Wanderlust: The One Where I'm in Lyon

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. 🙂