We rented three pedalboats. That one had a slide.
Beach time, Annecy.
The latest incarnation of the homemade sauce.
Fricassée!
It turns out that Annecy is really awesome. It is like Lyon, but much smaller and prettier and surrounded by mountains. I ate a lot of good food—much of which I’ve already posted pictures of—saw a lot of pretty scenery, and went on a long bike ride on Saturday.
Lake Annecy is huge, and very very clean. The water is always very deep blue and you can almost always see straight to the bottom of it. Collin and I rode bikes to the end of it from Annecy, which took us about an hour.
Saturday night I had what was easily the best meal I’ve had here. It was a group dinner with the UVa program and we went to this random restauraunt. I got some sort of Fricassée, which was sort of like cheesy soup with chicken in it, and which changed my world.
Today, we rented pedal boats with a big group of people. We rode them out to the middle of the lake and went swimming. One had a slide off the back of it, which was fun.
Both Friday afternoon and today we played some soccer in the park by the lake. We also met a guy from UVa who just happened to be in Annecy staying at the same hotel as us. He played soccer with us, which was fun. Friday, we palyed with some French guys we met there.
Speaking of sports, I’ve become a huge fan of a french sport called Pétanque which is sort of like Bocce ball but played on gravel with metal balls. I might go to try and buy some balls for that tomorrow afternoon. I also want a book about wine. Those will be my first purchases in France that are not food or drink. I’ll put up some more photos of the weekend tomorrow as well!
Where have I been?
Here, in Lyon, I suppose. I don’t even really know myself. Suddenly, I’ve turned in and gotten back two tests, finished a semester’s worth of French class, and done my laundry twice. How did that all happen so fast? I don’t know. I’m sorry I haven’t updated my blog in forever.
A lot has happened besides class, though. Megan and her cousin Charlotte were here visiting. I had a lot of fun hanging out with them. We made sandwiches and ate them on the Rhone, made a nice dinner of vegetables and pasta, played pitanque, and then we went to a really fun dance party.
I was thinking about going to Switzerland this past weekend. I ordered a Eurail pass and Katie ordered one too. She ordered hers before mine and it was supposed to come on Friday. Mine was supposed to come on Monday. For whatever reason, the opposite happened. So, Collin and Ben left Friday morining and went to Lucerne, but I stayed here, planning on leaving when my pass came. When Katie’s pass didn’t come we just ended up hanging out here.
That was alright though, because it was an awesome weekend in Lyon. Friday night, I went out with Yidell. We met these people in the street. The group brought us to this bar and one guy—who was probably about 25 and totally amazed we were American—ended up buying rounds of shots called Mouthwash for us and him until we were like “Please, we’re ok, but thank you! Please, no more!” He had a bit too much, though, and ended up vomiting on Yidell’s sock outside the bar. I thought that was funnier than Yidell did. We then had to walk him back to his group of Friends, whom he had lost.
Then, we met these other people in the street and they took us to this one place by the Rhone where there were a million people hanging out all night. We probably hung out there for two hours or so just trying to speak French with people and talking about the differences between the US and France.
As we were walking home at 6:30 a.m, Yidell asked these guys on the side of the street for a cigarette and they insisted on taking us to a dance club. About two blocks away they walked up to this nondescript door with a bouncer, said a few words, and they guy opened the door to a crazy dance party going on. We stayed for about half an hour. When we left it was completely bright outside and the party inside was still going strong. That was bizarre.
The night was great mostly because we got to know and talk to so many French people. They are always interesting and intelligent (perhaps with the exception of guy #1 who wouldn’t stop buying shots) and it is great to practice French and meet people who are different from ourselves.
Our one new friend, Nick, invited us to come hang out with him Friday, but we can’t because our group is going to Annecy on Friday morning. Collin and I are talking about renting a tandem bike for a day there, which would be hillarious and great.
Saturday night was the 4th of July, but was uneventful here.
And since then I’ve been taking it easy and doing plenty of homework. I have also been working on perfecting the pasta sauce made of vegetables that I made first with Megan and Charlotte. The addition of garlic was a big step.
