My soon to be metro might be the end of me...

After basically lying in bed for 5 straight days, I decided to venture back into the world on Friday afternoon. I no longer had a fever, and was feeling almost entirely better minus the fact that I was still coughing up my lungs every 5 minutes-at this point, it's about every 15. I met Molly at our favorite ice creamery in Lyon: it's in Vieux Lyon and every one of their 40 some odd flavors is insanely delicious. My personal favorite is 'pear.' We ate our ice cream and discussed Halloween (Molly's going to be a tree, she wants me to be Elvis. If anyone has any ideas of a good Halloween costume, please let me know, I'm coming up dry).

Later that evening, we met up with Terra to go to a free capoeira exposition in Villeurbanne. For those of you who don't know, capoeira is a Brazilian martial arts dance. Terra is taking a capoeira class through school, but there is a capoeira studio here in Lyon (the one we were going to) that Julia, my host sister, actually belongs to. It's 200 euros for the year, which isn't bad, but too much for yours truly. However, throughout this past week, the studio was letting people get a taste of capoeira for free. I was under the impression that this was going to be a huge exposé, in a big gymnasium-type room, with capoeira performances and opportunities to try it out yourself, etc.

No. This is not what is was. It was a small studio room and it was just straight up a class. No watching, all participating. The instructor, a small, dreadlocked, tattooed Brazilian man who didn't seem to be fond of underwear had us start jogging around the room in a circle, and we were off. Molly and I did not know what we were in for... luckily there were a fair amount of people who had never done capoeira before either. I'm not going to describe everything we did, but we used every single muscle in our bodies, we did a lot of high, rounded kicks, spin moves, and cartwheels, all the while keeping the tribal dance moves going. Also, everything is done in pairs and Mr. Brazil would not let Molly and I be partners. This was scary at first, but ended up being a lot of fun because I got to meet (and laugh about our lack of skills with) tons of different people. The class lasted for an hour and a half, and at the end the instructor had us all sit in a circle while some of the regular capoeira students played music, and each of the newbies was paired up with an old timer to demonstrate what we learned during the class. I sucked, but it was all in good fun. All in all it was a great experience, though now I cannot even take a step without all of my muscles screaming out in pain.

Before I explain what happened on Saturday, I need to explain what "Le Petit Paumé" is. Le Petit Paumé is a very detailed guidebook of basically everything in Lyon: things to do, different types of stores to go to, cultural experiences to have, restaurants, bars and clubs, useful resources, everything. And each place/thing to do has a detailed description written by someone who's experienced it. It's basically the single most useful book to have if you are visiting or living in Lyon. There's a new one issued each year, and they're given out for free to anyone who wants one on a day in late October. Saturday was this day.

After eating at this Thai restaurant that we'd really been wanting to go to (no Thai ice tea which was sad, got Pad Thai, disappointingly small portion but still very tasty, though it didn't even compare to Thai Noodle or Sweet Basil, for those of you who know one or the other), Molly and I headed to Bellecour, where the Petit Paumés were getting handed out. Little did we know that a fairytale wonderland was in store for us. This year, Le Petit Paumé is fairytale themed, and thus, there were tons of people dressed as if from fairytales, mystical fairies on stilts parading around, a strange traveling circus type troupe singing songs (Molly and I loved these people and watched them for about 40 minutes), and more. There was also some weird stuff that didn't seem to fit, like a square of astroturf where little kids were throwing around rugby balls (I guess this was because of the rugby world cup, the championship of which took place last night. South Africa beat England), cones set up for kids to rollerblade around, and weird wooden air hockey-ish tables. But you know, when in Rome...

Saturday night, Elliot had a party at the house for his 16th birthday. 16 is a relatively big deal here because you become of age to legally drink beer. Molly and I were intrigued and curious to see how 16 year old Frenchies get down, so we tried to stealthily get in on the action. (We served some of the food, and offered my ipod to Elliot for the dance partay). In the end, we kinda just felt like creepers, and went to Molly's house, but it was fun for a while. Oh but, before the party started, Elliot was setting everything up and going through his music and after eating delicious tiramisu that Alix made (Alix is the eldest daughter, she's 24 and lives in Paris, but got here last Wednesday night to be here for Elliot's birthday weekend) and drinking tea, Agnes, Alix, Elliot, Molly and I had a mini dance party to Blink-182, Mika, and more in the living room. I really really love my French family.

Today, the family went to Agnès' dad's retirement home-ish place (I say ish because this was the nicest and least retirement home-like retirement home I've ever been to. It was more like a nice hotel where all of the guests happened to be old) in Croix Rousse for lunch and to celebrate Elliot's birthday as a family. Since I slept at Molly's last night, I just took the metro to Croix Rousse, since this was easier than coming all the way home first. This was my first time taking the C line (the metro that goes to Croix Rousse). Most (meaning all except the C line) of the metros here are entirely underground and move very fast. NOT THE C LINE. The C Line only has 4 stops, and since Croix Rousse is on a hill, the C line dares to go above ground. The C line metro is incredibly rickety and noisy, and travels very slowly up a hill (and down, I suppose, in the other direction). It reminded me of a very very subdued version of Disneyland's Matterhorn rollercoaster. Every time it stopped, I had the impression that we might start rolling backwards down the hill at any given moment. Basically I may very well fear for my life every time I go home.

Oh, right, I forgot to mention that I'm moving into my apartment in a week! Less even, 5 days! I'm really excited, especially after having been in Croix Rousse today, which really is such an awesome part of the city. But it's very bittersweet because I really love my family here, and I'm so sad to be leaving them.

Okay, back to the lunch. Agnes' father (I wrote about him in one of the emails already) is so hilarious. After lunch, which was so so so good (I tried lambchops for the first time and, while it makes me sad that I ate baby lambs, they were very tasty), we went back up to Robert's room and discussed his affinity for cigars (he smokes one a day) and armagnac (similar to cognac. Robert made it at the farm he used to live it at had some in the apartment. He INSISTED I try some; I did, and it felt like my entire head was on fire and about to explode. I'm not a big fan). I'm glad Robert lives in Croix Rousse (really really close to our apartment, actually), because I want to kick it with him; he is a hoot.

It was a relatively relaxing weekend. I didn't want to go out because I'd been sick, and it was actually quite nice to not go out at all for once.

The end!

Love, Meg