Because there are some words that you will never be able to pronounce. Such as "Arles," the name of the city where Mark and I went this weekend. For those of you that speak (or at least pronounce) French, it doesn't look too bad, but believe me, you're saying it wrong. There's a crazy emphasis on the L, so it comes out sounding more like "ar-luh" rather than what you would expect, which is a one syllable word. However it may be impossible to say correctly if not a native speaker.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. We don't have classes on Fridays (and I don't have classes on Thursdays - yay!) so I went up and explored the basilica that overlooks the city, one of the old cathedrals, and the general area of Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon, and that means really old). Minus the hike up the small mountain, it was pretty cool. There's a great view of Lyon from the basilica - and a great view of the eyesore that is the Radison smack dab in the middle of the newer part of town - and you can see for miles. Vieux Lyon is really great, too. We're in the Croix-Rousse neighborhood which was where all the silk makers lived in the 1800s and the buildings are fairly plain. Vieux Lyon is really the old Middle Ages area, with tiny streets and old buildings and the whole aura of "traditional Europe." Way more interesting than silk makers' houses, believe me.
Friday evening we tried to go to the boat bars (all the big barges on the river are anchored and have been turned into bars and restaurants) which didn't work out so well. We found one that we got into right away - and promptly discovered we were the only people there...though it did fill up a decent amount with our group of 15. We bailed on that and considered the Australian bar, but apparently it is The Coolest Place in Lyon, judging by the line at the door, so we went home earlier than usual. But almost all bars in Lyon close at 1am anyway, which is strange if you think about it. The French don't eat until 8 often, and yet their bars close a whole lot earlier than American ones do. Either the French are better at partying cause it only takes them two hours to do it...or they just get sleepy from all the wine.
Mark and I went to Arles from Saturday to Sunday. Arles is a town in the south of France that is full of Roman ruins, winding and confusing Medieval-era streets, and tourists. We heard more English (and Italian and German and Dutch) in Arles than we have in Lyon to date. We checked out the ruins - it was like a mini Rome - saw a garden that Van Gogh used to chill in, and wandered around a lot. We also saw what we think was a Gypsy wedding and made friends with our Polish/French waitress - random, I know. It was a neat little town, but also very quiet. All in all, a fun experience. The trip back to Lyon was not a fun experience: the train was super hot, we got on the wrong metro in Lyon and then when we got off at a station to go to the other platform there was no way to get across so we had to continue in the wrong direction and switch at the next station (seriously, France?), and then everyone was eating cheese when we got back and it was all gone. And I love cheese. But Ar-luh was fun!
Tonight I'm reconciling myself to doing homework, something which is extremely tough in a foreign country during the summer. Luckily the reading I'm doing for one class is putting me ahead in my research for my thesis next semester. And I'm taking breaks by writing this and putting pictures on Facebook. Megan: 1. Homework: 0.
P.S. Since it's driving me crazy that there are [sometimes] giant spaces in between paragraphs (what the heck, blogspot, stop doing that!) I'm switching to good old paragraphs.
P.P.S. There are giant mutant flies in Lyon.
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