Would you like some cheese with your wine?

I skyped Kimmy for a few minutes today and she asked me whether or not I get asked If I want some cheese with my wine in France. As a matter of fact, I do get asked this question quite often, and in a completely serious manner. The only difference is that for the most part while I am eating cheese I get asked if I want any wine to match it.
Apparently matching cheeses and wines is something people get very particular about. Yesterday my class and I went to a creamery that produces and sells cheese. They showed us some of the processes, talked to us about the different types of cheeses, and allowed us to taste multiple cheeses while eating baguette and wine to go along with it.
This morning in class my teacher asked us what kinds of cheeses we ate and which kind of wine we drank. After we told her white wine she was appalled, and told us that white wine should never go with those kinds of cheeses.
Also while eating dinner with my host family I was trying a certain type of smelly cheese from a cow farm. My host Dad insisted that I could not eat the cheese without trying it with a very particular type of red wine. Somehow the two go hand-in-hand although I couldn't find any label on either the cheese or the wine that said it was necessary to have one with the other.
Perhaps I will never figure out the way it works, I'll leave big decisions like cheese and wine matching up to my French friends while still enjoying basking in the french stereotype.

Picture note- The woman who owns the cheese store made us hold the silver cow up for the picture. They were all over the store, I'm not sure what they mean, but it was very clear that she liked them.

The man who smelled like pee

Since I've been here person after person has warned me not to make eye contact with people on public transportation.
Okay, I say, I won't make eye contact.
But you know what, that's much harder than it seems really, for me, it is natural to look at people and smile as they pass by. Anyway, is it really that big of a deal?
Most days I keep myself distracted on the bus and metro by peering vacantly out the window, today was no exception. I was sitting on bus number 42 next to the window, enjoying the scenery outside. Suddenly I felt the brush of someone sitting down across from me and at the same time I got a big whiff of urine.
I am too curious of a person not to look, let's not kid ourselves now, after all, Im not trying to be someone I'm not. I just had to see who the person was that smelled like pee.
I turned by head slowly, but not too slowly, I was trying really hard not to be awkward.
Well that was a mistake. If I were a cat then curiosity definitely killed me.
The person who wreaked of urine happened to be man and the man happened to wearing yellow pants. Did I mention that on his yellow pants there were blood stains on the cuffs and his fly was unzipped?
And so I turned back to the window and continued looking out the window. I had seen the man, and now I wanted to hold my breath for the remainder of the ride,
But it was too late. We had already made a connection with our eyes and there was no taking back my actions.
The smelly man in the yellow pants whose zipper was unzipped began speaking to me in disgruntled french.
Perfect, I thought to myself, as I sat there. I can't understand him because I am not a native French speaker. so I told him,
Sorry but I don't speak French very well and I don't understand you.
Polite enough, right? No big deal.
But it wasn't that simple. Not that simple at all. He kept mumbling and I kept saying that I was sorry but I didn't understand.
So finally he stopped saying whatever it was he was saying. Hm, a sigh of relief. Nope, that was false hope because
He asked me what the month was over and over and over and OVER again and again and AGAIN.
And so I said Juin, June, both in French and English.
And every time I told him that the month was June he would take his finger and poke my knee!
It was absolutely bizarre beyond belief. Who does that!?
Furthermore I hate being poked so very much, it makes my skin crawl. And I kept thinking, Oh how I wish everyone could see this disgruntled man in the yellow pants who doesn't know what month it is. It was just too much to take in at once. Almost like encountering Timothy Truman at the INdependence jail, bizarre beyond belief.
I truly couldn't believe that I was sitting on a bus in Lyon and some crazy French man was poking my knee and asking me the month.
Finally, after a little boy came and sat down next to me, the man in the yellow pants stopped harassing me.
It was at this point in time that he came to the realization that his zipper was unzipped. Very slowly he zipped his zipper back up, and looked around suspiciously to see if anyone noticed.
I was peering out the window, but of course watching him out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't help it.
At the next stop we both got up simultaneously and exited the bus.
He headed left, I headed right.
Au revoir. But really not, because I will probably never see him again.
I can't help but wonder, did he Really not know it was June? Did he really pee on himself? Was he crazy or was he trying to make me feel crazy? Why the repeated knee pokes? Perhaps he didn't believe me when I said I didn't speak French and he was trying to make me speak more to see if I really had an accent or not. I am not sure.
I think in this case some things are much better left unknown.

Chaud Lapin

Tonight at the dinner table I learned some new French words and phrases. My family is always quick to explain to me what things mean and they especially like explaining idioms to me. It is always like a race to see who can give me the best answer first. It's a win if I say , oui j'ai compris, it's a fail if I say, Je ne comprends pas.

Chaud Lapin--Hot Rabbit.

Need I explain more? I think the literal translation does the trick.
Leo taught me that one. Thank you Leo for keeping me up to date on my slang.

In other news besides the farm this weekend my host parent took me both out to eat and to an art exposition. On Saturday night Fred, in his lime green shirt and red beret, Martine in her water-globe earrings, Elliot in his green capris, to me, in my dirty farm clothes to a very fancy restaurant on a famous street in Lyon--Rue Merciere. I have no idea what I ate but I can tell you that it was exceptionally good. I can also tell you that Martine ate pig's blood cooked in a pastry. She claims she loves it, i'll just take her word for it. Dinner was quite a success and Lyon at night was radiant.

On Sunday, after the family barbecued ( By BBQ I mean they left the meat on the grill long enough for the outside to cook and the rest of the meat was completely raw) Martine, Fred, a crying Elliot and Myself went to the exposee of an artist by the name of Luc Schuiten
---> http://citevegetale.net/luc.html --->check him out if you please

I enjoyed the art and architecture of the hippie Luc but Elliot was not having it. He pouted the entire time because he wanted to stay at home but Martine said he couldn't because he would play video games all day. She is right, he would play them all day. Nonetheless I enjoyed Luc's display of futuristic eco-friendly architecture. It was all very interesting and very dreamy. My favorite quote from the exposition was,
"As a child I dreamed of living in the trees." All of Luc's art is about trees and so is his architecture. He has very elaborate tree house designs which remind me of the tree house DNA strand Mallory and I made in Mrs. Bennett's class out of popsicle sticks.

This morning Fred drove me to school. I notice multiple women in power suits riding scooters to work. I don't mean electric scooters, I am talking about the same Razor scooters we all wanted the Christmas that we were in 5th grade. Picture multiple Hillary Clintons rolling down the streets...THAT is Lyon in the morning.
Which leadsme to my next point.My host mom LOVES Segways. She thinks they are brilliant and she has the idea that American Cops ride them around everywhere.
aye aye aye....

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A la Campagne

This weekend my class took its first big French adventure... a la campagne (to the countryside). The trip commenced with a grand reunion at a train station called Gorge de Loup (translates as throat of wolf!?) We took a bus about an hour southwest of Lyon to a small town whose name I cannot accurately recollect. By the time we arrived most of the group was suffering from severe motion sickness--everyone was already enjoying their stay in the French countryside. A few minutes later three old men with missing teeth arrived in white vans ( sounds creepy right? Well it kind of was) and shuttled us off again to another small village called Duerne. Here we stayed at the centre d'accueil (welcome center). EVERYTHING including the toilettes were painted in every different shade of bright, clashing colors you can imagine. The lady there fed us bread (obviously, we're in France), some kind of pork that probably wasn't cooked (because that seems to be the trend) and buttered noodles. After our ever so riveting dinner my class embarked into the down to check out it's "night life". (I am pretty sure our class nearly doubled the population of the whole town.) We ran across a super sketch bar called "tip top." It had a picture of a thumbs up on the entrance and there were a few townies enjoying a drink in there. Naturally we entered and made ourselves right at home. After some time of conversing with the Duerne townies it came to our attention that it was David's (dah-veed) Birthday. He requested that we sing him happy birthday. We did. He cried. He was so "touché" (touched) that he cried! (An important sidenote off-topic, my host brother is in his room right now listening to EMINEM cleaning out my closet --teehee) Anyway in the word's of G-pa Frank to make a long story short, Dahveed cried and then bought drinks for everyone. What a night!

After a night without pillows we were awoken by none other than a coq (rooster). We ate, you guessed it, more bread for breakfast, and then headed off to the organic farm. Again we were driven by old men without teeth in their white vans. The farm was indeed beautiful though. It had a magnificent view of the French countryside. The farmer who was in charge of the place was a young, blonde, and female. She was, in the words of Prof Sipe, "The best-looking farmer I've ever seen." And thus the whole rest of the trip was about Prof Sipe hopelessly trying to get the pretty farmer to love him. There was lots of awkward French Flirting and meaningless questions all so that we could spend the optimal amount of time with her. I don't think, however, that professor Sipe's tall argyle socks were helping his game.

But in reality the concept of the farm was awesome. The idea is that there are an association of farms all around Lyon that produce different products: Meat, Cheese, Fruits, Vegetables, Eggs, Milk, Flowers etc.
They are all organic farms and they all firmly believe in a relationship with their plants/animal, their buyers, and their consumers. Everything is personal and all of the farms are open for visitation. What happens is that citizens of Lyon and surrounding areas can sign up for baskets which they buy and receive weekly (I think) and the baskets are filled with products from different farms from the surrounding area depending on what's in season at the time. It is all local, fresh and all organic. I thought it was an awesome concept.

After our farm visit and many cuddles with baby sheep and kittens, we were herded by another man with no teeth into the town hall. We were all sat down in chairs and were given 100% pure fruit juices. One was apple, one was peach, and the other was cherry. Nothing was added, they were purely pressed fruits. After one glass they gave us another, and another, and another. One thing led to another (as I have just described) and I wound up consuming 7 glasses of pure fruit juice. Needless to say I had to pee.

Next we had a two hour + lunch at a local restaurant. I sat across from one of the old French men who drives the white vans and he never asked me anything about my name or age, he grilled me the entire time about politics. I understood everything he was saying but pretended not to as a means of surviving hours of torture. The first thing out of his mouth was not Hello or how are you, this man was not messing around. Out of nowhere he abruptly blurted "How do you feel about president Obama and how did you feel about President Bush?" In French of course. To which I responded, " Uhhhh....That is a big question and it is too difficult for me to explain in French." That was then followed by a three hour long hike back to the welcome center! Two hours of stuffing yourself silly with food (and for some members LOTS of wine) followed by a long hike in direct sun is not exactly intelligent if you ask me, but that's what happened. We took a detour on our hike because the same man who was grilling me about the presidents of the USA wanted to show us the site of an American plane crash in WWII. I was expecting something grand since we went out of our way to see it, but you know what it was? IT WAS A ROCK IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIELD and some man was plowing his field around it when we arrived.

Moral of the story; Never trust an old French man whose teeth are missing.

All said and done, the trip was enjoyable and I am glad to have the experience.

In France people like to smoke. A lot. If you are out and about on the streets around noon, watch out, it's smoke break time. Kids of all ages take their smoke breaks, you will see that even elementary school aged children might smoke, or at least they pretend to. The ironic thing is that on all cigarettes in all of France there is a big box in the front the reads, SMOKING KILLS. Mmm Bon Appetit.














Today finding lunch was a bit of an ordeal. First of all we got lunch very late because we had class all morning and then a meeting to occupy even more of our time. Everyone was a little bit grumpy. We decided to get on the Metro, go down a few stops, get off, and find somewhere to eat. There are places everywhere to eat. Well mistake. We got out at an immigrant neighborhood. I was completely fine with eating there, I was hungry, but some other members of my party were a bit frightened. Down one street all signs were in Chinese, down the other all signs were in Arabic. Perhaps it's better we didn't eat there because I have a hard enough time ordering in French.
Anyhow we finally arrived at this cafe after a long walk and ordered sandwiches. Everyone's food came out except for Laura's. After about 15 minutes of us having and her not, she went and asked the man where her food was. He mumbled something about not having ham and then ran across the street to the Boulangerie where he bought a sandwich and then served it to her. As you can see in the photo the red sign behind her head says "Boulangerie" therefore we watched him do it all without shame.












When I was a child I liked to eat butter out of the tub. I'd like to think that was normal. Even if it wasn't completely normal, at least I grew out of the habit. French, unlike myself, never grew out of eating butter like it's ketchup. They put chunks on it on everything all the time.




























Here is the Grand View of Lyon from my neighborhood. I live in the 5th district on top of a big hill that overlooks the city. This is the view from the basilica. Beautiful isn't it?






























This here is the Basilica Fourviere. It is beautiful and peaceful and from time to time I enjoy sitting in there to repose. One can view beautiful stained glass windows, mosaics, nuns, and groping couples on an average day. It's a delight.

Two things French people like.

This morning I took the metro to school. If you have no idea what the Metro is that's okay. I'm assuming most people reading this have not been to Lyon so naturally they would not know. The Metro is like a subway. No the kind you eat, the kind you ride in. In the morning time the Metro is jammed so full that you have to touch everyone around you. I mean, I kind of like touching people so of course I really don't mind this. Besides, crowded subways are not the real issue. The real issue is that some French people enjoy living the stereotypical French life too much. They love to Kiss. and not just kiss. They love to French kiss (obviously, they're French). When I get onto the Metro in the morning without a fail there are always people making out. If only the Metro had parental controls my life would be good. Unfortunately this morning I don't have that option here in Lyon and this morning my Metro was stuck for 15 minutes and I was shoved up against a young man and woman who happened to be making out intensely. If only I'd had my camera you could see why this was so distracting. They looked slightly beastly, a bit like wolves. By that I mean that they weren't into personal hygiene and less into shaving than myself.

But don't be sad! Today I visited a fantastically magical park called Le Park de la Tete d'Or. The park was absolutely beautiful--and there were French couples Frenching everywhere.

Secondly the French love to rear end one another. They do it all the time. Someone will hit the bumper of the car in front of them and then honk at the car like it was the other person's fault. They will parallel park in places that seem impossible and they don't blink an eye when they ram into the cars both in front of them and behind them several times.

so There you have it, welcome to Lyon.

Also my host brothers are currently listening to Usher. Just saying. They've been listening to all kinds of rap today including the French kind. THAT is my favorite.

Le Tag

French graffiti, aslo known as "le tag" can be seen everywhere. I'm not sure what their obsession is with spray painting animals onto buildings, but the Lyonaisse will do as they please. ( Comme tu veux as my host parents always tell me) Anyway, here you go...des exemples... Even the bunnies in France smoke.