There and Back Again, by Natalie Baily

Today was the second day of classes. The French guy wasn't nearly as bad today. He went slower and was easier to understand. He seems like a nice enough guy.

Then went to Holmes's class. We had 3 hours of it today with a one hour lunch break. It was kinda tough to sit through. Thankfully he's a good teacher.

Last night I actually cooked! I was so proud of myself. Granted, all I did was cook some pasta and heat up some sauce, but still! Oh! And I cut up some mushrooms, which were really big and pretty. I swear, the produce here is amazing. All the fresh fruit and vegetables... I'm in heaven. (FYI: Yes, I know mushrooms aren't fruits or veggies.)

Anyways, I decided to take pictures during my 20 min walk to school so I could document the area. Enjoy!

This is a window on the stairs I walk down every morning. I know it seems silly that I would take a picture of this, but I just always make a point looking out of it because it looks neat. I dunno... lol.

Me listening to Gaga on my way to school and drinking a Coke to try and get over my coffee addiction. It's so hard to find regular coffee in France. All they drink is espresso. If you're lucky you can get a cappuccino. So instead of trying to decipher the French on the coffee bags in the grocery (we do have a coffee maker) or suffering the espresso, I'm weaning myself off it coffee with coke. 

Oh! And another thing, for those who know me - I can't find any straws. I'm pretty much freaking out. So much teeth whitening to be done when I return to the US.

The view from inside of the doorway.

There's a little park by our apartment. And a street. 

There are sooooo many wedding dress places around here. It's weird...

There are a bunch of these type of clothing stores as well. This is how we confirmed we were in an Arab area.

One of the streets I walk down.

More of the Arab type garb.

I turn left up ahead to turn onto the street where the school is. That's the bridge to cross the Rhone.

A small park by the bridge. Usually there are bums lying about, but none today!

My last class of the day.

This is a pretty little park right to the right of the law school (when you're facing it).

From here on out, these are pictures from my way home. lol.

It was a LOTR poster. I couldn't pass it up. However, I have NO idea what it's about. haha.

There's a pastry shop on the corner right by our apartment that apparently has gorgeous pastries. I haven't been in yet. 

My laundry mat! I swear, it took me FOREVER to figure out how to work it. But I was determined to do it on my own and I did without even messing up! :D

And finally, back at my lovely door. lol.

Hope you enjoyed my journey. Now I'm off to help my roommate, Michelle, do splits. She saw me doing mine the other night and now she's working on getting hers. It's fun! :) 

First day of class.

Today I had my first day of classes in Lyon.

I walked with my roommates to school around 8:15 am. The school provided us free breakfast which was awesome. Again, I am a slave to free food. Then I waited around for my class at 9:45 am. Sat with some classmates and caught up.

In my first class, my teacher spoke with a very heavy french accent and he admitted to us that he hadn't spoken english in over a year so it was a bit rough. He was talking about economic stuff that most of us had no clue about. I don't think he understood his audience very well. I think he expected us to have a more substantial background in the material than we did. The class was Comparative Competition and we went over stuff in some EU treaty. Oh well. I'll make it through. It's only for a month.

I had another hour break (charged my laptop since they don't have plugs in the rooms) and then went to my next class which was Comparative Sales. It was better because the teacher is actually from LSU Law. This class I will be taking throughout my entire time in Lyon because it's a 3 hour credit course. It should be good.

After school I walked home by myself. I listened to Lady Gaga to make the walk more pleasant. I hardly noticed the Arab creepers staring. lol. I tried to walk straight ahead, no eye contact, with a harsh expression on my face. It seemed to work. haha.

We only have one key to the apartment so we always have to let each other know when we are coming back to the apartment, etc. It kinda stinks because we can't call each other or anything so we have to have a very strict schedule of when we're going to be at the apartment and such. I foresee it being quite a challenge. lol.

Last night my roommates and I cooked eggs, tomatoes, squash, with a side of bread. It was actually quite satisfying. After eating tons of McDonalds, I'm enjoying the healthier side of food. Unfortunately, we didn't realize the stove covers were on... We were wondering why it was taking the pans so long to heat up. lol! We figured that the stove just looked different because we were in France. We later found out that we had just cooked with the stove covers. Oops! At least no damage was done.

And now I close my blog with a pic of one of my fav beverages in France. It turns out that if you buy one of these suckers in a restaurant, you pay 5 euros!! But it's only 1 euro in stores. Cah-razy! Wine is actually cheaper in restaurants. Oh, and there's soooo much fresh fruit on the streets and it's all delicious. Anyways, I know that was random so I'll just go now. Ta-ta!

From Lyon

Currently sitting at my small breakfast table in my apartment in Lyon with my two lovely roommates. I love my guy friends but I LOVE being with girls again. Boys are just a different creature. Well, straight ones are. I could probably handle hanging out with gay guys for a long time with no problems. But I digress...

Here are a couple of pics from the other night and morning from Paris. I plan on going back later.

At midnight

The guys and me.

The back of the Paris Opera house. I like to think it was on one of those angels that the Phantom sang on. :P

The front. Being worked on. Ugh.

En route to Lyon. The lovely french countryside. 

Here in Lyon, my apartment is in what we lovingly call "Turkey". We are surrounded by Arabs. We're pretty sure no one else in law school lives in our area. lol. Oh well. There haven't been any issues. They seem pretty nice. However, we don't see many women around. We figure they aren't allowed out very much. All the clothing shops directly around our house sell Arab type clothing it's weird. Oh! Here are some pics of my little apartment:

My bed. It has my somewhat damp clothes laid out on it because the dryer downstairs doesn't dry that well. But it's not too bad.

That's basically it. Not much to it. We're on the 3rd floor. The building was built in the 1940s. It's cool.

This afternoon around 2 (7am US time) we had orientation. Got to see everyone else who is in the Lyon program. It was neat catching up with everyone. Apparently the school that is hosting us is fixing us breakfast tomorrow. :D I love free food!! And then classes are all pushed back a little so we can eat, get books, find our classes, etc. We live about 15 minutes walking from the school. Not bad at all. 

Orientation. Got free drinks and pastries. Yum!

After the orientation we were taken on a walking tour. It was neat. Here are a couple of the highlights.

The Rhone

Swans! (Reminded me of DWR. :D )

Museum of Medieval Medicine

Louis XIV statue. This is in the biggest pedestrian square in Europe.

Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Lyon

This is the Roman section that was built first. Because it takes quit a while to build church of such magnitude, it started out with the typical Roman arches and such and then turned out (see above picture) with very Gothic architecture. I thought that was neat.

The cathedral was on "The Hill of Praise". There are two hills in Lyon: one is the "Hill of Work", where factories are, and the other is the "Hill of Praise", where a bunch of churches are. This is the most notable one. Unfortunately a lot of the statues are either missing or mutilated due to the Protestant Reformation. Then the Revolution ruined what wasn't ruined by the Protestants. :/

Going to go do some reading for class tomorrow. Goodnight!

The Louvre

Currently drinking some red wine in the glorious city of Paris. The weather is beautiful. We just got back from Lyon. We met up with 2 other guys from law school before we headed over. It wasn't that long of a walk. The Paris Opera house was just a little ways down but we were tired so we're going to go there tomorrow. We're planning on drinking wine at the top of the Eiffel Tower if possible later tonight. At least we're definitely going. Here are some note-worthy things from earl.

David and Elliot. David is letting us stay in his lovely apartment for the night.

The front of the Louvre.

Venus de Milo

         The Nike of Samothrace (Winged Victory)

The Mona Lisa

King Louis XIV's bedchamber. This is the cove where his bed went.

Elliot high-fiving a statue.

          The upside down pyramid of the Louvre.

And of course there is an Apple store right next to the pyramid. Haha!

Some guys just started playing music right outside playing music on the street. Love it! Vive la France!

Lack of internet = lack of blogging.

Just got into Paris. Sitting in David's, one of my law school friends, apartment. It's really nice. Let me update you on the past few days.

First, it turns out that one of the wheels are broken on the suitcase I have. So I've been DRAGGING around over 50lbs of luggage. Woohoo!

Anyways, back to my first day, later we went and saw the houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey. Oh, and Piccadilly Circus. It's kinda like New York's Times Square. They had a bunch of Broadway shows around there, too. Definitely not a big as Times Square, but neat.

It was really nasty. Extremely cold and rainy.

For the next two days the weather was absolutely amazing. So sunny and pretty. And not hot at all. Perfect weather.

The next day we went to the changing of the guard. Most of it went on behind the gates so there wasn't much to see. But because it was the anniversary of the Queen's coronation (She took the coronation oath on 2 June, 1953.), they had a huge band, a lot more guards and horses. It was neat. And she was also actually in the palace when we were there.

Then we went to see Les Miserables where it originated. It was really good. I had never seen it before and I loved it. Elliot said it was musically the best musical he's seen.

The next day we went to some thing called "London Dungeon" that was kinda like an elaborate haunted house, but it also gave you some history (which I liked), that had Jack the Ripper, Sweeney Todd, the London fire, the plague, etc in there. It was pretty neat. It even had a small ride.

Later we went to the Globe theater, both the original that no longer exists and the new one that has shows and whatnot. It was kinda neat.

Then we we the the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone!! It was neat. Couldn't get a great picture of it because it kept showing my reflection, but then I embraced it and made it my profile picture on facebook.

Then we went back to the Tower of London so I could get better pics (I'm basically in love with that place) since I figured out I could do panorama shots with my camera! I also took one of the Tower Bridge for Elliot.

The Tower of London

My best panorama pic! The Tower Bridge!

"Stop telephonin' meh eh eh eh..."

Ok. That's about it for now. Waiting on other law people to show up so we can go out and about. :)

Tower of London

Before I begin, I should make a slight disclaimer: Some of these blog posts are posted in a hurry so please forgive any grammar errors, inconsistencies, etc. :)

Ok. I finally have some time to give a more in depth account of what happened since I left the United States.

The plane ride wasn’t too bad. I tried to sleep but of course it isn’t exactly easy to get comfortable in those seats. I may have gotten 30 minutes total. That coupled with the 4 hours from the night before (Time is getting kinda fuzzy right now, such as when should I take my medication now since I used to take it at night… should I take it in the morning? Afternoon?), I didn’t have much sleep by the time I woke up in England. I was tired, buy my excitement kept me going.

As with most of England, there are only minor differences. I noticed these the moment I stepped into the airport. I couldn’t even explain some of them to you – it’s like they just do something a little difference with almost everything. (Btw, all their movie posters are soooo cheesy. They would be laughed at in the US.) Finally I made my way to the place where I had to show the man my passport (Customs, right?) and he started asking me all these questions. Well, considering my lack of sleep and truly have no idea what I was going to be doing (Elliot is my navigator/planner), I sounded like an idiot. I just knew he wasn’t going to let me out of the airport with the way I was answering questions. But obviously he did. Haha.

Note to all of those who plan on traveling in Europe: Pack EXTREMELY light. I didn’t realize how burdensome it would be. I figured that since we were just going straight to the hostel there wouldn’t be an issue with my rather large suitcase, but noooo. Having to pull it up several flights of stairs, trying to find places to stick it when riding on trains… Boy, it was not fun at all. Elliot took pity on my from time to time and helped out a bit. But being the independent soul that I am, I refused for the most part.

Oh, and guess what. My room in the hostel is on the 4th floor… I had to haul my oversized suitcase up 4 flights of stairs. Not cool. Not cool at all.

Anyways, it turned out that the temperature was 50 degrees here in London once we got off the plane. I figured it would be awful (especially considering the fact that I was wearing shorts…), but it was actually rather nice. Nothing like 50 degrees in Louisiana. I would have actually been quite fine in my shorts, but of course Mother Nature thought that would just be too easy. So, it began to rain… and I forgot my rain jacket and my umbrella in the room because I’m smart like that. My entire trip to the Tower of London was rather unpleasant, at least weather-wise.

Speaking of which, my first exciting site to see in London was the Tower of London. OMG! I freaked out! This place where Anne Boleyn was executed and buried! I was beyond excited. Here are some of the pictures:

This is the remains of the old, medieval gate tower that once gave access to the City of London. It is the only known surviving example of a large medieval gate town within the City walls.

A replica of what they believe the bedchamber of Edward I looked like.

There was a lot of graffiti like this all over the Salt Tower, which was a tower where they kept prisoners. This guy was tortured for a while before he was hung, drawn, and quartered.

 Me. With a crossbow.

Where Anne Boleyn is buried!

Outside the Tower of London

And my room in the hostel.

That's it for more. Got a lot more pictures and went more places today, but time to sleep! Goodnight! :)

London

So, apparently wireless internet is not something used much in London. Bugger.

Went to see the Tower of London earlier today. Will post pictures later. It was just wonderful!

The weather is awful: Rainy, cold, and dark. Blah.

Oh, and the food is pretty bad. Elliot and I plan on eating McDonalds for the rest of our stay in London. Just bland and awkward. Not good at all.

I love all the British people though. It's like movie - seeing all these British people talking. I mean, I've been around British people before, but not this many. And the subtle differences between here and the US is really neat. Like the cars are a bit different, the clothing is a bit different, etc.

Hopefully the weather will get a little nicer. Not expecting it to be sunny or anything (it is London), but at least hoping there won't be rain.

Ok. That's it for right now. Piccadilly Circus is our next place of visit. Ta-ta!