My one month anniversary

It's hard to believe that exactly one month ago, I stepped foot in Lyon for the very first time. So much has changed in that time period.

I have gone from getting off the plane and not knowing where the heck I was going, or what I was doing, to feeling like Lyon is my town, my stomping grounds so-to-say.

And now, after being here a month, I am so ready to leave this town....and go snowboarding in the Alps. The trip that I have been looking forward to since I saw the words "SKI WEEK" on the school calendar is finally here. Tomorrow, I pack my bags in search of some powder. I never got to go snowboarding once before I left Idaho, and the itch has now become unbearable. La Norma (the name of the resort), HERE I COME! I just hope that my board isn't mad that I will be snowboarding on another board....you know how they can get jealous like that.

Now, lets go back in time to sum up the week.......

Last Sunday, I went to the other English speaking church here in Lyon. It's called the International Christian Community of Lyon. It was really small, about 20 people total in the service, but I like it better than the Anglican church I went to. They also have a young adult group that meets on Fridays.

I went to the group this past Friday. We had pizza. I love free food. There was this one pizza that had a creamy white sauce with ham on top, ooohhh it was good. After that we had a bible study and then dessert afterwards. I decided to have coffee with the cake we had for dessert. I am not much of a coffee person, but you know, when in France.....I have decided that it doesn't matter if the coffee is a lot better here than in the US, it all tastes bitter. I guess I am definitely a person who needs sugar, creme, or some sort of chocolaty mixture in their coffee. The cake was really good. It was a heavier cake, more like a log, and it had pralines in it. Lovin the food here.

On another food note, I tried to make fajitas one night because I was getting sick of making pasta and chicken, though I guess tortillas and chicken isn't much of a change-up. The packet of spices to cook the chicken with was really good, but the salsa that I had tasted horrible. It was like putting red pasta sauce on my tortilla. But, the different taste of the meal was a nice switch up.

That same night that I made my "fajitas," it started to snow very softly. I got excited because I didn't get to see any snowfall while back home. I awoke the next morning to about 1-2 inches of snow on the ground. It just made me that more excited to go snowboarding.

Also, the International Business Program had a international food night on Tuesday. All of us were supposed to bring something native to our country. The obvious choice, being American, was to take hot dogs or hamburgers. But, I didn't want to go that route. The next idea that came to mind was to take chili dogs, or chili fries. But, I could not find chili, and did not want to go through the hassle of making it from scratch. Then I had a great idea; Apple Pie. What is more American than that? And what is more French than not having an oven? So that idea was quickly shot down too. But, I did have another great idea...

PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY! A: it's easy to make B: I need to "spread" (notice the word play) the word of peanut butter to my fellow humans around the world. As Jesus said, "Go into all the world and spread the joy of the peanut butter..." or something like that. And C: PBJ is very American. To my satisfaction, my plate was pretty much empty the last time I saw it. As my good friend George W. Bush would say, "Mission Accomplished."

It has been pretty cold here, staying in the teens mostly. The dreary fog/ inversion lifted to bring in cold weather and clear skies. Apparently it is abnormally cold for France this winter, especially in Lyon.

Last Friday night, I got to feel this cold on a whole nother level. My heater decided not to work. I got up in the middle of the night, freezing, only to find that my heater was as cold as I was. I went back to bed, but not before laying down my ski jacket and my towel on top of me for extra warmth.

I awoke the next morning to find out that the whole "apartment" had lost heat, as well as hot water. I think it is hot water that flows through my heater, thus heating my room. Needless to say, it was pretty dang cold until about 2 o'clock when it started working again.

Saturday, the funniest thing happened while I was grocery shopping. I went to the store to pick up a few things. I saw this little kid while I was walking around, he had to be between 1-2. He saw me and I smiled back. I continued to shop, but came across the kid again. He was walking with some sort of meat package in his hands. As he went past me, he saw me and my basket, and dropped the package of meat into my basket. I started laughing and pulled it back out to give to him. His mother must have looked over and put together what happened, as she started to laugh too. Kids really do the darndest things. I have to say that scene made my day, and still makes me laugh whenever I think back on it.

Sunday, I watched the SUPER BOWL. Well, actually it was Monday, as the game didn't start until 12:30. So I guess it was Super Monday?? I took a pre-nap to make sure I was well rested before the game. I went over to a pub to watch it, and there was a pretty good amount of people there. Not a lot, but a good amount. Unfortunately, the European channel that we were watching it through didn't have the commercials. It only showed NFL highlights during commercial break. That was disappointing. Also, I didn't have any game snacks to much on; hot wings, burgers, fries, chips, dips, pizza, all that good stuff.

At half, we tried to find some food place that might be open on a Sunday around 1:30, but that failed. Most everyone left at half, even my fellow Americans. I had to disown them as Americans. You never leave the Super Bowl, even if you do have class in the morning.

Only two of us ended up staying, me and Andres (he's from Mexico). I was able to watch the rest of the game, as the Giants beat the Pats once again (I was going for the Giants) 21-17. It was my first international Super Bowl. The game ended around 4, so not too bad.

Afterwards, I thought I would be able to catch the night bus back home. Wrong. The night bus only operates from Thursday to Saturday. Andres and I split a cab down to Perrache, where I then had to walk up the hill. But, this time, I found the short cut, which really took a lot of time off my ascent to Allix. I was all bundled up, as it was like 12 degrees outside. I noticed, as I neared my residence, that the breath going through my scarf was turning to frost on it.

I got back to my room, and found the commercials online. My internet works AWESOME that late at night/ early in the morning cause no one is on the WiFi.

I also skyped my friend from home, and we had the best and clearest conversation in all our attempts to skype.

I ended up staying up till 6-6:30, a time which people had started going to work. I thought that this would be a good time to go to bed. Thank God that I only had one class today, and that was at 3:45.

I still need to pack to go boarding. Did I mention that I can't wait to be on the mountain? We travel to the resort tomorrow, with our first day of actually being on the mountain being Wednesday. It is so time for me to "faire du snowboard."