My Monday last week consisted of a teacher telling me she'd be back 'in a moment' and buggering off for 30 mins. Result: me with no preparation and a class full of hyped up teens who thought their teacher was gone for good. I could literally do nought with them, so they were drawing on the board, hanging out the window shouting and generally just being pains in the arses. I have to say I was rather passive, if they had nothing better to do why shouldn't they behave like brats? I am NOT a substitute teacher. The cleaners are probably paid more than me. I'm an assistant teacher, if the teacher is not there then I cannot assist. I'm happy working with a class alone if I have to, but only if I have work prepared for them. Also this is not to say that all of them behaved badly, the majority that I have worked with before sat quietly and cooperated well. Unfortunately this was a new mixed group however, so those I hadn't encountered before were the ones who took advantage at my complete and utter confusion. Eventually the teacher returned and asked why I hadn't done anything with them? Quite frankly I could have screamed at her. "Oh but everything looked fine from outside" apparently, I'm sure me sending two kids out to find her earlier hadn't been a big enough message. Anyway, needless to say she blamed the students (and more than likely myself) for the situation.
All in all. I was in quite a bad mood that day.
For the rest of the week, I still felt somewhat down even though absolutely all my other classes went perfectly fine (all as beautifully planned- planning IS everything! Lesson learnt, I shall never go into class again without extra worksheets in case I'm ever dropped in the shit again), and all my students were nice as ever.
Anyway, weeks of saying we were going to Lyon came to fruition for 3 of us. There was a large group of us wanting to go to begin with but in the end it was only Sam, Lucy and I who followed through. And I'm so glad we did! It was sooo nice exploring a new city and Lyon is really pretty. We could have only hoped for better weather, on the train as we got further and further South we started to see snow EVERYWHERE! Sorry for thinking that the South would be somewhat warmer, I was completely and utterly wrong...
View from the train.
At one point it was apparently a very cool -8, it took a bit of time for us to brave going out that night. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We only got to Lyon in the later part of the evening (it was a 4 hour train ride for us) and we didn't know where to go for cheap food/drink so we spent a lot of time kinda just wandering about. Next day we were more prepared. We knew we wanted to try out a place we saw the night before- Best Bagels, and we were not disappointed! It was a nice American style place, it sold things like marshmallow fluff and Hershey bars, and their bagel combos were bloody delicious! I was extremely impressed to find several options for me to eat, I settled on the veggie orgy and an oreo and Jack Daniels milkshake. Yes, Jack Daniels in milkshake- bloody marvellous!
It seemed a great little place for fellow Anglophones. The two, very English, kids near us were especially cute as they kept laughing loudly at the 'magic chicken' on the menu.
After tearing ourselves away from this place (it took a lot, it was so bloody nice there) we went exploring.
This is of course the Cathédrale Saint Jean-Baptiste, very beautiful, very Catholic. While there were many beautiful statues and pictures, I have to say my favourite was this one:
Jesus looks like he's got some swag going.
Even the gorgeous, fascinating astronomical clock didn't quite beat it for me.
Then for some reason, we decided to climb some bigass hill to go see some Roman amphitheatres and the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourviére. It was pretty much a vertical climb to get there but it was very cool to see both. And the view of the city, from the very top was worth it.
Just waiting for the music concert to begin.
*inside the Basilica...* Sam: "So trashy!" Me: "I love it!"
Didn't really get any good shots of the outside cos the place is so damned big! It's more interesting on the inside anyway...
Lyon from above.
After we eventually climbed back down, we came across the Bartholdi fountain, by far one of my favourite sights.
I love how wild the horses look, and she's beautiful.
We refreshed ourselves then set out again for the Parc de la Tête d'Or, it's rated no.1 attraction in Lyon on quite a few sites from what I saw, and it certainly deserves it. It's free to walk around and see the majority of the animals, and they're quite friendly. We had one deer come right up to us, think he was hoping for Sam's apple to be honest. Lucy got close enough stroke the wee deer anyway.
I was quite excited myself to see a red panda, love those little chaps, they're like stuffed animals they're so damned cute! They're extremely hard to get a picture of however, especially with my shitty camera. I was extremely jealous of another tourist who had a camera lens the length of the Nile pointing at the animal cages.
I did make friends with these guys though, they got the best part of my blueberry muffin.
After much walking we eventually went back to our room at Hotelo, decent enough little place, if a little quirky (back by 1 am and hand your keys back every time you go out! Felt like a kid.) This was the night of the -8 degrees... Having walked all day, we were perfectly entitled to take the Metro I think. We went to a nice little bouchon (traditional Lyonnaise restaurant), where I actually got a veggie meal! There are so many bouchons, always next to eachother, but hunting out a menu suitable for me was somewhat difficult and I have to say a big thanks to Lucy and Sam for being so considerate as to find one that suited me while it was snowing down on us. After that we went to a wee Irish bar, I was slightly saddened we didn't go to the James Joyce one simply due to its sign outside:
Standing while drinking= gun to the head...
Yet again, we saw a rather old person with a scooter at the bar. And I mean scooter- as in the ones you rode when you were under 10, little push ones. Apparently very popular in Lyon...And on the way home on the Metro, there was a woman shouting at her son "ALEJANDRO! ALEJANDRO!"... Well, Gaga had to get it somewhere. Lyon definitely has a sense of humour, not sure if it knows it, but it's blooming cracking for a laugh. Even as we got the train back home, there was one last giggle as I noticed some graffiti by the tracks:
Crepe... Just imagine having a streetname like Pancake.
Anyway, this week has started well. All my classes have been good, finally finished some work on posters with some classes and they turned out awesome- wish I'd remembered to get a picture but I may do later. I had one student at the lycée beg to come work with me, and generally being lovely and chatty. I even got told that they feel they learn far more English with me, so that's brillaint to know. And just everyone's in a good mood- holidays are coming after all!
As for the title of this blog, if you still can't answer, just look at this photo:
Check out the udders!!!
