EXERCISE!!

(Day 35, Grenoble)

Apologies for the silence. Not much has been happening over here. Yesterday my program went on an excursion to Lyon. It probably would have been wonderful had it not been cold and snowing, but it ended up just being a normal Saturday with a different backdrop. We took a bus from Grenoble to Lyon right into the center of the city to Place Bellecour. It's the center square of the city with a gigantic Ferris wheel and lots of shopping near by. We went on a tour of the city from there. Now maybe it's just my years of tour guiding experience, or maybe it was the awful weather, but it was a rather awful tour. We saw lots of small things and walked into allies and courtyards. At one point our guide brought us into a medieval store down an ally through a courtyard. It was the weirdest thing ever to see on a tour of the city. We ended up at the Cathédrale Saint-Jean in the city and then a few of us were dying of hunger and the need for  bathroom so we peaced out. Lyon is apparently the gastronomical capital of France, and the pizza I had for lunch absolutely backed that up. I was so full for the rest of the day that dinner ended up being applesauce! We then hiked up to the Basilica in Lyon. The Basilica itself was closed, but we were able to go into the crypts and see a mass being held and a few very cool chapels.

Wait, I just remembered some earth shattering stuff that happened this week. On Tuesday it was surprisingly warm, so after classes ended at 3:30 my friend Nicole and I decided (honestly, I was coerced) to go up to the Bastille in Grenoble. It's across the river from my apartment and up a gigantic mountain, but Richard directed us to a 'faster' path up to the Bastille that included four billion stairs. It was a ton of fun walking up there and it took us a while because we stopped at every little platform to go adventuring. We did finally get to the top and decided we deserved a crêpe for our hard work. We decided to go back down the path we had used to come up when two thirds of the way down we encountered a locked door. We ended up having to go back up to the top of the mountain and then down the significantly longer path that lead out to the other side of the mountain. At this point it was also starting to get dark and by the time we got back to the river it had started to slightly rain. Nicole made me run to the nearest tram stop and then we went our separate ways. The point of this story, though, is that I did physical activity! And not just a once in a lifetime thing either, because I then climbed up to the Basilica 4 days later. Look at me, being all sportive. You guys probably wouldn't recognize me at this point!

Well one week until midterms, 11 days until Barcelona, and 20 days until Erin comes to visit in Paris!! Looking forward to what's to come!