life is good

what a lovely friday. i woke up at 9, before my alarm had even gone off. considering how much i have been not liking my alarm lately, this was a great way to wake up! plus the fact that i knew it would actually be kind of nice out today, not completely freezing. with even more sunshine in store for the weekend i believe! considering how cold i have been lately, this was great news.
i ate some breakfast, and found myself in a studious mood, so i actually read an article for a class i might take! impressed? i was. i read it, defined vocab i didn't know, and then wrote key points in english on the back so i could review more quickly later. plus this sometimes helps the info stick in my head a little better.
since it was still fairly early, i killed some time before meeting up with minerva and milena for lunch. i saw minerva first, and she handed me a box of hot tamales! she had told me before that she had remembered to bring me a box, but i had completely forgotten about that until she handed them to me. i was so excited! having friends return to the states for winter break does have its advantages lol.
once we were all together, we walked around looking for a cafe to eat at, and soon found ourselves at one that was quite crowded (we figured we didn't want to eat at a place that had no customers). i ordered the lyonnais salade, though i've decided as much as i like this salad, the end is too salty. but i did love the fact that once again water was free! a luxury i have not had while traveling to other countries. for dessert i had some chocolate cake thing with cream. yummmmyy. i hadn't eaten out in lyon for awhile, or seen milena or minerva much in a while, so this lunch was quite enjoyable :)
next up we wandered around awhile walking off our lunch and doing a little shopping since the sales are still going on.
soon milena had to leave us, and minerva and i wandered all around town exploring and checking out more stores. neither of us ended up buying anything, but when you have an afternoon free to do as you please and it's really nice out, you might as well meander from store to store enjoying the sunshine in between them. by the time we had wandered all the way from hotel de ville down to perrache and back to hotel de ville (check out a lyon map if you dont know what im talking about), we had decided we were ready for a snack. which meant it was time for some flan nature! minerva had also decided she wanted to compare flan at different places, so it seemed to make sense. and that was dessert number 2 for the day. well technically 1 1/2 because we split it, but still. we weren't done yet. oh wait, we had also split a pain au chocolat. anyways, we knew it was a good thing we were doing a lot of walking hahahah.
but back to adventuring. we decided to head to vieux lyon since neither of us had been there in awhile. i loved seeing the cobblestones again, but also appreciated that most of the city isn't paved with them. we located a bunch of buchon de lyon cafes (cafes with specifically lyonnaise food) and i decided that i must return there at some point to try them. and i am sure you can guess what followed this bit of adventuring. that's right, more dessert! minerva got another flan (to continue her comparison of course), and i got some pastry i don't remember the name of. and i forgot to take a picture of. it is white with drizzled blackness on the top. a fairly sugary frosting. then it has multiple layers of pastry and cream. delicious. though i had to save some for later because at this point i was super full off lunch and too many desserts in one day. after sitting and chatting for awhile, i thought to have us head over to the rhone river to get a picture of it for nathan. how nice of me right? he had been asking for it, and i figured as long as it was dark out and i was nearby, i would try again to get him his starry night picture (without stars since we were lacking in that department).
here's what i'd gotten him before that wasn't quiteee right:

here was my new version:

who knows if i'll ever get it right. maybe i'll just have to stay in lyon forever. i do love living in a city with rivers :)
after awhile we both headed home because our feet were exhausted from walking around all day. i have to say, this is my idea of a good friday. no class. good friends. adventuring around the amazing city that lyon has to offer. multiple pastries. relatively warmish weather. it is a good start to the weekend :) now if only i can find a way to keep myself busy like this every friday, that would be just amazing.