The Last Week in France

I'm officially back in the United States, but before I get to all of my "let's recap the experience, here's what I learned" stuff, I wanted to quickly talk about my last week in France.

I got back to the North on Sunday, exactly one week before I would be on an airplane flying toward the States. Actually, my head was so entirely elsewhere that I accidentally got on the wrong train when I was in Lille changing trains. I guess it had to happen once during the year. Luckily, I was able to just get off at the first station and get back onto another train in the other direction. But, I was really stressed out. Anyway, it all turned out fine; I just got home an hour later than planned.

Monday was devoted to the "dress rehearsal" with my suitcases. I had already done a few rounds of sorting and tossing out, throwing all of the stuff haphazardly into the suitcase and weighing it, just to see where I was. This time, I actually packed all of my stuff into the bags as if I was going to leave in 30 minutes. And, I succeeded. I packed my whole room and all of my stuff into the one big and one small suitcase, and still have about a kilo of space to buy little souvenirs from the grocery store. (I'm thinking about getting a pack or two of my favorite cookies to bring home.) So, once all my stuff was completely the packed, the question was: Do I unpack it all, or do I wear the same outfit all week? I decided to leave the big suitcase packed and just live from my small suitcase, which has worked pretty well. That way, I only have the carry-on to pack tomorrow as I do my final sweep.

On Wednesday, I went to an amusement park, Parc Asterix(Based on the Asterix and Obelix comic strip) with my friend Pauline, her mom, her grandma, and her 11 year-old cousin. It was a ton of fun, and a great way to totally live in the moment and not be thinking about home, or about leaving. I felt like a ghost in the house at 7:00 am as I ate breakfast alone and got ready while everyone else slept. At 8:00am sharp, Pauline and her mom picked me, we got the others, and then headed off.

The entrance to the park.

The amusement park was close to Paris, so about 2 hours away. By 11:00am, we were getting onto our first ride: the brand new steel roller coaster with lots of loops and twists. It was based on the egyptian theme of one of the comic strips. The whole line was decorated, like at Disneyland, but we didn't have time to admire the decorations as we ran through the empty barriers. We only had to wait 10 minutes for an incredible ride.

This is me and Pauline in front of the roller coaster. The best part was when we were hurtling downward and thought we were going to hit the ground but it was actually a tunnel and they blew a ton of mist at us. You can see it right behind us. This was Pauline's favorite ride.

Overall, it was a really well-done amusement park. They had paid a lot of attention to detail, and everything was themed and decorated. It was fun going from ride to ride and looking at all of the shops and other parts of the experience, rather than just the rides.

Here's and example of the attention to detail. The dragon/boat is a restaurant!

This was in the middle of the park. On sunny days, there were paddle boats, but since we were there before summer break officially started, not everything was open yet. That roller coaster was also closed, unfortunately, but everyone says it is amazing.

We had fun taking silly pictures with all of the decorations.

 We went on some low key rides, like a tube slide, as well as all of those crazy roller coasters.

Pauline and I in the tube slide.

My favorite ride, by far, was Zeus's Thunder. It was an enormous wooden roller coaster, but it went insanely fast and threw us around bends. It also had a cool underground tunnel part. The car all the way to the top, and then we suddenly realized there was a whole second part to the coaster that you can't see from the ground. And then, it goes from the highest drop all the way to underground before shooting up again. It was incredible, one of the best roller coasters I have ever ridden. Pauline thought the egyptian themed one was better, but I preferred this one. We even went on it twice. Pauline said she had been to the park three of four times and that was the first time she went on it, because before, it had either been closed or the line too long.

Zeus was looking down, guarding the entrance to the line. He was intimidating until you walked underneath and saw his cute, flowery underwear  :)

There was also a dolphin show. I have to say, it was probably one of the, if not the, best dolphin shows I have ever seen. It topped Marine World and Sea World easily. They had 10 dolphins and three trainers that swam with them. It was incredible. They did all kinds of tricks I had never seen before, and the trainers interacted a lot more with the dolphins than in other shows I had seen.

5 dolphins jumping at the same time while others swim around and rest a bit. The joys of having 10 show dolphins.

This was my favorite trick. The three trainers made a circle putting their arms to toes and the dolphins swam under and then jumped out of the center of the circle. It was so cool.

In the afternoon, we had to deal with a few thunderstorms and lightning bolts, but everything eventually reopened again. The park closed at 6:00pm and we headed home. I spent that night with Pauline. On the way home, we bought pizzas from a pizza truck for dinner. And for dessert, I ate more raspberries in a single evening than ever before in my life. Why? Thanks to Pauline's family's amazing garden. The garden was here mom's pride and joy, and she had even won a prize last year.  They had tons of different plants and flowers. It was really one of the most amazing gardens I had ever seen. There were 2 different kinds of raspberries growing all over the place, a cherry tree, strawberries, gooseberries, lemon bushes, and tons of flowers. There was a vegetable garden and a huge lawn. The raspberries were perfectly ripe and they told me I could take as many as I wanted, that they always had too much. So, I picked and ate to my heart's content, and then did it all again for breakfast. It was incredible. I even picked some extras and (with difficulty) refrained from eating them all to take to my host family.

I love berry picking. Nothing is better than a kiwi and raspberry salad for breakfast when the raspberries were picked 30 seconds before.

On Thursday, I had a chill day with not much action except making gaufrettes(thin waffle cookies, like what waffle cones are made out of.) They were really yummy, but I think I would add some vanilla extract next time. 

Friday was a day of good-byes. I went back to my school one last time to return my textbooks and saw some friends. We went for a walk and I hugged them good-bye. Then, in the afternoon, I went to the movies with Pauline. We went to see Ice Age 4 in 3D. It's funny. In this year, I have been to the movies more times than in the last four or five years back home. I went to see Bienvenue à Bord, Hollywoo, Intouchables, Hugo Cabret, Star Wars 3D, Ice Age 4 3D, Lion King 3D, and Titanic 3D. At the end of the movie, when we said good-bye, Pauline was on the verge of tears. I know I'm really going to miss her and everything she did for me this year. I still remember dissecting a rat with her on just the second day of school, and it feels like just a few months ago. And there we were, hugging good-bye in front of a movie theater. I just can't believe this adventure in France has come to an end.

On Saturday morning, I said goodbye to my host family in front of their house, and then rode with another AFSer and her host mom to the train station where we would meet the other girls in our region and take the train to Paris. It was a really emotional time for a lot of people as they hung out the train windows to wave to their host families, and quite a few were crying.

Here's the whole group of AFSers, host families, and volunteers in front of the station.

We got to Paris around 12:30 and then waited around for the bus to take us to the hotel. Once at the hotel, we found the 230 other AFS kids all coming back, got out hotel rooms, and then had "debriefing activities." I don't know what those were like in the other groups, but in my group, we didn't do much except just talk about random stuff. We ate dinner together one last time, said our goodbyes, watched 2 short films about AFS, and then were dismissed by airplane to go to bed.

Sunday morning, I got up with my roommates and 6:40am, took quick showers, and then went down for breakfast. While dinner the night before had been rather unsatisfactory, breakfast was AMAZING. We got to eat in the hotel restaurant, and it was a buffet type of thing. The chocolate croissants were literally too hot to hold as they came right out of the over, and they just melted in your mouth. At 7:40, we met as our group of 25 and walked through the hotel and into CDG airport. Why only 25, when there were like 40 Americans in France? The others got to take a direct fight to JFK from Paris, and we had to pass through Zurich, meaning that even though their plane took off a few hours later than ours, they got in sooner. Anyway, checking bags was madness, because as to be expected, many people did not follow guidelines for weight, and were frantically having to repack. My suitcases passed with no problems, so I just got to sit back and watch the others struggle. Once through check-in, we were on our own to get through security and find our gate. We were sort of stressed about making it on time since the AFS volunteers had held us back because someone had been caught with vodka, but it ended up not mattering because our plane was delayed.

This was where things got really interesting. Our plane was supposed to leave at 1100 and get in at 1215, and then our next plane was at 100. Well, our plane didn't end up pulling out of the gate until after 1200, so we spent the whole ride stressing about if we would miss our connection. Luckily, the held it for us, and we literally ran through Zurich airport with our carry-on bags. And it wasn't just one gate to the next one over. We had to take the little tram thing to change sections and pass through a passport checkpoint and everything. I ended up feeling kind of bad for the swiss boy on the plane next to me since I was a little sweaty from the run. The swiss air personnel were funny. They knew we were coming, and sort of lined the pathway from one escalator to our gate, pointing the way and telling us to calm down. It was ironic that we ran and everything to get onto the plane, and once we were all settled, the flight attendant got on the P.A. and said, "While the passengers have indeed finally arrived, we are still waiting for their luggage to be transferred, so it will still be about 20 minutes."

The flight to JFK was nice, just like our flight going to France back in September. We got pasta or chicken for lunch, and then a pizza stick and ice cream for "dinner" about an hour before landing. We got in around 4:30 pm New York time, and then followed the crowd through immigration control. The officer checking our passports was actually funny and friendly, and sort of carried on a conversation with us as we went through. We knew we were back in America when a lady dropped something and the man next to her said "Yo, miss, ya' dropped somethin'" instead of what we would have been used to in France, a very polite "Excusez-moi madame, mais je crois que vous avez perdu quelque chose"(Excuse me Ma'am, but I believe you have dropped something) At baggage claim, my bag was one of the first to come out, so after just a little longer, I found another girl who was also ready to go and we breezed right through customs. There were 2 AFS volunteers waiting for us with instructions on what to do next, but mine was easy. I found my mom waiting in the crowd of people right after customs, took my letter from the AFS folks, said "That's my mom," and then ran around the barrier to give her a big hug.

At that point, I finally felt like I was back in America, and back home, even though I was in New York and not California.

A Week in Lyon

Wow, in less than a week I will be on an airplane flying toward American soil. While I can't honestly deny that I'm glad to be on the final stretch, I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that it is all coming to an end. I will be glad to see my friends and family back home, but there is so much here that I will miss so much. My host family, my friends, my amazing and helpful teachers... I think we can all agree on one thing: 10 months is a long time. I am so incredibly grateful for this adventure and all of the great experiences I got to have, but 10 months is pretty long. Rather than dying to go home, I'm just happy to be concluding what I would call a really successful year abroad.  I did completely pack up everything in my room into my suitcases and weigh it, and I'm happy to report that I got everything to fit with 1 kilo to spare in my big suitcase, in case something comes up. So, that did help me realize that I will soon actually be flying home. You know, seeing the room with everything sorted and packed was just kind of a weird feeling. But then I unpacked most of it(since I can't really justify wearing the same outfit for this whole last week just because I'm too lazy to repack) and I settled back into the feeling that it was "my" room, even if only for a few more days. Anyway, enough about these thoughts of leaving. Let's first talk about my great week last week in Lyon.

When I last posted, I believe I was headed toward the train station to go to Lyon. Except for the train company messing up and giving two people the exact same seat(but since I got there first and had the ticket to prove that it was my seat, so I got to stay) my train ride was nice as I got a last look at Marseille before heading northward. There is a joke that the people in Marseille consider Lyon to be "The North" and anything further north than that is just ridiculously north. In the movie "Bienvenue Chez le Cht'is" which pokes fun at the north(the north north, like Valenciennes where I live) and shows all of the stereotypes, the main charecter lives in the south, near the sea, and is told he will have to work in the north. And he says "Lyon?" and the boss says "No, the North," and he says "Oh no, not Paris, not Paris, please." And the boss says "No, not Paris, further North." And the character says "Wait, there's like nothing else except Belgium then." Anyway, I was just laughing because my host in Marseille had often said a lot of those things about the north like had been in the film, and she said she hoped it wouldn't be too cold in the Lyon, so much further north.

When I arrived in Lyon, it was nice and sunny and warm, while it was apparently still pouring in the real North. My host mom's mother met me at the train station, and we headed off to her home. Even in that first car ride, I got to see a fair amount of Lyon as we went from downtown to the suburbs, crossing both the Rhône and the Saône rivers.

This is the Rhône, one of the two rivers that runs through Lyon. When the rivers were the primary mode of transport, this river would constantly been very busy. Now, with the trains having taken over, the only traffic on the river was tourist sight-seeing boats. Other boats, like the little barges you see in the photo, have been transformed into cafés with tables both on the stationary boat and on land right next to it.

In general, our days passed in this manner. In the morning, after leisurely breakfast, we would go out and run errands. We went grocery shopping, went to the apple store, went to the super fancy butcher's shop, went to the market, ect. It was actually really fun doing the errands because I got to see the city and just hang out with my host grandma. She really treated me like a grandkid. We would come back for lunch, and then in the afternoons, we would head out to do touristy things. Once we got back, after a quick snack, I would go swimming in the apartment complex's pool. Then it was time for dinner, then the news, and then a movie or show on TV. We watched a documentary about the Age of Reason, an American movie called "An Unfinished Life," and I watched the Italy-Germany soccer game.

So, the first afternoon, we did the more modern Lyon, the part in between the two rivers, called the Presqu'île(almost island,) on foot. My host grandma knew all about a lot of the buildings and who the artists were and the symbols, so she gave me a guided tour, which was super interesting. I learned so much more than I could have had I just gone wandering on my own. 

This is the "Hotel de Ville"(City hall) of Lyon.

The next day, we wandered through the old Lyon. Lyon was a city even before the age of the Romans, so there were some really interesting things to see.

This is a clock in one of the cathedrals we visited. It dates as far back as 1383 and still gives the right hour today, although the mechanisms have been repaired over the years. The top clock face in front gives the hour, the day of the month, the month(in roman names), and the position of Lyon in relation to the constellations. The bottom clock face in front is currently programmed until 2019 and gives the dates of the national holidays(the roman holidays.) The clock face on the right side counts from 1-60 and gives the minute. Every hour, the clock chimes and the figurines at the top move, with a rooster crowing, an angel coming to announce to Mary that she will give birth to the savior, and some other actions. We went to the cathedral the first time on Tuesday, and after a week of trying, we finally made it to watch it chime on Saturday afternoon.

One of the coolest things in the old Lyon were the traboules. These were passages built through building that allowed pedestrians to go from one street to another in going right "through" the building. Back in the old days, it allowed people to get to the river to get water to bring home quicker than if they had to go around a lot of the buildings instead of through. I liked to think of them as "freeways for pedestrians." The people living in the apartments now have allowed the traboules to remain open to the public as a historical monument, so we had to be quiet. But I could imagine, in the days when everyone was using them, those must have been very noisy passages.

The door leading into a very long traboule.

Inside a traboule. There were doors and staircases leading to apartments all along the traboule.

Another afternoon was devoted to visiting the basilique of Fourvière, which sits on a high hill and looks over Lyon. 

Here's a view of the basilisque de Fourvière from just above the river. The church looks over the city, just like Notre Dame de la Garde in Marseilles.

This is the view from the basilisque de Fourvière. You could see the whole city of Lyon, including both of the rivers. It was really funny for me because we were there at the same time as a tour of little English ladies. They were all taking photos together and listening to the guide, making commentaries on the French people in their cute English accents. I loved being able to listen to all of them without them knowing I understood.

Here's the view of Lyon from up high. The first river is the Saône, and the one in the background(you can tell by the line of green bushes) is the Rhône. The space in between is called the Presqu'île, or the "almost island." The runny redish tower you can see in the background is nicknamed "le crayon" because it looks a bit like a pencil.

We also went to see some of the murals in the city.

This is one of the biggest murals in the city. On a fair number of once ugly and plain walls, the city painted murals to brighten up the city. This one shows a lot of different famous icons of Lyon all together, as if they all lived at the same time and really could have chatted together as one went out to do his shopping and another came in from a day of work.

These are the "frères lumières" who invented the movies.

Paul Bocuse is the chef in the doorway, a famous Lyonnais with restaurants all over the world.

One afternoon, we drove through parts of the Beaujolais. The Beaujolais is an area that spans a section of two of France's regions: Rhône-Alpes(which Lyon is in) and Bourgogne. It was really beautiful, and really peaceful to drive along the roads and through the calm villages. The southern part of the Beaujolais is called the 'Pierres Dorées' which means golden stones. It is because many of the houses and even entire villages were built completely out of these yellow bricks, the 'golden stones.' Apparently, you can only find the yellow bricks in this area.

This was wine country but not on a large scale. It was lots of little plots of vineyards, rather than the huge, sweeping vineyards you would find a bit further north in the region of Bourgogne, or near Bordeaux.

The villages in the Pierres Dorées were really calm, since they were nestled in the middle of the countryside. But, there were still some fun signs of life. In one little village, there was a tiny market with just three stands: 2 cheese stands and a produce stand. Since these were the direct farmers, the prices were super cheap. We bought amazing cherries, raspberries, and  peaches for so much less than if we had gotten them at one of the big markets in Lyon.

In the Pierres Dorées(Golden Stones) section of the Beaujolais, entire villages, including the churches and even the castles were all built out of the golden bricks.

We went to visit several medieval castles while in the Beaujolais. The majority had been bought by rich English businessmen and turned into luxury hotels. We weren't even allowed to come inside the outer wall of one of the hotels. But in others, we could walk through the garden and admire the plants.

This is a "jardin à la française," a garden in one of the three medieval castles we visited in the Beaujolais. The garden was a group of footpaths that all came together at the statue behind me, as well as a few that went around the perimeter. The paths were lined with little bushes and flowers. The tall bushed, carved into shapes, are called topiaires and were all over the garden.

And finally, you know it comes up in every post: food. I got a few special treats while in Lyon.

A "choco framboise" from the local bakery. It was a thin layer of light and fluffy spongecake, topped with a layer of raspberry filling, topped with a bunch of chocolate mousse, completely covered with a thin chocolate ganache, and garnished with a raspberyy and 3 mini raspberry macaron halves. It was definitely a special treat.

Praline brioche, a specialty in Lyon. During the week, we tried them from 2 different bakeries, and this one was the winner. The brioche was light and fluffy and the nuts were yummy and sugared and spread throughout. I might try to bake this once I get home.

So, that's it. I think this will be my final post before heading back toward America. For anyone wondering how the journey homeward is planned:
I meet up with the other AFSers in my region on Saturday morning at the train station. We take the train to Paris together, where we will be met by AFS volunteers and driven to the hotel where we will spend the night with the 300+ other kids all heading home. We will do debriefing activities in the afternoon, hang out and party at night, then head to the airport Sunday morning to catch our flights. I hope you all have enjoyed reading my blog throughout the year, and I'll be sure to post an update once I touch down in the U.S.A.