Fall Break

Well this past week we had Fall Break. It was nice to have a week off of school. I wish I had the rest of the weeks off too. I think that I learn more when I don't go to school & the lessons that I've learned so far this trip they can't teach in school. Anyways -I decided that it was going to be in my best interest to find a new place to live. I met a French girl - Annabelle - when we first got here. She is really nice, she is an english teacher - in a middle school right now. Well when I told her that I was looking for a place to stay she offered to let me stay at her place. I decided to take her up on it. So this week while I didn't have school, I moved. I didn't want to let my old landloards know until I was almost done moving because I didn't know how they were going to react so I made many trips with my yellow duffel bag on the train. When I wasn't moving, I was playing tourist in Lyon. It turned out to be a lot of fun!!! Who Knew! On Tuesday I found a really big market & they have all kinds of things - it's like the 7 mile fair - but good! Then I went & checked out Fourvier, the basillica here. It was really gorgeous. It is up on top of a big hill & the weather was beautiful as well. Then on Thursday there was a thing for all of the regional producers of stuff here in the Rhone Alps region. They all brought all of their artisinal things so we could eat & drink them for free. Well it turns out that I was quite tipsy before lunch - and that was after going through only 1 tent. It was awesome. I tried olives, escargot, cheeses, jellies & jams, bread, fruit and of course wine. Great afternoon. Then like the day couldn't have gotten any better, my friend called me & told me there was another wine tasting even across town!! After I slept off a little of what I did that morning, I was ready to go again. The Salon des Vins is a ot of the independent wine producers in France have booths set up. I believe that there were over 450 booths - ALL WITH FREE WINE. Not just one kind either! Now it was humanly impossible to taste all of the wines that night so I had to go back again on Friday. Some of the wines were good, alot of them were watery - kind of wierd. I was starting to scare myself - I think I am turning into a little bit of a wine snob. I was easily picking out the smells in the wines. It was wierd - but cool. I didn't know that I knew all that stuff about wine. Anyways that adventure made for 2 good nights out.

Today is Saturday - my first whole day in the new place & Annabelle and I are going to buy some groceries. I think we will be celebrating with a pizza this evening. I have some wine that I bought -I know its going to be good!!

Happy Halloween!