Time flies when you're having fun

Christmas has come and gone so quickly , and after spending a week pretty much living with Alice and Mill I've just seen them off on the train to continue their travels before heading home. Needless to say I was feeling a little nostalgic today and realised how long it had been since I've written. So I suppose I'll pick up where I left off and skip over the boring bits i.e. studying.

As soon as I got back from Berlin it was straight to work, interrupted on Wednesday by babysitting for Emile and Antoine, dinner at Alice and Milli's on Thursday, dinner with Chiara, Sara, Marco and Billy on Friday, and wandering around the Fête des Lumières (festival of lights) on Saturday. The festival is linked to Lyon's veneration of the Virgin Mary and began with the inhabitants of Lyon lighting candles in their windows and descending into the streets on the 8th of December. These days it goes from whatever day of the week the 8th falls on until the weekend and involves major light displays all over the city. After another successful dinner party with my Italian housemates (which included some valuable swapping of recipes for mulled wine, onion tart, and chocolate sausage), we planned for a tour of the lights. On Saturday evening we walked first to the Parc de la Tête d'Or where there were various fire-related displays, then on to the Croix Rousse to see the giant illuminated egg and eat Tartiflette and roasted chestnuts at the Christmas markets, past the space-invaders on the hill to the Presque-île to see Place des Terreaux with the fountain in neon lights, a jungle growing around Eglise St Nizier, a display in the mist of the fountain in Bellecour, and a morphing/singing Theatre des Celestins ... hard to explain, but there are some OK photos up on facebook.

Things got very serious for the rest of the week as I studied hard for my exams. I had a few assignments to hand in for Geography and History, then the Geography exam was horrible, mainly because I haven't had to write an essay in exam conditions for almost a year, but by comparison it made my next two look like a walk in the park: 20th century literature and translation, both of which were on Friday. After my last exam I had a long lunch at Café Epicerie with Joel (for the last time), and came home to find Billy packed up and ready to go, he did come out that night but left at 8am the next morning for Portugal. That evening I packed away my study notes, and went straight out. To celebrate the end of exams and Mill's birthday I had dinner with her, Alice and Edouard before a cast of thousands arrived, drinks in hand, for an excellent night which ended at le Voxx.

As fate would have it, I left my scarf at Voxx that night and when I went back to collect it on Sunday afternoon I ran into Mike, Will and Will's visiting friend James. I had a leisurely coffee with them and then tagged along to Rose's for afternoon tea. She's even baked Banana bread! Afternoon tea slowly ran into dinner and the rest of Rose's housemates came home and she whipped up pasta bake for a dozen of us. Having had no plans for my Sunday at all I was thoroughly pleased! Monday was a get-my-life-together day so that I felt I deserved my nice dinner on Tuesday night. The boys, plus Joel, Rose and I met at le Bistrot du Potager and had an apero at the bar while waiting for a table and trying different tactics to get the attention of the flustered waitstaff. We eventually got a table and just told them to keep the bread coming as we tucked into our charcuterie and cheese. We headed to Alice and Milli's for a nightcap, and this is the evening from which all the photos of people on the exercise bike come from. It was a good catch up before Will headed to Paris and Rose to Madrid.

Wednesday and Thursday were relatively quiet. I had flu symptoms and so spent alot of time sleeping and hydrating and planning Christmas day festivities. I only had one adventure and that involved taking the Christmas tree I bought at the weekend markets over to Alice and Milli's. Christmas eve came all too quickly and my receptionist was highly amused by my antics. I was at the markets, put on especially, bright and early, then straight to the supermarket, then to my cave (wine shop) to fill up a couple of bottles with red wine. Upon my third return trip Isabelle had a surprise for me, the courier had come while I was out and thinking it was probably a christmas package she had signed and paid the delivery fee on it! So despite delays with the snow madness in Europe I got an amazing Christmas package from Mum, Dad and Sarah. I immediately got to enjoy Mint Slices, Mince Pies, and Christmas Pudding! Of course I took these to share with Alice and Mill. For Christmas eve I dropped everything (food, decorations etc...) at the girls's and then Mill joined me for mass at Notre Dame de Fourvière. It was even snowing! Then I made onion soup (which was a success thanks to the Emmental from my cheese man) and we snuggled up on the couch and watched Love Actually while I made shortbread using the amazing cutters Sarah sent me. The oven was extremely temperamental, but I got out a few good batches.

And then ... CHRISTMAS!!!! I actually started a bit early since I skyped the family at midnight here which was in time for their Christmas lunch in Sydney. As per French tradition I got to open some presents then, and was thrilled to unwrap some jewellery (you may remember I lost all of mine at some point on my travels prior to arriving in Lyon) and thermals! But there's no sleep for the wicked and it was up early to shower and adorn my tacky Christmas jewellery (also provided by mum) and head to Vieux Lyon to begin cooking. I was, of course, in charge of all things vegetable and spent the morning making Billy's onion tart, roasting vegetable, and making Cauliflower and Broccoli gratin (thanks again cheese man). Meanwhile Amel decorated the tree and whipped up coq au vin. Our guests arrived around 1pm, there was Joel, Emily and her friends Bec (on exchange in Paris) and Isobel (in Glasgow) and Ben (Isobel's American beau met in Glasgow). Emily's crew was in charge of dessert and boy did they deliver! Emily made her grandmother's Pavlova, despite oven troubles of her own, and Bec crafted a chocolate cake with cherries on top.

So Christmas lunch in Lyon turned out to be much the same as Christmas lunch in Australia, except it was snowing outside. We ate and ate, then had mulled wine and chatted and had a lucky dip present giving which had a 5 euro limit and turned out mostly edible gifts. Having all descended into a food coma and watched Bridget Jones's Diary until we were recovered enough to start it all again by reheating the left-overs for dinner. I was exhausted and incredibly full, so in no state to travel and slept over.


After a decent sleep in I went home to shower and returned with soup and baguette for lunch. The sun came out, but it was cold enough that the snow hadn't melted, so the girls and I went to the park for a wander, and Alice rode around on one of Lyon's public bikes (they started it). That's when we realised it was absolutely freezing so we headed for our favourite hot chocolate café to while away the winter's afternoon. That night we were joined by Joel to watch Stand By Me. Then it was Monday, and I had an apero at my usual bike class at the gym. Trust the French! We spend an hour doing a massive cardio workout then they break out the champagne, chips and savoury cake! It worked out well because I then went to Alice and Milli's before migrating to the Smoking Dog, St James Pub, and Look Bar to show Emily's visitors some Vieux Lyon highlights. Having missed the last metro I opted to stay with Alice and Amèl on their last night in Lyon.

Today I went shopping for a costume for New Year's, and spent most of the day helping (actually, more like watching) the girls pack up. Luckily Joel came over to help with the (huge) suitcases! And now it's really hit home how little time I have left in Lyon, and how much I have left that I want to do. But tomorrow it's back to study as I still have one last exam on January 12th. This isn't going to be easy.

In Bruges ... and Berlin too

On Saturday morning I met Annabelle (my New Zealand friend studying in Lyon) at the station for our festive trip to Belgium. We arrived in Bruges in the evening and promptly dumped our stuff at Snuffles, our hostel, and headed straight for the Christmas markets where I had my first gluhwein (mulled wine) of the season.Then for dinner we wandered the streets of Bruges until we found a cosy looking place which turned out to have old board games available for its patrons, so our night consisted of onion soup and scrabble. Of course since we were in Belgium we had to have some beer so we stopped at De Garre, a local brewery. We could've opted for the Triple De Garre a dark 11% beer, but instead went with the girly fruity beers.

On day 2 we took a trip to Ghent, and spent the morning at SMAK, the museum of contemporary art. There was an great Ensor exhibition and some installation art which I actually appreciated for once. Next up we had planned to hit the flea markets but the tram line we'd been hoping to take was having work done on it. This was a blessing in disguise because in our (cold) walk across town we happened across a flower/Christmas tree market with a cute coffee cart that did an excellent hot chocolate. We still made it to the markets before they closed and perused until we were too cold. That's when we found Simon Says, a gorgeous café run by a couple who moved to Ghent to work in theatre (Yes, Ghent is quite a happening place). After warming up we decided to tackle the various cathedrals in the centre of town and on the way checked out the design museum and its exhibition on Maarten Van Severe, a famous chair designer, although the highlight for me was a small exhibition about teapots. When we made it to St Baaf's cathedral to see Van Eyck's Adoration of the mystic lamb, we had the world's longest audioguide to explain each panel of the altarpiece. Since it was getting late and most things had started shutting we had coffee and waffles at Mokabon and chatted to a crazy old Belgium man who had learnt English, among other languages, through night classes. At this point St Niklaas was closed but the Belfry tower was still open and we thought it would be a good warm up for the slightly taller one in Bruges. After taking some pictures of the view and learning about the carillion we had an aperitif at Mariman. Annabelle and I both tried the 'Roomer', a local drink made form elderflowers. We had a massive Thai dinner and caught a drink at the bar Charlatan before heading back to Bruges and our 12 bed dorm at Snuffles.

The next morning I had a cold shower, followed by copious amounts of tea to undo its effects. First stop was the Church of our Lady to see Michelangelo's Madonna and Child, then we wandered around the Begijnhof convent. Heading back to Markt, the square at the centre of Bruges, we tested out a tea house claiming "the best hot chocolate in town", and they weren't lying! We were presented with bowls of warm milk and whisks and our choice of chocolate in the form of chocolate chips in a chocolate bowl so you could add as much or as little as you wanted. Sticking with the chocolate theme we went to Choko story, the chocolate museum, and while the museum itself was pretty boring, the demonstration at the end was delicious. Before lunch we managed to cram in a visit to we the Belfry tower and we climbed its 366 stairs even though it was quite overcast and the carillion was having repairs. The came an evening of glühwein and waffles, ice skating, and more glühwein. On our last day in Bruges we hit up the huge Van Eyck exhibition at the Groening museum. All I can say is the guy really nailed perspective! After more waffles and watching an old man grove to Shania Twain at the outdoor ice skating rink, we picked up our bags and headed for the station. But we had one last thing to see: the ice sculpture festival. Although it cost an arm and a leg it was amazing. The theme was around the world and there were some very cool sculptures ... note the pun. Annabelle was even brave enough to try the 16m ice slide which was located behind the ice bar at the end of your round the world trip. And that was the end of our Bruges adventure and Annabelle and I parted ways in Brussels where I went to get a plane to Berlin. I nealry missed my flight thanks to the longest security queue I have ever seen, but cutting in with the plea "I'm going to miss my plane" while looking pathetic and running the length of the airport to get to gate A72 paid off. I even had to sit on the plane for half an hour before we took off while Easy Jet defrosted their engines (?!?) and waited for other passengers stuck at security. Isn't travel fun?

I soon forgot all about it because I was greeted in Berlin by Zoya and Melissa (Canberra friends!). I was conveniently staying in the same hostel as them: the Circus Hostel, which is one of the best I've seen in my travels. In the morning we went to see the Reichstag but the dome was closed and we quickly realised that Berlin was too cold to spend more than half an hour outside at any one time. Next best thing was a bus tour. We hopped on and saw some of the major monuments/buildings from the warmth of our bus. This brought us to the afternoon when we went on a tour of Berlin's street art organised by the hostel, and given by an Australian woman who has been studying and working as an artist in Berlin for 20 odd years. At first we saw a few small galleries but then we had to do some wandering around Kreuzberg to see the real thing. One of the stand-outs was an old hospital building which, abandoned because of its proximity to the Wall, had been overrun with squatters and eventually turned into an arts school. It was covered in all kinds of art work. Eventually we had to admit that it was too cold and dark to see any more and stopped for a gluhwein. Zoya was soo cold when we got back to the hostel that she couldn't bare the thought of going back outside to get dinner, so Melissa and I got Vietnamese take-out and we snuggled up in their room and planned our next few days. I should note that it was about -15 at this point and that night it snowed, a lot.

I'm not sure why, but we decided to do a New Europe walking tour of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp just outside Berlin. It started off OK with a longish train ride out and a small stint in the information office, but then we were outside, in the snow, for about 4 hours. It made it all the more poignant when Colin, our guide, told us of how the prisoners had been made to stand outside for roll call twice a day in nothing but their heavy cotton uniforms for as long as it took. What's insane is that the Soviets continued to use the camp after World War 2 right up until 1961. Unfortunately, by the end of the tour I could barely feel my hands or feet and we were all jumping around on the spot to try and keep warm. After the regional train failed to arrive and several half hour delays on the S-bahn, we got back to town and spent the rest of the evening in a café around the corner of our hostel filled with beautiful young Germans on their macbook pros abusing the free wifi, and we did not move for a long time. I sampled quite a few varieties of tea including apple and cinnamon, and ginger (which was actually just slices of ginger in hot water to which you can add honey).

Having learnt our lesson Zoya, Melissa and I resolved to spend no more than 15 minutes outside at a time. We also had a competition to see who could fit the most amount of layers no matter how much it restricted our range of movement. First up we walked through the Holocaust memorial on the way to the Gemäldegalerie in the Kulturforum. The free audioguide came in handy when viewing the works by Rubens, Rembrandt, Watteau, Caravaggio, Raffael, Botticelli etc... Once we'd hit up the gift shop, it was on to Checkpoint Charlie and the Mauermuseum or Wall museum. I got to see all the creative ways people tried to escape East Germany after the wall went up. There were fake passports, human-sized suitcases, submarines, hang gliders, and even a hot-air balloon on display. We finished up our day of museum hopping at the Jewish museum. The upper floors about the history of judaism in Germany seemed to go on forever and seemed to be geared towards a younger audience, but the bottom floor was remarkable, with objects and letters from individuals who had for the most part been deported and murdered during World War 2. We enjoyed super cheap and hearty Italian for dinner before another evening at our favourite café. (Food in Berlin was so cheap, and their was variety, and it was vegetarian friendly! not just cheese and bread and expensive bistros).

My sneaky week off had to come to an end though, and on Saturday Melissa and I got up early and had fun at the very interactive DDR museum which is all about life in East Berlin. We strolled through some Christmas markets and met Zoya for some shopping and lunch, yet more soup. With a some time left up my sleeve I took the girls to the Deutsch Guggenheim on the recommendation of a friend in Lyon. It is a one-room gallery which hosts a couple of exhibitions each year from the Guggenheim collection. 'Colour Fields' explored a movement in American art in the 50s adn 60s which evolved from expressionism. Because the gallery is so small the works seem much more accessible, or that might have just been all the children's activities going on at the time we visited! I grabbed a take-away veggie burger and said goodbye to the girls and went to catch my City Night Line all the way back to Lyon. I had an unconfortable evening in a cabin with three-tiered bunks not unlike the ones used at Sachsenhausen before transfering to a 5 hour TGV to get me home.

This week in Lyon I will be studying for my exams, most of which are next week. Also, the festival of lights is on, so the streets will be filled with people from Wednesday until the weekend, all checking out the massive lighting installations around the city. You too can help in my efforts to procrastinate by sending emails and letters filled with news from home and holiday cheer! My email is: alice@netspeed.com.au and my address is: 3bis rue de la victoire, Lyon 69003, France.