J'te donne la plume pour que tu dessines la plus belle ville que tu aies connu [...]
J'te donne la plume moi j'en veux plus
J'te donne la plume pour savoir vivre, parler, écrire et danser, pour rester ivre, bien éveillé
J'te donne la plume et mes conneries, garde-les.
Stefan, la plume t'appartient...
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C'était trop le pied!
Ok, that is all I can write without making fun of myself...
But honestly, it was even greater! Awesome! Legen -wait for it- DARY!
Here is my point of view:
When Matthieu and I arrived in Lyon in the middle of the night, this should be not even the middle of the day! We were warmly welcome from a friend of Matt called Angelica.
She invited us to stay at her appartment for the weekend and was a very warm host! But we were not the only lucky ones, she brought another friend of her, Anne-Laure.
Together we went from the station to the appartment and left our bags there to go on to a party.
We took the metro, which in Lyon for the weekend of the fete des lumieres is obviously free by the way... The entrance gate to the track welcomed us with sharp and noisy "beeps"!
At the party location I was introduced to several guests Matt knew and we started conversations.
And here is the first fact: the people of france are not generally avoiding foreign languages. In fact every one could at least speak english, even german!
And they were willingly using it! Thanks for that.
So we talked in a mix of english, german and my few french words. People I did not knew came to me and startet talking to me. This weekend I met only nice people!
And there is another fact: party in France is like party in Germany. Lot of drinks, lot of people - just having fun. A similarity is also that there are some guys who are able to sleep
while outside of their dreams the party society is jumping around and chanting to some french song ("Les Lacs du Connemara" ndlr). I was just able to make the sound, no articulation...
When we arrived at home it was late. But not too late, because the three startet talking. About whatever... They were to tired to translate me, I was too tired to follow their conversation.
So we sat and they talked french while I was dreaming german. But it was fine for both.
I guess it was almost 6 in the morning when we got some sleep. Some! It was in the middle of the too bright morning when we got up.
It was about 11 o'clock and we were on our way to the inner city. We met some other friends and together we roamed along the streets of Lyon. A city worth visiting! There are cities
in the world you do not even like when you get off the train/car/plane. This one is different. The atmosphere, the public life and the body language of the people make this place special.
This was not like "get out of my way". No, they even apologizied when they push you in the crowd in the evening! Unfortunately, it was raining the most of the time. But we did NOT stop
our visit.
For lunch, we looked for.. - sorry. THEY looked for an appropriate restaurant. And this is great when you are with a habitant of his own country. He knows where to go, what to do.
So I was part of a nice and funny group of French which introduced me to the french way of having meals!
Another fact: the kitchen of french actually is as good as it is known. And dear reader, yes, the french do know this, too. So other countries will be laughed for their eating habits.
Well, at least the american deserved it...
Although I could not follow all of the topics during lunch, it was great. We took our time and I enjoyed my choice of the menu: entrée, main and desert. Thanks for translating the card!
Until the waitress brought our plates, all in time, I did not know what I was about to eat. But it was delicious! Although due to the "lumieres", it was more expensive and, as Matt said,
not as good as it is used to be. Anyway...
We split up and the rest of the day until the evening we relaxed some hours at Angelica's appartement. Did some dancing steps, listened to some music. Matt went out to visit a party of a friend, we will meet him later. Unfortunately we will not meet the guys again which spend the day with us.
Here is a story which happend in front of the house. A car drove of a parking lot and another one wanted to park in there. But in fact it was to big to fit. But it was obiously worth a try.
So it drove backwards. Slowly. Even more slowly. Steering fast. The back of the car was now in the parking lot and the front were close to another parking car. They did not touch.
But suddenly the driver realized that his car will not fit! Stop and drive on? No way! Just pushing the car slightly backwars, the other one slightly forewards - and the parking lot
was big enough for all! A miracle.
FACT: in Germany a car is holy. Like a cow in India. If _anyone_ just puts a fingerprint on it, there would be war on the streets! But out of the window, this was funny to watch.
After dinner, the girls and I made our way again into the city. We met two other people of Angelica and walked next to the lights through the streets. As you can see on the pictures,
the city was bright and everywhere you could find light shows. And it is really interesting to see art which is made of light!
Slowly we fought our way in the crowd to the metro to get to the point where we will meet Matt again, and did with about 2 hours delay! His fault, but was not even feeling guilty. (I'm feeeeeeling gooooood ndlr) Along the next suggested route we walked back to the inner city, saw a great variety of lights and elaborate animations.
Back in the inner part of the city we met the friends Matt was celebrating with about 2 hours ago. Another warm welcome for this small german guy... They all were curious to get to know
where he came from, what he was doing with Matt in free time and so on.
We met another group of friends and the all joined in to a spontanious group of enthusiastic people, having fun watching the light show sponored by the electricity company of Lyon.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
We split up and the core (Matt, Angelica, Anne-Laure and I) walked along the Rhone to a park of Lyon (La tête d'Or ndlr, j'aime les ndlr j'y peux rien). There another light spectacle was waiting. Out on the lake there were boats illuminated, the trees were beamed and they played music to make it a choreography. Great!
But now it was late, the feet hurt and everything else too. We walked home.
There we talked some more minutes before we went to bed. Finally, after a day of many impressions!
Sunday morning we got up early again to visit the park by daylight. Unfortunately the others will not appear to the suggested breakfast...
So Matt invited us to some delicious(!) french chocolate croissants and we spend the morning in the park. A real big piece of nature in this concrete jungle of Lyon. There are a wide
variety of plants and animals, like a zoo! Tigers, bears, apes and manymany others. Amazing that this is for free! We even saw a "Eichhörnchen". Hahaha! Listen and repeat: Eichhörnchen.
A lot of people made use of the sunny day and took a walk. So this was a calm reprise to this fast running weekend.
The girls leaded us to the station again and Matt and I made our way back to work...
This is the end of a the weekend at the fete des lumieres. And I am sorry, I could not write every detail. There is many more to tell...
But this was not just a weekend. This was an experience! An impressive piece of life! Yes, and beeing out in a foreign country with sympatic and tolerating friends - this has broaden my
horizon.
"We all have the same sky, but we do not have the same horizon."
Merci beaucoup!
Merci Marie Place des Jacobins Des lumières et un métro Des lumières et un planDes lumières et un boulet Des gens chelous sur les Quais du Rhône ahah comme ça, le monde saura où tu habites La Tête d'Or un dimanche matin
Stefle, le vrai dude, toujours