Lyon/Toulouse

And the French travels continue!

Believe it or not, there's actually quite a few other places to see in France outside of Paris. We got our first look of this after we traveled from Paris to Lyon, another large city further South. We scored another great couchsurfing visit in Lyon where we had our first real experience of going out with quite a few of the natives, which turned out to be an amazingly fun time. We arrived in Lyon midday and met up with our host, Vinora, who lived near the center of the city and who graciously took us in for the next few nights during our stay. That very night, somewhat spontaneously, there ended up being a house party at the apartment and a ton of French students came over to come out with us. We hadn't been out with this many of the locals on the trip yet, so it was really exciting to meet so many new people from this totally different culture. They were so excited to speak and practice their English, and we were excited that they were able to speak it! This made for an awesome time of meeting new people and making a few new friends. We went to a really fun little club nearby and had a blast.

The remainder of our time in Lyon was slightly less crazy but still awesome altogether.  I spent my 24th birthday in Lyon! Buuut it was on a Monday so there wasn't too much crazy stuff happening that night, which I was okay with.. I'm getting too old anyways. I did have my first language-barrier-restricted haircut that day, which required me to show past pictures of my hair and attempt to describe something in French which probably made no sense to the hairdresser, so that was fun. We also went to the top of a nearby hill which had a mini Eiffel tower-style radio tower at the top of it, and a church of course. We got some amazing views of the city from up there and discovered that Lyon was much bigger than we thought, even though it hardly compared to the sheer size of Paris, which I was okay with.

Lyon

After taking in some great views of the city (see above) we ended up going to one of my favorite museums of the trip so far. It was a museum that featured some really famous props and models used in some really famous movies. We saw things like Harry Potter's magic wand (used in all of the Harry Potter movies), the wrapper from the Willy Wonka candy bar that contained the golden ticket in the original movie, and the actual mask that V wore in "V for Vendetta." I think our favorite part of the whole museum though was the second exhibit, which featured a bunch of miniature rooms of different places. They weren't all necessarily modeled after anything, but artists would just build a miniature room and make it look super realistic with little miniature objects and furniture lying around in the room. I was overcome with a very strange feeling of happiness when I saw all of these little places, and I wanted to live there, as weird as that sounds.

Another notable thing that happened to us in Lyon was our very first real screw up of the whole trip so far. Long story short, we missed a train. We missed a train and had to stay an extra night in Lyon, but Vinora was kind enough to let us stay the extra night so that we could depart the next day and be on our way.

Toulouse

Our next stop would be our third and final city we would visit in France: Toulouse. I gotta say, I wish we could have spent more time in Toulouse as it's just a beautiful city. It's so much different than Paris and even Lyon. The people were so friendly there, and once again we had another amazing host. Jacques was a really nice guy and made us feel welcome during our short two night stay. Other than walking around and taking a look at this beautiful city, our last night was definitely our favorite part about visiting this place. After gathering some supplies at the grocery store, Jacques cooked dinner for us! A very generous act, and it was delicious. After dinner we had some delicious, moldy French cheese, bread, and red wine. A little bit of that and some Super Smash Bros on Nintendo 64 and we were set for the night, on our way to Barcelona the next day.

At this point in the trip we've spent more time in France than any other country, and I'm very happy with that. I think it's important to realize that France isn't just Paris. And don't get me wrong, Paris is an amazing city, but it's not the only amazing city. I'm so glad we got to see more of this country, and in a way it inspires us to see more of every country. Countries have so many differences in and of themselves, and I think it's important to get that perspective. It gives more meaning to the country as a whole and you get a deeper understanding of the diversity it has with the rest of the world.

Another important travel lesson learned and another blog post to follow this one: Barcelona's up next and we're still in the process of making it happen.

So for now, au revoir!