more adventures in lyon :)

After a long weekend of housesitting and dog sitting, I went home only to grab my things and head to the home of another missionary family to babysit for a night and a day. I had though that the house I’d been sitting at was kind of out in the middle of nowhere, but I was wrong. THIS was in the middle of nowhere, we must have passed at like 10 cornfields to get to this tiny little town called Tramoyes, there was only one drugstore/post and one restaurant – and that was basically it.

first attempt at crêpes :) success! :D 

tramoyes (pronounced trah-mwa)

the little church in tramoyes

i wouldn't mind living here :P

During the day, the two girls, that I was babysitting, and I went for a walk by the fields and the cemetery out in the countryside. The pictures don’t do it justice, but it was beautiful out there! Definitely a nice relaxing part of the day…

out in the countryside

there used to be fields of sunflowers here!

pretty huh??

by the little cemetery

country cemetery

The next day, I was going to get money out of my Bank of America account and realized that I had forgotten the PIN number. I’ve been using my two French cards for the last two weeks, so I completely blanked on this one! So, I tried calling the customer service on my computer at university, but the call kept dropping and when I did manage to get through, they transferred me twice… But thankfully, a couple days later, after my mom searched through my many, many boxes for the letter they’d sent with the PIN and even going into the bank to ask, I was able to call and get through for them to send me a new PIN! Phew! (Thanks mom!! <3)

more 3€ lunches at uni :P

andd another

I was only able to call because the missionaries, whom I’d housesat for the weekend before, invited me and another girl from Atlanta over for dinner. It was really fun and filled with good conversation, and the food was delicious! After dinner, I called my mom for a couple minutes, Bank of America for a few minutes, and then ran out the door so that one of the missionaries could drive me to the bus stop where, as soon as we got there, the bus arrived! There were only two buses left that night, and the next one was in an hour and a half! So thankfully, I made it just in time!

aftermath of my haircut!

On one of the other nights, one of the girls I’d met at the American student reception last week asked me to go try a bouchon (typical Lyonnais restaurant) with her since she’d never tried one. So, she, one of my other friends, and I went to a bouchon that my roommate had suggested, called Le Caveau. It was pretty good!! But when it came time for dessert, I decided to try something that I had never ordered before, and it turned out to be…not so dessert-y. It was a cheese dip kind of thing that was pretty potent, with onions, garlics, vinegar, herbs, etc. Needless to say, I didn’t eat any of it, except for the first taste that I’d gotten. But at least I know what it is now!! :P

salade lyonnaise..yumm my favorite :D

quenelle

cervelle de canut blehh

crême brulée - now THIS is dessert! yumm

le caveau - the restaurant we ate at :)

pretty fountains near the restaurant

After dinner, we met up with some of our other friends in Vieux Lyon and went to a couple pubs, which was fun, and then ended up biking home. At one of the pubs, which was an English pub, some guy walked by and asked if we were American. When I said yeah, I’m from Seattle. He went ughh.. said he was from Chicago, and then walked off.. Is there some kind of dislike towards Seattle that I don’t know about???

the pub with friends :)

late night snack - pretty much one of the only places to get food to eat late at night

sandwiches with fries IN it!

Because we didn’t have any plans, some friends and I ended up going to Croix Rousse, which is a hill that is supposed to be the artsy district of Lyon. It was pretty rainy, but we ended up walking around for a bit. I thought it was cool and definitely want to go back to explore! But my friends weren’t so impressed haha. I’m definitely coming back to walk around though!

some kind of a little festival going on with lots of balloon thingys

balloon with a dragon hanging on it?

the weather didn't look that great, but there were still a ton of people out

little kites and this super cute little girl :P

jugglers

scary people on stilts

camels!

this guy and another guy were spray-painting a painting of the square where we were 

I love getting lost in some new place, finding new things and just wandering around, especially when the architecture and the history is as amazing as it is here in Lyon! I’m definitely so lucky to be here! I love history and just the thought that people from hundreds of years ago made some of the buildings and architecture that still exist today makes me so excited and just in awe! It’s pretty incredible. Anyway, enough of my nerdiness! I’ll just have to do my wandering and blog about it another day :) bisous! xx

little amusement park in croix rousse - it was entertaining watching the people on the rides

these condom machines are everywhere...a little weird..

a little park area in croix rousse

view from croix rousse 

lunch

view of fourviere from croix rousse

cute street that leads down to the city center :)

another old amphitheatre :D

some random little band that was dressed up in costumes

a pretty little cathedral :)

free drinks and appetizers at an international student aperitif

with the president of the university! :)

the super tiny cake for the surprise party for my friends 21st :) 

celebrating our friends 21st! :D 

Anyong! :P (This is for you, Ge)

Well, my first post in Seoul! So far it's been pretty fun here, it kinda reminds me of China, but I can't speak the language, people smoke way more, people are a little nicer, quieter, maybe more polite?, and it's cleaner. :P I flew into Seoul on the 25th around 4pm? then had to wait for the rest of my class to get here.

But I'm glad I didn't have to wait long for them! Because before Sunday morning, my ticket had been for arrival on the 24th because I had thought that my class was arriving on that day, only to discover Saturday night, the night before my dad left, that they were leaving on the 24th. So after much stress and confusion (and more money =\), my dad finally rebooked my ticket. Thankfully everything worked out okay.

So after meeting up with the rest of my class, we all boarded our bus to the place we're staying at. It was quite an..interesting ride... I'm pretty sure we were driving on the median because it was a bumpy road, like every two seconds, there was a bump. Then, our bus driver accidentally hit another car, which made our journey even longer! And I hadn't eaten for a good eight hours so it was kind of bad luck... But finally we got to our place and after settling in, we all headed out to get food, phone cards, and water.

It's been pretty much a week since I got to Seoul, so this post is kind of a long time coming.. There's just been so much to do that it's hard to sit down and just post about it all. I've been to the club once (I'm legal here! :P), but it was only on the second try that I actually got a chance to go. The first time, most of my class and I ended up walking for about 4 hours with most of us in heels trying to find a club, only to find that it was empty. So we went home. But the second time we finally found a club after about 10 minutes of walking. Clubbing in Korea is definitely a different experience, but it was fun nonetheless.

I've also been to the noraebang (karaoke) twice! :P Both times was with my professor and some of the group so it was a lot of fun, especially because my professor raps for us because she's the only that can read Korean fast (she's an older woman :P).

Yesterday, we went to the Korean spa which was realllly nice! A couple of us got full body scrubs which was kind of weird because everybody is walking around without clothes on (even smoking...), but it was worth it! After the scrub, the bed I was lying on had sooo much dirt, it was nice to see that it was all gone (probably not for long :( ). Also, they had sauna rooms with different temperatures for each one. The hottest one they had was about 92 degrees CELSIUS! That's almost 200 degrees Fahrenheit! The moment I went inside, I was sweating like crazy! After spending about 5 minutes inside, I had to run to the igloo, which was pretty much a freezer :P Overall, the spa was soo relaxing and nice.

I feel like I've done a lot of playing here and not a whole lot of studying....but in terms of studying, we got to go visit a pharmaceutical company, tour a hospital (a realllly nice one!).

Well, that's all for now...pictures!!! :P

The whole group! :P

An amusement park we went to :)

A bboy performance we went to

Waiting in line for a roller coaster! (77 degree inclination!!) :P

Have to have an Asian picture! :P Until next time! (hopefully soon..)