christina and i decided to take advantage of this extra day off and quickly planned a trip to grenoble. we had already planned to go to annecy on saturday, so we needed a city close by. we decided we would couchsurf because it made more sense to stay in grenoble and head to annecy from there, then to come all the way back to lyon and head out again. so as soon as i got home i made a couchsurfing account and started sending out requests. as soon as we had at least one yes, we bought our tickets!
so friday morning we woke up bright and early to catch our train at 7:45. which meant we were in grenoble by 9:30 and had a whole day to explore. we began by stopping by our couchsurfer's appartment, which was super easy to find since it was so close to the tram stop. our original couchsurfing contact wouldn't be there till evening because he had work, but he made sure his girlfriend was there so we would have someone to welcome us when we arrived. oh. the apartment we stayed in belonged to two french guys, one syrian guy, one indian guy, and a greek girl (but the greek girl wasn't there that night). so we were greeted by one of the french guy's girlfriends, as well as the syrian guy. after we dropped our stuff off, drank a glass of water, and sat and chatted for a bit, the syrian guy had an hour to kill so he showed us around grenoble a bit. it was cool for me when i was able to recognize things from four years ago!
there were also sheep painted all over town. not entirely sure what that was about, but we took pictures of every one we saw!
when he had to go, christina and i decided to get some lunch before it was time to go up to the bastille.
we went to a pizza place along the river. there were about a million pizza places by the river. you think i'm joking? i'm not. every single place was a pizza place. it was kind of ridiculous. later our hosts said it must be the italian mafia, because of the nice cars in front of these restaurants haha. but who really knows.
next, off to the bastille we went! we took the telepherique up (since it looked like a long hike up, and i hadn't done it last time). not gonna lie, scared me a little since i'm a bit afraid of heights. but it was actually tons of fun!
 |
| la telepherique from the ground. aka "the balls" |
 |
| in one of the balls! we got to the top and went to see the view. honestly, we decided, it kind of felt like we were in heaven. i mean, we could see the entire city, and we were literally above the clouds! it was a beautiful view and i couldn't believe i hadn't seen it before! |
 |
| the building in the bottom left with the dark roof is where we stayed! |
there were even some caves for us to check out.
 |
| this cave was actually dark... though it did have lights on for us to not kill ourselves |
after we felt like we'd seen everything at the top. we headed back down the hill. this time walking. it took us awhile to get down. partly because we would stop and check out the view. partly because we weren't entirely sure which way to go! at one point, we thought if we went in the direction that seemed downhill that would work. boy were we wrong. this sign told us so:
 |
| "passage prohibited to the public" - i guess that means we'll be going uphill a bit first. after a bit longer, and starting to wonder if we were going to end up at the top of the hill and just need to take the telepherique down, we found another sign! |
it told us grenoble was down some stairs! we even saw some people coming up the stairs, so we were able to verify with them that this was, indeed, the direction we wanted to go. what a relief!
eventually we made it down the hill and into town again. we were walking around and passed a jewish resistance museum, so we decided to check it out. look! its almost educational!.. yknow since i never got to class anymore.. maybe that will change starting this week though.
anwyays. we were kind of hungry after our walk, so we we went to a bakery and split a couple desserts!
they were both very good. one with cream like in an eclaire. the other was called pudding. we were curious so we got it. it had a bit of a fruity taste to it! strange. but pretty good :)
next. we headed back to the apartment. our main host still wasn't there, so we just hung out for a bit and rested since we were kind of tired. soon though. our main host (meaning the guy we talked to first) and two of this other roommates showed up!
they were very welcoming. immediately bringing us beers and sitting down to chat with us. we were still waiting for few more to arrive. (at this point we had three of the four roommates who would actually be there). but we were waiting for the fourth roommate to arrive. as well as a german couchsurfer. and two other american couchsurfers. and our main hosts girlfriend.
when the german guy showed up, he said he knew immediately that christina and i were american. not really sure what that means lol. a little bit later the girlfriend showed up again. and even a bit later the other two americans showed up, two girls from kentucky! turns out i knew some of the people one of the girls knew, because she's studying in geneva. small world right? oh and our hosts' spanish friend came over too.
soon after everyone was finally there. we were eleven at this point. two of our hosts prepared a delicious pasta dinner. i forget what its called but it had lardons and cheese in it too.
we sat for a while, chatting, getting to know each other a bit, and the topic came up of where everybody LOOKED like they were from - though we already knew we had six nationalities between us. turns out, christina and i both look and sound VERY american. the other two american girls? apparently look greek and english! haha. and half of the others looked like they were from somewhere else too.
our main guy wanted to know some very american words. we taught him "hella" though explained it is a very northern california word. he loved loved it.
after taking a lovely group picture, we headed out for our evening adventures.
 |
| the guy in the norcal shirt (which christina gave him and he was very excited about) is our main couchsurfer. everyone from left to right: german, spanish, french, indian, french, american, american, american, american, syrian. not pictured is the french girlfriend. |
when we got outside we were trying to figure out what we should do. someone suggested we stick all of our hands in the middle, and before i knew it, we were doing the human knot! which, i might add, we solved ridiculously fast. i was very impressed.
next we headed to a wine bar. where we each got just a taste of two different wines. both were kind of fruity. i forget what they were at this point, but they were pretty good! since it was so crowded there though, we moved on to the next place.
this place had sand on the floor! i felt like i was back in santa cruz at the beach. except the sand didn't have lots of stuff in it.. we stayed here for a while, trying a couple different small drinks. and singing loudly our favorite song "lalalala la la la" .. which at this point i can't entirely remember the rhythm of. but it was a blast. and we even had some random guy come up trying to join us... because our party was just that awesome.
later we went back to the house and hung out some more. we listened to an animaniacs song that lists every country (though is a little out of date) and had a rather good time. we made plans to visit each other again.. but we'll see if that actually happens haha. i mean they also made plans to get up at 5:30 and run. or more realistically have everyone wake up at 8 and eat breakfast because christina and i had to leave at 8:45.. but those plans failed lol.
all in all though i can say i love couchsurfing. i'd never done it before and this group made the experience amazing. and definitely something i would want to do in the future. its cheaper for one. but more than that, it's more fun and interesting! you get to hang out with the locals and learn lots of new things!
You had two hours extra - you should have gone kayaking.
ReplyDelete