The Last Days of Freedom
Today was my last day of freedom before classes start again. Luckily, only 2 of my classes start this week. The rest don't start til the 24th, which is awesome. I think this winter vacation was probably the most exciting of any I've ever had. I visited Amsterdam, Berlin, Vienna, London, and Lyon, snowboarded in the Alps with Megs, slept, read 6 different books, saw 2 movies (Alexander, and Ocean's 12), hung out with some friends I never really hung out with the first 4 months here, and basically profited from having no obligations for one month. It's been fantastic. And I'm not quite ready for classes to start again. But such is life.
Thursday the 13th, my friend Daniel and I got up early to catch the 8am train to Lyon for the day. We arrived at about 9:30, grabbed a cup of coffee and a croissant at the nearest cafe, then hit the streets of Lyon. We spent the entire day walking around the city. I've been in little Grenoble for so long I've almost forgotten what a real city is like... tall buildings, rushing traffic, and all the city noise and general busyness almost came as a surprise to me, but reminded me of home more than anything else. I loved it. We walked from the train station and across the two rivers that tri-sect the city to Vieux Lyon, where we hiked through narrow cobble-stoned streets lined with just as narrow houses practically stacked on top of one another, up to the top of Fourvière Hill, where you can see the entire city. But there's also a lot of history on top of this hill. The first thing we saw as we approached the top was a huge Roman theater. According to Frommer's, it's the "most ancient in France, built by order of Augustus from 17 B.C. to 15 B.C..." It's still used for some musical performances, and it was pretty cool just being there, seeing such an ancient part of Lyon's history. We walked up the steep steps of the amphitheater to the Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière, dating from the 19th century. The walls on the inside are covered in intricate mosaics and the ceilings are gilded in gold. Why are cathedrals always so breathtakingly beautiful? (Check out the pictures by clicking on the title at the top of the page.) Our hike up the hill sapped us of all of our energy, so by the time we finished eating lunch, we were tired! We hopped on the metro so we could rest our weary feet and see where we ended up, which turned out to be a shady part of town, so we found a park and just sat for a bit. We found a great cheap music store and looked around for a bit, grabbed another cup of coffee in hopes that it might wake us up a little. It did the trick, and we started looking for some place to sit and chill for the rest of the afternoon. We ended up at an Irish pub called "The Albion," tucked away in one of Lyon's many back alleys. We ordered a few beers (Beamish Red Irish Ale for me!) and chatted, and before we knew it, it was time to catch our train back to Grenoble. It was great to get out of town for a day to explore a new city. We decided that we need to do this more often, and next time we're thinking about going to Nice (on the French Riviera!).
Saturday we went up to Les 2 Alpes for a little snowboarding before all the snow melts - the weather has been WAY too nice here this winter and I know I shouldn't be complaining, but I want it to snow! It was beautiful, per usual, not a cloud in the sky, and nothing but snow capped mountaintops for miles and miles. I took off on my own for the day, not wanting to make anyone wait around for me, and got a few great practice runs in before I got myself lost. We were supposed to meet back at the telepherique at 3:00 to go back down to the bus, which was going to leave at 3:45. I took a wrong turn somewhere along the line, and ended up stranded in the middle of a cross-country trail: long and flat. For anyone who knows snowboarding, you know that there has to be a downhill slope for you to get anywhere at all, so I ended up strapping out and walking about 2 miles to the end of the trail so I could catch the chairlift back to the telepherique. Once at the top, it was another quarter-mile hike uphill in the snow to the telepherique. I was so exhausted by the time I got there, and discovered that it was 3:47. Not only was I late to meet my friends, I had already missed the bus and had no way of contacting them to let them know I was still alive and not laying dead in some snowbank somewhere. I got back into town, had to walk another mile to the bus station to buy a ticket back to Grenoble, and then sat and waited for it to arrive. I got back into Grenoble at 6:45pm, ran home, took a shower, got dressed, and headed over to Daniel's for a little "back to school" party, where I got to see a few people I haven't seen since before vacation started, and have a few drinks with a few friends. Saturday was a long day!
Now it is Sunday night, and I'm at home taking advantage of a quiet evening before the homework and stuff starts flowing. I have already picked my classes... They should be interesting. A Cinema course, a Literature & Photography course, Cultural History of France, and an Intro. to Geopolitics, along with 2 writing courses, a Translation class, and my French class for the Univ. of CA. I think that'll be enough to keep me busy until the end of May, don't you? That's 23 units... I know it's a lot, but I'm required to have 21.5 each semester... INSANE! Back at UCSB I only had between 12 and 16 each quarter. Stress! I'm gonna try to not let it get to me, but we'll see. At least I'll be busy. The cool thing is classes are only Monday through Wednesday, so I have 4 day weekends and can snowboard as much as I want :) Woohoo! Anyways, I'll be back in Santa Barbara for at least one summer session, and have already started negotiating living arrangements with my friend Marie Claire, whose family lives there on the Mesa. Rent free? Sounds good to me! Ok, well I think that's about it for this time. Miss you all!
Liv
Thursday the 13th, my friend Daniel and I got up early to catch the 8am train to Lyon for the day. We arrived at about 9:30, grabbed a cup of coffee and a croissant at the nearest cafe, then hit the streets of Lyon. We spent the entire day walking around the city. I've been in little Grenoble for so long I've almost forgotten what a real city is like... tall buildings, rushing traffic, and all the city noise and general busyness almost came as a surprise to me, but reminded me of home more than anything else. I loved it. We walked from the train station and across the two rivers that tri-sect the city to Vieux Lyon, where we hiked through narrow cobble-stoned streets lined with just as narrow houses practically stacked on top of one another, up to the top of Fourvière Hill, where you can see the entire city. But there's also a lot of history on top of this hill. The first thing we saw as we approached the top was a huge Roman theater. According to Frommer's, it's the "most ancient in France, built by order of Augustus from 17 B.C. to 15 B.C..." It's still used for some musical performances, and it was pretty cool just being there, seeing such an ancient part of Lyon's history. We walked up the steep steps of the amphitheater to the Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière, dating from the 19th century. The walls on the inside are covered in intricate mosaics and the ceilings are gilded in gold. Why are cathedrals always so breathtakingly beautiful? (Check out the pictures by clicking on the title at the top of the page.) Our hike up the hill sapped us of all of our energy, so by the time we finished eating lunch, we were tired! We hopped on the metro so we could rest our weary feet and see where we ended up, which turned out to be a shady part of town, so we found a park and just sat for a bit. We found a great cheap music store and looked around for a bit, grabbed another cup of coffee in hopes that it might wake us up a little. It did the trick, and we started looking for some place to sit and chill for the rest of the afternoon. We ended up at an Irish pub called "The Albion," tucked away in one of Lyon's many back alleys. We ordered a few beers (Beamish Red Irish Ale for me!) and chatted, and before we knew it, it was time to catch our train back to Grenoble. It was great to get out of town for a day to explore a new city. We decided that we need to do this more often, and next time we're thinking about going to Nice (on the French Riviera!).
Saturday we went up to Les 2 Alpes for a little snowboarding before all the snow melts - the weather has been WAY too nice here this winter and I know I shouldn't be complaining, but I want it to snow! It was beautiful, per usual, not a cloud in the sky, and nothing but snow capped mountaintops for miles and miles. I took off on my own for the day, not wanting to make anyone wait around for me, and got a few great practice runs in before I got myself lost. We were supposed to meet back at the telepherique at 3:00 to go back down to the bus, which was going to leave at 3:45. I took a wrong turn somewhere along the line, and ended up stranded in the middle of a cross-country trail: long and flat. For anyone who knows snowboarding, you know that there has to be a downhill slope for you to get anywhere at all, so I ended up strapping out and walking about 2 miles to the end of the trail so I could catch the chairlift back to the telepherique. Once at the top, it was another quarter-mile hike uphill in the snow to the telepherique. I was so exhausted by the time I got there, and discovered that it was 3:47. Not only was I late to meet my friends, I had already missed the bus and had no way of contacting them to let them know I was still alive and not laying dead in some snowbank somewhere. I got back into town, had to walk another mile to the bus station to buy a ticket back to Grenoble, and then sat and waited for it to arrive. I got back into Grenoble at 6:45pm, ran home, took a shower, got dressed, and headed over to Daniel's for a little "back to school" party, where I got to see a few people I haven't seen since before vacation started, and have a few drinks with a few friends. Saturday was a long day!
Now it is Sunday night, and I'm at home taking advantage of a quiet evening before the homework and stuff starts flowing. I have already picked my classes... They should be interesting. A Cinema course, a Literature & Photography course, Cultural History of France, and an Intro. to Geopolitics, along with 2 writing courses, a Translation class, and my French class for the Univ. of CA. I think that'll be enough to keep me busy until the end of May, don't you? That's 23 units... I know it's a lot, but I'm required to have 21.5 each semester... INSANE! Back at UCSB I only had between 12 and 16 each quarter. Stress! I'm gonna try to not let it get to me, but we'll see. At least I'll be busy. The cool thing is classes are only Monday through Wednesday, so I have 4 day weekends and can snowboard as much as I want :) Woohoo! Anyways, I'll be back in Santa Barbara for at least one summer session, and have already started negotiating living arrangements with my friend Marie Claire, whose family lives there on the Mesa. Rent free? Sounds good to me! Ok, well I think that's about it for this time. Miss you all!
Liv
posted by Liv at 1:45 PM
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