week 2 of my vacation

Time flies when you’re having fun. So I went to Lyon and to Cannes this past week. I’ll start with Lyon. I left Tuesday morning and met up with Estelle (French), Laura (Spanish), and Hyun-Mi(Korean) in Aix en Provence. We took the train to Lyon. This is where the addiction to sudoku starts. Estelle and I bought sudoku books… they are kinda like crossword puzzles, but with numbers and all the columns, rows and squares can only have the numbers once. We accidentally bought the most difficult one and so I started with the hard ones…. More on this subject later…just know that after a 2 hour train ride, I hadn’t even finished one. We got to Lyon, ate lunch and then we met up with Natacha at her house. We made the schedule for the week, took a tour of the area around where she grew up and made a trip to the grocery store. Then we came back, ate and did sudoku.

We went to bed and got up early to start our tour of Lyon. Lyon is tied for second biggest city (with Marseille) in France. However, Lyon is far more advanced that Marseille. They have nice metros, escalators and it’s a really clean city. We went to some churches, went to the medieval quarter, and ate lunch. And just so you all know…it was stinkin COLD in Lyon. Where Marseille was 12 degrees, Lyon was 6….ugh. (Celsius) then we went to the art museum and Natacha and I had a great time taking pictures of all the paintings. Haha. Then it was pretty late so we headed back to her place to eat and do more sudoku. And finally I finished one... then another and then another….so I was on a roll.

Again we got up early on Thursday and went touring around. We saw some good views, a big rock and then we went to the history museum of the resistance/holocaust. We spend almost the entire afternoon there and then we came back to eat dinner. Then we headed back out. We went to an Australian bar and I drank my first entire beer. It was alright. Not terrible, not wonderful. Then we went to a Spanish bar and danced the night away. Got home at 2am…woke up at 6:30 because we had an early train.

So Lyon was good. I think it has a lot of potential during the summer and spring months. I think it is probably prettier and personally I like the weather better in Marseille than in Lyon… so maybe ill go back when it’s warmer.

I got back to Marseille around 11am and just hung out and took a long nap since I was really tired. Then we went to the grocery store. Then we had a slumber party in the family room (my room) and woke up at like 11:30 on sat. I took a shower and packed, and left for Cannes. I went with Ruth Lise and Olivier and we were going to see David. It’s only like 1 and a half hours from Marseille. So we got there then we got David out of his apartment and took a walk along the beach. It was nice weather! Then we went back, ate dinner and watched a movie. I had some frustrating moments in regards to my French speaking ability. I am at the point where I understand like 99% of everything and I can say what I want, but I can’t listen and form my thoughts and opinions at the same time. So I talked to Ruth Lise before bed for like 2 hours and it was nice to be able to talk to her. Then we went to bed.

Sunday morning we went to church and then we took a hike. It was so beautiful. We had lunch outside in the sun. NO COAT!!! Just a sweater! Then we hiked all afternoon. It was so much fun. I really enjoy the company of those 3 people. After awhile, we went and had a hot chocolate on the beach. Fun times. Then Ruth Lise, Olivier and I came back to Marseille. I start working again Tuesday.

So my 2 week vacation was great. Ups and downs. I really just want to speak French like I speak English. I just know it takes time. And after 5 months, I am doing well. So I just need to work on having profound conversations with more than 1 person…

But I hope you enjoy the pictures! This week we are cooking dinner for our bible study Tuesday night (tacos!) and then who knows what this week holds!