le 8 decembre et la fete des lumieres

it's the week before finals, and what are most college students doing? they are studying. reading. cramming. stressing. the works. is that what i am doing? no. is it what i should be doing? yea, probably. but hey, i have been told that if my choices are doing something cultural that i will only experience in france or studying, then i should skip the studying.

so, you might ask, what have i been up to this past week?
well, i have been doing just the opposite of many college students (not including those abroad).. well sort of. i have studied a little bit, and i have stressed a bunch. but mostly. i've been staying out till midnight or later almost every night doing nothing of the sort. and for those of you reading this, i am sure this must sound strange since it might seem totally out of character (me? going out every night when i should be studying? what? what has france done to this girl?!?!). but i promise you, there has been good reason for this lack of studiousness.

monday. as you may have read, i went to geneva. no studying there. but hey, there would be a full week ahead of me to do that.

tuesday. patrick and i finally accepted an invitation to eat at kirstin's house with her host family! it was lots of fun with soup, canelles (a typical lyonnais specialty), some salad (not normal, but i forget what kind), cheese, and of course some dessert (some orange cakey thing that was very good). it was a lovely evening and because kirstin lives in the center of town, we got to see a sneak peak into what the rest of the week was going to look like.

you might be asking, what am i talking about? well. this week was le 8 decembre and la fete des lumieres. really the 8th is a religious holiday about thanking the virgin mary for saving lyon from the plague back in the olden days. each year people place candles in their windows, and there is a procession up the hill to fourviere, which is lit up with different colors. the rest of the week is more for the tourists, and this entire city lit up.

if it is possible to be in love with a city, that is how i feel about this one. i am SO glad i decided to extend, because i honestly couldn't leave in a week or two and not know when i would be coming back. how i ever thought that a semester would be enough, i have no idea.

i will post a few pictures here, but they really don't do this week justice (look for more on facebook though). if you want to fully understand, you will just have to come see for yourself sometime... though i recommend coming before the last night.

here is a short description of what the rest of my week looked like:
wednesday. i went to the library to study a bit. this was a good decision to make, but a hard one, because as strange as this might sound after seeing my blogs about all the snow, wednesday it was gorgeous out! seriously. like 65 and sunny. here is a pic from kirstin's window:

yes, it is ok to be jealous of her view. i know i am.

after studying for a bit, kirstin and i went back to her place to take a break before the evening's festivities began. here is another picture out her window, just before we headed out:

the jealously grows a little...

at 6pm, there was a big show in place bellecour to start of la fete de lumieres, it was awesome. a small sample:

they were counting through the years they've done this...

hanging from a large balloon, an acrobat

after this, we headed back to her place to eat some pasta real fast before heading out again. this time, we went to see some fireworks over the rhone:

i didn't see much more that first night because we went to hang out at a friends apartment, which lasted longer than i anticipated, but was still fun. but i did get to see rue de la republique (a big pedestrian street) all lit up as i headed for the metro. which, by the way, was free wednesday night. and they were running until 1:30 wednesday-saturday at least (normally they end around midnight- 12:30).

 oh yea, and i ditched my slm class that would have been 4-8 so i could study and actually see all of the festivities. whoops. but hey, people ditch all the time and i'm not usually one of them, so i felt ok about it.


thursday. well, i went to my two classes, gave a presentation in one of them, and headed home. i was going to go downtown for an hour or so before dinner, but my bus was there (i often have to wait for it), so i just headed home because i was tired and knew i would be going out the next two nights anyways. plus, i figured, i should probably see my host parents since i hadn't seen them for more than 5 minutes in the past 3 days. i was rewarded with a really good soup for dinner too :)

friday. i believe i saw anything/everything there was to see on the presqu'il (the area between the rivers). mannn there were a lot of people. though not nearly as many as there would be saturday night. though it was more difficult to get around town then usual seeing as they blocked off certain streets (making them one way), so that to get to certain locations you had to go in big circles. but i saw a lot of cool stuff:

place de terreaux was my favorite (there were more designs than this):

 

 then place de celestin. it looked like the building was moving!:

 

 and i think next, was st. nizier:

 

and place des jacobins:

the statues aren't usually fishing haha

let's not forget the park in its firey amazingness:

and i promise you, these pictures dont do these things justice. especially the second two since they were constantly moving.

saturday. i left my house at 5:20 planning to take a bus to the metro to go see a parade at gare de vaise involving fire. well the bus didn't go as planned. and transferring metros takes FOREVER when you have to surface in between because everything is super regulated with so many people. well we saw some of the fire show, but it wasn't as exciting as i would have hoped and we wanted to see something at the parc too. so we left. and didn't actually make it to the parc because of the crowds. surprised? not really. but still kind of sad. christina and i did, however, find some the friends we had met in grenoble who had come to lyon to see the lights!

(i also tried to find some italien couchsurfer who wanted to meet up, but those plans failed miserably, and i must admit, i could have tried a little harder. but with sooooo many people, its hard to make too many plans). so christina and i took them to see some sights we had already seen but knew were really cool. i felt like a terrible tour guide since there were so many people and it was hard to get around, but we met them at the celestin, and managed to get them to see my other two favorites as well. plus a few others. so overall, i felt like we did alright. we eventually made it up to the croix-rousse (which i actually hadn't seen yet), though at this point, after seeing one wierd show, our friends had to leave. christina and i continued, however, and went off in search of a jellyfish light show (which was much more impressive in the brochure, in my opinion at least)

but we also found an cool egg, some animals, and the only lyon sign! which has been in three different places since i have lived in lyon. i tried to ask my host parents why it moves all over the city. they told me they didn't know, it just travels. haha

so after a 4 nights of lights, way too many crowds, and packed metros, i will be happy when the city returns to normal. this week was amazing, but i would love to be able to get places again!

and i guess, now that pictures are posted and this blog is written, i must acknowledge the reality that i have finals starting in two days that i am nowhere near prepared for. better get studying. wish me luck!