bonjour 2012!

First of all, Happy New Year/Bonne Année!! :D 

This last month has been insane, which is why I haven't posted in almost a month ah!! But now that I have a bit of free time, I guess I should start up my blog again. 

Since I last updated, I've...

...explored Lyon and the famous Festival of Lights/Fêtes des Lumières (8-11 December) 

...took some exams (12-22 December)

...had a lovely Christmas visit from my parents (21-25 December in Lyon and 25-30 December in Paris!)

...got my visa so that I am legally allowed to stay in France for the year! :P (22 December)

...had a wonderful New Year's with my friend, guyanné, and her lovely family in London (30 December - 2 January)

...took MORE exams! (silly French... 3-5 January)

...moved to Paris! (5 January)

and now.. I'm in the midst of the Welcome Programme for my new school, Sciences Po Paris! Phew! It's been a crazy month, but I'm really excited to see what's next! Well, what's next is actually that I need to find an apartment! But my lovely friend, Bianca, is doing an internship here in Paris and letting me stay with her in the meantime! 

And next week, my aunt will be coming to visit for a couple days, which I'm super excited for! :) Although I'm still trying to guess if she's coming for me or for the massive Parisien winter sales/des soldes ;)

This blog post will be dedicated to my pictures from the Festival of Lights aka Fêtes des Lumières. Since I'm feeling super lazy and not in the mood to edit any pictures (though some of them were edited last month...). Nonetheless, here are my pictures, ready to enjoy :P 

For this festival, which pays tribute to the Virgin Mary for sparing the city from the plague, which you can read more about on wikipedia ;) Anyway, this year, there were more than 70 light/artistic/random exhibitions, and from what I counted, I think I went to more than half of all of them :D It was a ton of fun just walking around and seeing all the different light exhibitions.


I can't believe that it's been almost five months since i left seattle! and now i'm about to start the second part of my time in France in Paris! I've had the most amazing time in Lyon and met so many wonderful friends. I already miss it so much! But I'm sure that Paris will be an awesome experience as well :) Ciao for now! 

Profitez bien! 

the auditorium of lyon where the national orchestra of lyon plays

the little christmas tree in my apt :)

up on fourvière where there were a ton of people waiting to see the lights!

place bellecour from above

everyone waiting to get on an extremely small TWO car cable car.. i ended up walking down the hill...

walking down with the rest of the crowd

kebab from the street vendor! yummm

the front of the elephant on a screen

anddd the back..

the lame fireworks... it was like one every two minutes.

the crowd waiting to get into city hall/hôtel de ville!

with marcus, lizzie, and guyanné in the courtyard of city hall :)

my university building on the quai of the Rhône

the christmas market

sunday tradition of sausages and bread by the market on the quai with guyanné :)

newer part of the tradition: flan! yummyy - they remind me of portuguese egg tarts!

ice skating time!

with lizzie, guyanné, and bogi at the ice skating rink :)

more friends while ice skating! yay!

pinball on the theatre! :D

'don't go to ikea, everything is going to be the same' hahaha

'don't think, everything is going to be a dream'

my favorite exhibition :)

ahhh! cute penguin from my advent calendar :D

crème brûlée! yummm

miss this city already <3