Lyon

Today was my first real travel day since arriving in Grenoble and it was FABULOUS! Anna Cat and I went to Lyon for the day - I felt such excitement to travel. I bought a train ticket yesterday after orientation and AC and I took the 8:30 train to Lyon. We arrived around ten and were extremely overwhelmed when we walked out the the train station. Lyon is a lot bigger than Grenoble! They have trams, metros, and buses. It was so confusing. Luckily, we managed to walk our way in the general direction of le Vieux Lyon! C'etait incroyable! We walked up this massive hill to get to the Basilique which is a famous and absolutely breath-takingly beautiful cathedral on the top of the hill. It was so amazing. It really made me think about the time and effort that was put into that church to create something so majestic and powerful. We could see all of Lyon from up on the hill. On our way up, we stopped and saw ancient Roman ruins that were over 2000 years old! WOW.
We actually managed to make it around to all of the historic and tourist sites of the city. Did you know that Lyon is the birthplace of traditional French cuisine?! The markets were incredible - people were eating oysters and extremely fancy and traditional French food everywhere.
Anna Cat and I grabbed lunch and ate it in la Place Bellecoeur (beautiful heart). The weather was incredible today - a perfect sunny day. We then walked over to the Place Terreux where there is a famous fountain that was created by the same man that created the Statue of Liberty. So so beautiful. There was actually a group protesting in Lyon today. I think it was a group of Tunisians? They were protesting repression... it was rather weird.
By the end of the afternoon, we were so tired. We literally walked around the entire city. Anna Cat and I think we probably walked around seven miles or so. It was totally worth it though because of how beautiful it was today. We took a lot of pictures so that was good news.

I love Europe. the end.