London Bridge is Safe and Sound

Actually, the real London Bridge was bought by some rich American long ago and it’s now in Arizona or something. They built a new “London Bridge” and it’s very strange and modern looking.

Anyway, I am now in my home away from home: Switzerland! It is so amazing to be here again. It’s been four years since I was last here, and while a lot has changed, this place hasn’t really, which is really nice and comforting. I remember everything and I get these incredibly intense feelings of nostalgia and I love it. But I’ll write about Switzerland later! Here is a recap of the rest of the time in London:

Saturday: My parents and I went to meet Patrick (we all call him Paddy), one of my dad’s best and oldest friends. Paddy normally lives in Exeter, but he’s an actor, and he’s currently in a show here in London (which he got us tickets to, which we went to later that night). Paddy is a wonderful man and I quite like spending time with him. He would still be great if he was American, but his English accent makes him sound so cool. Anyway, we went to lunch at an Indian restaurant that would have been very tasty if I hadn’t been dying (fuck you, supertastebuds). Later that night, we went to Paddy’s play. I can’t really call it a play though, because it was so much more than that. In this HUGE building, there are tons of difference rooms and spaces and the whole place is turned into “the stage,” with everyone walking around everywhere, audience (Paddy says the actors refer to them as ‘punters’) and actors alike. My parents say this style of theater is called ‘environmental theatre’ or something. It’s really hard to explain… the piece is called “Masque of the Red Death,” which is the name of one of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories. The piece itself takes about four different Poe stories and adapts them. Some of them tie into others, and all are being performed simultaneously, in different parts of the building. The whole thing is really quite creepy. When you first get in, you’re given a very creepy white mask that you are supposed to wear at all times (the actors do not wear them, so this makes finding the actors easier. It also enhances the creepy vibe). Then you walk around, exploring. From this moment on, everyone you interact with will be part of the performance. Pretty early on you’re meant to stumble upon a room where a man gives you a velvet cloak. So basically you’ve got hundreds of cloaked, masked people walking around everywhere in dark, misty, creepiness. If you’ve read Poe, you know his stuff is, well, creepy. My point is everything was creepy. But it was also awesome. Paddy had told us what to expect earlier that day, and he said that he suggested splitting up and wandering around by ourselves rather than sticking together, but he also told us that if we wanted to see him do something (there’s no program, no map of the space, etc., so it’s not like we could easily find him whenever we wanted-also the place was seriously HUGE, it was amazing. So many different rooms) then we should go to the “Palais Royal” (this is the only room where you’re allowed to take off your mask and/or talk. It’s got a bar, so you can buy a drink, and there’s like little Vaudeville-esque performances happening on a stage. The people who perform them are actors from the main performance(s), either still in their characters from that, or doing something else, but always still acting) at 8:25 and my dad was the only one with a watch, so we ended up staying together the whole time. Sometimes, actors would do “one on ones” where they’d take a “punter” into a room alone with them and have an interaction with them (I know this because Paddy told us about these, but actually at one point when I was in a room, there were two other people, and the woman looked at one of the others, gasped, and pushed me and the third person out of the room, and slammed the door). Paddy says they can get really aggressive and scary (apparently for his, he tells whomever it is to take of their mask, and thinks that the person is his dead sister or brother, while he’s on an opium trip, and shakes the person’s shoulders and screams at them and stuff. Pretty crazy!) In any case, I could go on and on, but it’s obviously not easy to describe. The important thing is it was unlike anything I’d ever seen, the acting was great, the dancing was great (there was a lot of really strenuous physical activity in the acting, like throwing themselves off balconies and writhing around on drugs and such), and it was, all around, very impressive and cool. I wish I had pictures to show to help explain, but pictures weren’t allowed in the place (no surprise there), but here’s a picture of me and Pops in our masks before going in:




Sunday: We met up with Paddy again around noon, but this time he brought his two brothers along. We all went to Richmond Park, in the Southwest of London. After walking around for a bit, we went to ‘Pembroke Lodge,’ where we ate a lovely meal (including real figgy pudding!). Afterwards the walked in the park to the place where Paddy’s mothers ashes were scattered. London is so huge and has so many parks that most tourists don’t know about, it’s nice to know people who live here that know about the lesser known places. After that, we went to a magical store called ‘Fortnum and Mason’ where Paddy’s friend Sue was reading Christmas stories that she wrote. Sadly we missed the stories, but we got to meet Sue, who is hilarious. We all went to have a drink in a pub, and eventually parted ways.

Monday: Christmas Eve and my dad’s birfday. The first thing we did was go to Harrods, where we spent about 3 hours. Harrods is absolutely insane. It is easily the most elaborately decorated and decked out department store I have ever been to (and probably that exists in the world). They have 29 fine dining establishments. They have rooms called “The Egyptian Room,” and “Luxury Room II.” In the Poissonerie, Charcuterie and Fromagerie room they have a sculpture with real fish coming out of it, as well as real pigs and slabs of beef hanging from the ceiling. I’m telling you, it was out of control. Here are a few pictures (see Facebook for more if you want):






After Harrods we went to a play: The Adventures of Tin Tin. You might be familiar with the Tin Tin comic books? They’re French, but they exist in English. My dad really loved them when he was a kid, so Paddy found us tickets to this play. It was a lot of fun! The staging was incredible, and it was a really cute story. After the play my mom and I went on The Eye. The London Eye is London’s version of the giant Ferris wheel in Paris. My dad, who is terrified of heights, opted out, but my mom and I (who love heights) went for it. It’s pretty enormous and you do get incredible views of the city, but it’s no where near as cool as the Ferris wheel in Paris (nor the Ferris wheel in Lyon, nor basically any Ferris wheel come to that, in my opinion) because you’re inside a giant bubble (which is kind of, I guess, shaped like an eye). I prefer being out in the air; it’s more exhilarating and you can see everything more clearly. Plus they fit like 20 people in each “eye” so there are all these tourists running around trying to see the view from all angles, which is kind of annoying. Also, it moves really, really slowly. You only go around once, so I guess they’re trying to give you your money’s worth, but towards the end it’s kind of boring. But I mean, it was still cool. Here's a picture of the eye, and then some of the view from the top of it:





After that, we headed to Leicester Square (this was my favorite part of London when I was fourteen-there’s always a lot going on here, lots of nightlife, lights, etc.) where we had a nice fish n’ chips meal, with spotted dick for desert. (In one of the Harry Potter books they mention “spotted dick.” Having never heard of this before (it’s a traditional English desert) my parents and I thought this was hilarious, obviously. When we saw this on the menu outside at the restaurant, our search for a place to eat was over. We had to get some spotted dick.) Spotted dick is okay, but not delicious. It’s like, a couple of dense cakes with raisins in them with some creamy rum sauce on top. But we had fun making inappropriate jokes about it.



Tuesday: Christmas. None of the tubes were in service so we had a lovely day staying in, reading, playing board games, listening to Christmas music, etc. We also took a stroll through Hyde Park since our flat was just around the corner and that was very nice.

Wednesday: Boxing Day. A big deal in the UK. There wasn’t much open. But we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was pretty impressive. St. Paul’s was founded in 604 AD (wow). The building that exists today is the fifth church on the site and they started building it in 1675. A lot of important shit has happened there: Winston Churchill’s funeral, Charles & Diana’s wedding, etc. Anyway, it’s a pretty beautiful building. Unfortunately you’re not allowed to take pictures inside, but the art and architecture is incredibly impressive. At the top of the building is a big dome, and you can actually walk to the top of it if you climb up 434 steps. We did. Pretty tiring (although I’m pretty used to climbing steps from living in Croix Rousse) but once you’re at the top it’s worth it: there’s a really nice view of London.


We left St. Paul’s for a bit, got a cup of coffee, walked around the area, but we actually went back there later for some sort of Christmas service (Christmas does not end after the 25th in England. Apparently that carol about the 12 days of Christmas is legit; some people actually do observe 12 days of this holiday.) I know nothing about Christianity so I’m not sure exactly what was going on during the service, but it was mostly a choir singing songs with some recounts of Jesus’ life thrown in. It was all very pretty though, and my mom was really into it. We got to sing along during some of the songs and it was kind of fun to hear the priests (?) tell the story of Christmas with their strong English accents.

Later that night we went on a pub crawl! I love pub crawls. I think they’re such a cool way to learn about a city, or part of it at least. The one we went on was called “London on the Thames” or something to that extent. We went to two different pubs (we were supposed to go to three-one at the beginning, one in the middle, and one to end-but the third one was closed due to it being Boxing Day), and in between we stopped at various points of interest to learn about their histories. It was great.

Thursday: We went to Canterbury. For those of you who don’t know, my father the English teacher teaches The Canterbury Tales in his 10th grade American Lit class. Canterbury is about an hour and a half from London and my dad really wanted to go there. Also, another friend of my dad’s from way back when, Peter, is also English and lived in Canterbury for 10 years, so he was happy to show us around the town. I basically remember nothing from the book (sorry Dad), but apparently, even though it’s fictional, there really was a pilgrimage from Southwark to Canterbury and my dad wanted to find the trail they traveled and walk it. After driving around for a while in Peter’s car, popping out to ask the locals if they knew where this trail was (no one did), we (my dad and I) decided to get dropped off at where we thought the closest thing to what we were looking for was, and walk. We were to meet my mom and Peter in town in an hour and a half (2 miles) later. I’m pretty sure we were absolutely not walking the trail my dad was looking for, and it only took us about 25 minutes, but it was a nice walk anyway. After that we all met and just explored the town (it’s very small). After having a traditional English tea at a tea shop we headed back to London.

So that was pretty much it. Yesterday we said goodbye to the Brits and hello to the chocolate, cheese and cows. I feel like the week in London was busy but also pretty relaxing at the same time. Also, I didn’t feel like I didn’t have enough time there, which almost always happens when I travel. It was nice. That is, sadly, not going to happen here. I only have three days and way too much I want to do. But it is awesome being back here. And that is a post for another day.

From Mandy's to Goldie's

Last Sunday night, I returned to Lyon from a five-day stint in Heidelberg, Germany. While the trip was quite dramatic and relatively stressful for various reasons, it was also great to get out of Lyon for a bit, and to see a new town, and Braden, and meet some more of his friends.

The first couple days we were there we hung out with, among others, Benny and Giovanni (two of Braden’s best friends in Heidelberg). Benny is German, hates fascists, likes weed, and is awesome. Giovanni (called Gio, pronounced Joe) is Italian (but often pretends he’s French), speaks four languages quite well (Italian, German, French and English), plays both basketball and the drums amazingly (apparently), loves Blink 182, and is hilarious. He spends most of his time going on the German version of Facebook and hitting on girls. He’s pretty successful in getting them. We all had a great time in Braden’s room one night having singalongs to Blink 182 and Bob Dylan songs played by another guy named Nick on the guitar. Gio says a lot of ridiculous things, but one of my favorite expressions of his is, “Hey: go take a look in the mirror,” which he seems to say for no reason whatsoever.

On Thursday morning, Ruby, Braden, Benny and I went to a magical place called Mandy’s. Mandy’s is a “typical American diner,” which I shouldn’t even put in quotes, because, it is. Aside from the fact that they overdo it a bit on the tin plate 50s advertising on the walls, it’s essentially your average Mel’s Diner. Evidently, there is an American army base in Heidelberg, and so there’s a lot of American stuff. Because there is absolutely nothing like this in Lyon, I went all out: bacon cheeseburger (it was enormous), fries, iced tea and a raspberry milkshake. I ate it all (not surprising, as those of you who know me well know that if I can do anything, I can eat), and it was all delicious. Here was the craziest part about Mandy’s, though: you could either pay in euros, OR AMERICAN DOLLARS. I’m telling you, I might as well have been in the US for a day, that’s how convincing this place was.

On Friday, Benny and Gio left town for home near Stuttgart and Berlin, respectively, so from Friday to Sunday, Ruby, Braden and I spent a lot of time on our own. We tooled around Heidelberg, did a tiny bit of shopping (they had an American Apparel, COME ON LYON, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER), and admired the very impressive street art. We also walked around the castle in Heidelberg at night, which was incredible. The castle, which I’m sure has a name but I simply do not know what it is, was beautiful, and the view from it was even more so.



As usual, these pictures don't do it justice. The first one is taken from inside the castle grounds, and the second is taken of the castle and some of the view from a different part of the castle.
All in all, it was a nice trip.

So, now, this Sunday night, I am in London: my favorite city in the world. I’ve only been here since Friday, but it’s been such an eventful weekend that it feels like much longer (which is great; usually the time goes by far too quickly). Also, I am here with my parents, whom I haven’t seen in four months! As I flew from Lyon to Stansted on Friday afternoon, and then took a 45-minute train ride from Stansted to Liverpool Street, and then took the Underground from Liverpool Street to Paddington Station… it never really hit me that I was about to see my parents. It was such a huge build up, it seemed like it was taking forever to get to them, and that was once I was already in London! But it never really hit me until I saw them, which is, I think, because this Winter Break really doesn’t feel like Winter Break at all. I’m not going home by any means, I’m not seeing anyone in my family besides my parents, there were no menorahs or dreidels and there are no Christmas tree, stockings, or presents (the older I get, the less I care about presents, and my parents meeting me in London was present enough). It’s just so completely different from every other Winter Break I’ve ever had, that it’s all a bit surreal.

But I digress. So after meeting up with my parents, I assumed we’d be going back to our flat to chat and relax-maybe play a board game or two (boy oh boy do the Barankins play board games). I was very wrong. We stopped by the flat for about 5 minutes to drop off my luggage and then we were off to Goldie’s house for Shabbat dinner.

Goldie is a good friend of my Mom’s from way back when. She is an amazing woman. She’s basically about half my height (definitely at least a foot shorter), has a voice/accent that should narrate for books on tape, and you’d want to hug her just looking at her, even if you’d never met her before. My parents and I stayed at Goldie’s the last two times we were in London. She lives with her husband, Alan, in a beautiful house in Golders Green (a largely Jewish community in North London). She is truly one of my favorite people, and I wish I could see her more often. Anyway, Goldie and Alan are Orthodox Jews and Shabbat is a much more extravagant evening in their house than it’s ever been in ours. After schmoozing for a bit, we did the prayers for Shabbat, the wine, and the bread (we ate the best challah I have ever had in my life, seriously. I don’t know why, but it was ridiculously good) and dinner was underway. Another thing to add to the list of amazing things about Goldie is that she is an incredible cook. But not only is the food delectable, it’s always presented very artistically and beautifully. I don’t even want to try to do the meal justice by describing everything we ate, so I won’t, but there were basically 4 to 5 courses and it was all amazing, and pretty, and it may be the fullest I’ve ever been. Okay, I don’t know if that’s true, but I couldn’t finish my food (I took it home, because it was too good to not eat), and I truly felt like I was going to explode. The only downside to the entire evening was that I was literally falling asleep at the table by the end of the main course. I don’t really know why, because I wasn’t jetlagged, and I’d gotten plenty of sleep the night before, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I think there’s just something about traveling in general, no matter where or how far you go, that makes you tired. I actually had to leave the table and go to the couch (I told my dad to wake me up when it was time for desert). By the time we’d finished eating everything it was nearly midnight (at which point all the lights in the house turn off automatically, for Shabbat).

That was Friday, and much happened on both Saturday and today, but I think I’ll have to save it for another post. Which will most likely be up tomorrow. (I am really taking advantage of this internet thing… still none at the apartment in Lyon).

This Light Looks Good On You

Written on Thursday, December 6th:

I can’t believe it’s already been almost a week since this happened, but last weekend was overflowing with wine: specifically, le nouveau Beaujolais (the new Beaujolais). Apparently every fall, the Beaujolais region of France (which is about an hour away from Lyon) comes out with a new wine, and it’s a big deal. There are many different variations of the wine, because there are many different vineyards/wine makers, but they’re essentially all the same. As I recall, the nouveau Beaujolais hit stores in Lyon at the end of October, but it was discussed and worthy of parties for the entire month of November.

Last Friday, November 30th, Ruby and I went to “une soirée vin et fromage” (a wine and cheese evening party) that was put on by “Lyon International,” an group that organizes events for international students in Lyon. We got there embarrassingly early; there was practically no one there and they were still setting everything up. Fortunately, soon after, some of Ruby’s friends from her class showed up, as did Trevor, Morgan, and Rachel (friends from our program), as did a lot of others, and the wine tasting began. There were many different wine makers there were their version of the nouveau Beaujolais, as well as those with some other kinds of wine. I tried them all.

We also got to eat a bunch of cheese, which is always great. As we were drinking our wine and eating our cheese, various different people/families associated with Lyon International came up to us to get to know us. This was the other purpose of the event: you get to talk to different French families in the hopes that at the end of the night, they’ll like enough to invite you to their house for dinner. I think I spent too much time dancing to the tunes of the “rockabilly band” they hired for the night and not enough time talking to the families to get invited, but I did have some good conversations with some of them. But I actually did end up getting invited to dinner by association through Ruby, who was laying on the charm all night. All in all, it was a really fun evening, hanging out with friends and meeting new ones, and drinking lots and lots (too much, it turned out) of wine.

The next day, we had a program trip to the Beaujolais region to be guests at a family vineyard, and taste more… you guessed it, nouveau Beaujolais. Well, I’d had quite a bit of nouveau Beaujolais the night before, as did Ruby, Morgan and Rachel. As we were seated at the lovely wooden tables in their guest dining room, surrounded by the beautiful French countryside, as the wife of the family, Marie, was cooking us a enormous and delicious French lunch and her husband, Ludovic, was instructing us on how to observe, smell, and finally taste the wine correctly… I was trying not to vomit all over lavender and sunflower Provencal tablecloth. The mere smell of this wine was almost too much to handle. Which was so sad, because I love wine, and I really didn’t want Marie and Ludovic to mistake the look on my face for disgust at their proudly finished product. The four of us that shared the challenge of stomaching the wine kept stealing glances at each other from across the table in moral support.

After a while, though, happily, it was much easier to handle to smell, and even taste, of the wine. Also, the fresh baked bread, endive salad, and beef stew over rice that we ate not long after the wine tasting helped quite a bit. We even got home baked chocolate chip cookies (among many other things) for desert. I hadn’t had a chocolate chip cookie since I’d left America.

After lunch was finished, we headed over to the bread baking furnace room. (There’s probably a better way of saying this, but, you know). Marie demonstrated to us how to make bread from complete scratch, from mixing the flour, water, and yeast together right down to taking the fully baked bread out of the oven. It was really cool to watch, and the best part was, she made a loaf for each of us! We got to take home freshly baked bread, right out of the oven, that we saw made from scratch. And let me tell you, it was unbelievably good.

Since the Weekend of Wine, things have been much busier than weeks prior, mainly because the school strike is over! Phew. So yes, I’m back in school. Also, anticipation and eagerness has been in the air all week because this weekend is the Fête des Lumières (the Festival of Lights). This is very exciting: the main day of the event is Saturday the 8th, but it’s technically from the 6th (today!) until Sunday the 9th. Basically the entire city of Lyon turns into an artistically mesmerizing spectacle of lights. There are different “stations,” as in different things happening with lights, at various places in Lyon. There are 80 stations in all, spread out around the entire city. Friday and Saturday nights are some of the only nights of the year that the metros run all night long (and, of course, as a consequence, there’s a transportation strike today because the metro drivers are pissed that they have to work all night long on these other nights. Typical France…) I think our plan as of now is to buy some bottles of wine and walk around the city looking at all the lights. Why take the metro when you’re bound to miss something if you do?

Additionally, there’s a Ferris wheel set up in Bellecour right now, and it is enormous, and Morgan and Sarah and I went on it last night. From the top, you can see the entire city, and even without all the lights set up, it was incredible. Lyon really is an amazing city, and no one even realizes it because it’s so overshadowed by Paris. But it’s really beautiful. Also, a couple of the light exhibits had been started to be set up which we saw from the Ferris wheel, which just made us even more excited for the actual festival. I can’t wait to go on the Ferris wheel again.

I’ll definitely take pictures and post them on my next blog post so you can see what I’m talking about. It’s pretty hard to explain and might be worth looking up online, if you’re interested, and I’m sure my pictures won’t do it justice. In any case, expect to hear about a lot of lights next time.


Written on Sunday, December 9th:

The festival of lights is incredible and it's made me realize that I genuinely love Lyon. I finally feel at home here, and I love this city. Last night was completely out of control, there were more people in the streets of Lyon than I have ever seen before, I mean truly packed, everywhere. It was because it was the "biggest" night of the Fête des Lumières, the metros were running all night long and they left the lights on all night, which they hadn't done the past two nights. I didn't take pictures, but I have friends who did and I'll post them at some point. I couldn't have taken pictures if I wanted to, because my camera is out of commission, but I'm kind of glad I didn't. You can't really capture the magic of it all, and it was nice just looking at everything and taking it in.

After walking around and looking at the lights, Sarah, Patrick, Nathan and a friend visiting from Grenoble, Charlotte, went to a club where there was a live drum&bass show. Nathan and Patrick (and Charlotte actually too, which didn't surprise me because she's British) love Drum&Bass music, and I'm actually getting pretty into it. Some of it is really, really good, and a lot of fun to dance to. After that little show, we ended up going to, of course, La Marquise. It was PACKED, the busiest I've ever seen it, but once we got inside it was a lot of fun, and they kept playing Drum&Bass there too! We danced until 5:00am for the third night in a row, and finally called it a night (morning). This weekend has been incredibly nocturnal, but if there's any weekend where it'd make sense to become a night crawler, it's this one (lights, lights, lights).

Tonight, I will not be staying out until the wee hours, but I am going to go walk around and try to see some more lights, ones I haven't seen already. And I'd also like to go on the Ferris wheel again, with all the lights out this time.