe tan and leg tans. I guess I got what I wished for.. I’ve been working on looking tanned since I was even back in Vancouver. Who knew it was easier to get it done here in France. Lol.

Anyway, I had a blast. I went with Diana, another Diana (she’s from Seattle), Bridget (Aussie), and Jiseon (Korean). We stayed at Vieux Port Hostel and it was actually better than the hostel I stayed at in Annecy. We had our own washroom now to ourselves and the bunk beds were good too.

Outside the train station with Jiseon, Diana, Diana, and Bridget!

I wish we could have spent more time in Marseille so we could have gone to see the Calanques de Marseille, which was supposed to be extremely beautiful. They truly are even just basing it on the photos I saw. 🙁 I wanted to see the Palais Longchamp as well, but it was under renovation…… Again, looked amazing on photos. Sigh, maybe next time. 🙁

We ended up exploring the city (and getting lost). We passed by places such as Verite Ville, Hôtel de Ville, and other places. We also bought soap from a random store as we were told that Marseille was known for their soap. Afterwards, we went back to our hostel to change so we can hit the beach before the sun sets. On the way to the beach, we passed by the oldest bakery in Marseille too. They made simple stuff only though. Nothing spectacular, in my opinion. However, we did stop by Banette and got ourselves some yummy pastries!

The beach area we went to was called Plage des Catalans. I didn’t bother getting into the water. Based on my friends’ reactions, it seemed like the water was crazy cold. I just stayed with Diana (since she didn’t bring a swimsuit) and played silly games like “Count the number of topless women on the beach” and “Count the number of men wearing speedos.” It’s funny how Diana was hit on by some random French dude too named Kad. We kept teasing her after because she was talking to the man almost the whole time we were there, and he eventually asked her out for drinks after dinner (even left her a message while we were at dinner). Hilarious. and maybe creepy at the same time. We tried to be classy as well by grabbing some wine and beer (on cups) and enjoying them by the beach.

The awesome pastry I bought from Banette (explosion in your mouth) and rosé wine + beer by the beach.

One cool thing that happened that day at the beach was there was a man playing the piano. It seemed so unreal since it’s like you only see those kind of things happen in the movies or like music videos, but I was so amazed. They also had random piano there for anyone to play with. All in all, it was a fun and relaxing day at the beach. By the time the sun was setting, we were all starving and ready for dinner.

Marseille is known for their unique dish called bouillabaisse (pronounced as bwee-yah-behs). I was so excited to try it because I was feeling a little adventurous that night. I read online that bouillabaisse is usually a little pricey. The cheap ones aren’t of good quality and can just be imitations. I settled with one that costed about 28euros if I’m not mistaken. Anyway, it took so much effort to eat the dish. There were three dishes: 1) the fish soup, 2) bread with cheese and some dip, and 3) seafood plate (a ton of fish, mussels, scorpion fish, and some potatoes). The waitress said you eat it by pretty much dipping everything inside the soup. I felt as if I had to stuff down soooooo much fish inside of me. Crazy.

Bouillabaisse: Fish soup, Bread plate, and Seafood plate

Other than that, the restaurant was amazing. Fresh seafood was served! Their mussels with white cream sauce was delicious. Moules et frites FTW! Their dessert was amazing as well. We had the Tiramisu and Il flotante, which are two desserts that I’m not huge fans of, but they were surprisingly delicious from that restaurant.

On the following day, we woke up early to explore more of the city. We hiked up the Notre Dame de la Garde, which gave you a 360 degree view of the city of Marseille. The view was breathtaking and marvelous. I couldn’t stop taking photos. The Notre Dame itself was beautiful with such exquisite architecture inside.

We started to head for the train station after this. We bought some food along the way though. We got tarts/flans for only 1.50euros and the slices were HUGE. Best deal ever. I also tried mahjouba with a ton of cheese inside. I have no idea what it is, but apparently, it’s an Algerian-Moroccan type of food. It was delicious though!

Mahjouba fromage, my flan, and us happy girls with our pastries!

———

In other matters, I am so stoked for my Germany trip (Nüremberg and Munich) this weekend for OKTOBERFEST!!!! Can’t wait to see some familiar faces too..ahem ahem, Debbie and May!! 😀

I have also planned most of my trip for my time here in Lyon, leaving me with barely any weekends here. :/

Here’s my schedule:

Sept 29-Oct 1 = Germany (Nuremberg and Munich)
Oct 6-9 (til Tuesday) = Prague
Oct 14-15 = Brussels
1 week break = Italy (Florence, Milan, Venice, and Rome)
November 9-12 = Berlin
Nov 16-19= London
Nov 24-26 = Barcelona

Good luck to me. Cheers. HAHA.

First things first, I shall blog about my Marseille trip soon. I realized I haven’t blogged much about Lyon so I thought of just rambling about random things I see and observe everyday here.

I LOOOVEEEEE (can’t even emphasize how much) how there are boulangerie patisseries and chocolatiers everywhere I go. They are super easy to find. Some aren’t the overly expensive and fancy ones, in short, they are just simple bakeries, but their pastries/cakes/tarts/chocolates/etc. taste just as good as the others. Whenever I pass by one, I would always stop just to look at the different selections they have. I never get sick of looking at them just because they look amazingly delicious. If I didn’t have any self-control, I would have bought a pastry in every shop I go to. Not kidding. However, I’ve been making it a point to try every nutella pastry I see in these stores (especially as nutella seems to be a staple product here in France i.e. this is the place where I belong LOL). Also, speculoos-related desserts!! I love their Häagen-Dazs here as well. They have so many flavours. I have yet to try ALL OF MY FAVOURITE ONES. They have flavours like banoffee, speculoos and caramel biscuit, and others which I forgot. I love how salted caramel is very common here compared to back home. I won’t be surprised if I come back home with a ton of cavities or diabetes (just kidding.. I do not want that to happen). It sucks to have a sweet tooth, sweets are just my ultimate weakness!!!! I will definitely miss living beside delicious bakeries when I go back home. 🙁

I’ve also noticed how French people here dress so fancy/classy. In short, you will never see them in “hobo clothes” like sweatpants and the like. Girls here wear 6-inch heels or wedges to school. They wear their fancy bags and chic clothes everyday to school, while I wear my Toms, which my cousin terms as “poor man’s shoes” LOL. I sometimes feel that they criticize my shoes because most girls here wear nice shoes wherever they go. I think people here love to “people watch” too, which might explain why they like to eat and drink outside the restaurant and just chill there. I’m getting used to receiving some judging and uncomfortable stares already after how many weeks. I guess I get even more stares just because I am considered “exotic” a.k.a. I’m an Asian.

One things that annoys me though is the French’s prominent habit of smoking everywhere, all day, errday. I am not kidding. I smell cancer everywhere. I have to hold my breath all the time. T_T Students smoke ALL THE TIME too. It’s craaaazy, but I guess it’s something I have to get used to.

I think my French language speaking skills are improving. I’m really enjoying my French language course and it has been very helpful. I am slowly understanding more things and I can converse more in French as well, but don’t expect much. I am still a noob, but I’m getting there, I hope. 😛

I think I will find myself traveling every weekend. Yep, I’m starting to book a bunch of trips! I’ve booked trips to Torino, Prague, and London. I’m planning a trip to Barcelona and maybe Belgium soon. I might do Italy during my one week break at the end of October. All this travel planning can be a pain as it’s sometimes hard to find low prices and hostel availabilities, but once everything pans out smoothly, I get so excited. To be honest, I spend more time travel planning than even studying. I am a stellar student. 😉 I worry more about covering most of the places I want to visit here than finishing homework and such. Ohwell, we’ll see. This week marks our official start of classes with all our regular courses anyway. I hope I don’t get swamped with homework… TRAVELING IS A MUST…and if I want to cover many places, I must do it every weekend.

Well, that’s it for now. I am heading over to Diana’s to do more travel planning. Yes, that’s all we do. BWAHAHAHA. Kidding. 🙂

Sorry for the one week delay for my Annecy trip. I will not lie, I got a little lazy to update my blog and since I am leaving for Marseille tomorrow, I thought it was about time that I tell you guys about this wonderful trip!

I was in Annecy for two days (both Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 8-9th). We took an early train ride (8:08am) from Gare Part Dieu so we can spend more time in Annecy. I went with Diana, Lily (friend from Aussie), and Michelle (friend from Louisiana). We stayed at the Annecy Hostel, which was also my first hostel experience. It wasn’t bad at all, I actually liked it. We had two bunk beds, a washroom (toilet is shared with everyone at the hostel, but we had our own shower). They also had free Wi-Fi (YAY!) and had some other forms of entertainment (i.e. Lily and I had a few intense games of table tennis by the terrace).

The weather in Annecy was amazing. It was very hot, perfect to get my tan on. 😉 The town was quaint and very beautiful. The architecture for their buildings was just lovely. I now know why it’s called the Venice of France (at least, I think I do). Most importantly, Lake Annecy was beautiful beyond words. It felt as if you were in some resort. The water was so clear, especially with the sun shining. I was just in awe. I couldn’t stop taking photos. I took too many, as a matter of fact. 😛

Beautiful Lake Annecy <3

We had lunch at Bleu de Toi (mind you, they had so many restaurants in the area. It was hard to choose since everything looked delicious!) and had some yummy crépes. My friend, Lily, ordered the Tartiflette, which seemed to be one of Annecy’s famous “dishes.” I can see why, her crépe had delicious ingredients such as: potatoes, cream, and bacon! You definitely can’t go wrong with that. As for me, I ordered the Parmelan, which had mushrooms, ham, cheese, and egg! Mhmmm. We all grabbed some gelato after to fit the perfect sunny weather. I went crazy when I entered one of the MANY gelato shops around. They had so many flavours! Of course, they had nutella & speculoos too. It was a tough call. I eventually went with nutella & banana flambee, which were pretty good. 😛

From L to R: Parmelan, Tartiflette, My Gelato

After lunch, we decided to get our bikinis on and go for a swim. We rented a paddle boat (costed us 4euros/each only!) for an hour and just went around the beautiful lake. It felt amazing to swim in the lake too. The water was cold at first, but who cares, it felt so nice especially during a warm day. We were also able to sunbathe by the dock. So happy! I am going to bask in the sun as much as I can while it is still out. I don’t even put sunblock…. which is bad, I know. :/

At night, Annecy was even more beautiful as the buildings were lit up. We had dinner at this restaurant, which I forgot the name of, and had pizza, mussels, and fries, and lasagna. We walked around for a bit to explore more of the town. It was very peaceful and felt nice to just do so. On Sunday, we bought our breakfast from a pastry shop and they had pain au nutella. I was so happy, but it could have been better if there was more nutella inside. I should have gotten the maxi beignet de nutella. That would have been amazing!!!! We walked around again and found ourselves to the top part of Annecy and enjoyed a magnificent view of the town and the lake. And before leaving this beautiful place, we couldn’t leave without having another serving of gelato. 😉

Palais de l’Isle (at night), view from the top, Vielle Ville

Before I forget, more food photos:

Moules et frites, pain au nutella, & Speculoos & Cookies Gelato

Yep, I can’t believe it myself. We had our French Placement Exam yesterday. One of the heads of the program advised us to only answer when we were a 100% sure with our answers because if we just guess and miraculously end up with the right answer, she might put us in the “wrong level” in terms of our knowledge in French. I obviously took her advice. I basically only answered around 4-5 questions out of 80 questions in total. I have no knowledge of French whatsoever except from the simple phrases I try to learn from my pocket dictionary and maybe some words I have asked my friends to translate for me. Anyway, results came out today on which level we belong too. I think there are 9 levels and they placed me under LEVEL 2. I was expecting to be the lowest level possible, but wow… The test must have been rigged. HAHAHAHA. Or not.. my friend said she’s quite impressed with the level of French I know for someone who has NEVER learned the language.

We also had our French Culture & Civilization test earlier today. I am glad that I barely studied for it and ended up cramming most of it today and maybe last night (before I fell asleep). The test wasn’t that hard (pure multiple choice) and if you paid attention to the lectures, you’ll be fine. I’m glad I was able to retain much of the information I crammed into my head and maybe some from the lectures too. All I know is, I passed for sure. YAY!

On to more EXCITING NEWS, I am heading to Annecy this weekend with three of my other girlfriends. I am excited! It will be my first time staying at a hostel. Annecy is a two-hour train ride from Lyon and is also considered the “Venice of France.” So yeah, I am excited what this little commune has in store for us. Will keep you posted!

Au revoir, mes amis! 😉

Things have been sailing pretty smoothly for the past couple of days. I finally got my metro card (just like my uPass back in Vancouver) and my student card (free entrance to museums all over France and other sweet benefits!). I’ve also settled in to my apartment at Le Moliere. Here’s a photo of my room and other parts of it:

School has started already… sort of. Our orientation day (August 29th) was nothing compared to the UBC’s Imagine Day or Sauder’s Frosh. We pretty much just had two information sessions, which were pretty helpful. There were so many errands I still had to do, but I have finally finished at least 90% of them. All I can do now is wait before I continue on finishing my other errands since I’ve done my part. Our French Culture and Civilization course has started already as well. It’s actually quite interesting, except I have a ton of information to memorize before our final exam this coming Friday. Wish me luck.

I’ve met a couple of interesting people in the program as well. People from Australia, Scotland, Hawaii, China and even from Canada! There actually seems to be a lot of Canadians in the program. Some of the Chinese girls I met even gave me the definition of my Chinese name. Apparently, it means smart and precious/treasure. I love my Chinese name now. HAHA.

I am also trying to be as stingy as possible with my expenses. I can’t withdraw any money from my French bank account yet simply because they still haven’t given me my debit card (long story, waiting for them to send me something). So, I have created an excel spreadsheet (let’s go COMM 290 skills!) to list down all my monthly expenses and to count how much I have left for the month and such. It is quite handy and I love it because it prevents me from making impulsive purchases. It’s nice to be more cautious of your expenses. 😀

I’m beginning to love my location even more. It’s so close to so many things. It’s pretty close to school, very close to the river (where they farmer’s markets on Thursday’s, Saturday’s, and Sunday’s!!), the huge mall (La Part Dieu), and main areas such as Bellecour and Vieux Lyon. These places are easily accessible by the metro, bus, and even walkable. I also found a Catholic church that’s 10 minutes away from my place. It’s always nice to walk to church on a Sunday morning. 🙂

Speaking of church, I attended my first French-speaking mass awhile ago. I tried to follow the responses with the help of the English-French translated version of the mass given to me by my sister-in-law. It’s so helpful, but I have to work on my French pronunciations. Sadly, it’s hard to sing along with the rest of the mass attendees and I don’t really understand the gospel, the homily, and other parts of the mass. I hope I will eventually understand more things.

I am madly in love with the food here in Lyon. There are so many good pastry shops, cheeses, meat, etc. all over the place. My friend, Diana, and I were doing a bunch of research awhile ago and we found so many awesome places to visit for food. I cannot wait for more gastronomical adventures!! 😀 There is quite a few number of Michelin-star rated restaurants too. I would love to try Paul Bocuse‘s restaurant, but man, it is just too expensive. One day, maybe. However, there’s a place here called Les Halles de Paul Bocuse. I paid that place a visit yesterday and I just fell in love. There were so many things I wanted to try. All the pastries, cheeses, chocolates, and etc. Any foodie would love that place. I will post pictures soon… maybe when I actually buy something there already. So excited!!

Some of the pastries I’ve had in Lyon: (L to R) Tarte Normande (I think.. or some flan?), Nutella Muffin, and Paille Nutella.

The weather was definitely better today, compared to the past few days where it was raining, windy, and cold. Diana and I went for a jog by the Rhône River and also took a long walk to bask under the sun. It felt so good. I love the sun. <3 I have to make the most out of it before Fall weather officially kicks in.

Click to enlarge!

Dad just left. Gulp. I’m all alone here with no family. This is it! Again, I can only hope for good things to come my way. My orientation in school starts in less than two hours.

I have a feeling that Kuya Jess has kept me strong since I left Vancouver… aka I haven’t shed a tear when I said goodbye to all my loved ones. Well, I got teary eyed awhile ago with my dad, but when it came down to saying goodbye, I didn’t even cry. I think He is keeping me strong because He knows that when I cry, I will be a total mess and be very depressed… and that is not the right mindset and mood I want to be in with this experience. So, I guess I have Him to thank for that.

So yeah… Cheers to what I hope to be one of the most awesome experiences of my life!

I can’t believe I never blogged about this. I will keep it short, but it relates back to my stay in Paris.

I have always gone gaga over A&F and Hollister stores just because their sales associates are so attractive. But my oh my, the one and only storefront in Paris by Champs Élysées is magnanimous. Their storefront is huge. Judging from the outside, you can see how fancy the facade of the building is already. The entrance feels as if you are about to enter into a duke’s mansion or something like that in those British movies. Crazy.

Abercrombie & Fitch facade @ Champs Élysées

Not only that, what makes this storefront even more different than the usual ones I see in the States is that they have FRENCH BOYS as their hot Adonis-like sales associates. If you don’t believe me, here’s some proof:

What a great way to end my last day in Paris: finding hot French boys. <3 Teehee!

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On to the more serious side of things, finished moving in to my apartment today. Can’t believe my dad’s leaving tomorrow morning.. He is actually asleep already now, sigh. 🙁 I guess this is it… My exchange experience will officially begin tomorrow, considering that our orientation starts tomorrow as well. I am a ball of emotions: excited, nervous, worried, homesick, aaahhhh!! We’ll see how everything goes tomorrow.. I can only hope for good things!

For more photos on my Paris trip, you can check out my albums on Facebook (provided that you are my friend there). Facebook won’t let me provide a link here for some odd reason. Sorry! 🙁