Not much happened during the day. I pretty much just worked on making to-do lists and waited for it to be 8pm. Thanks to Facebook, all of the English assistants, even some Spanish, German, and Arabic assistants, have been able to communicate with each other. Since the majority of us had our first day on Thursday, October 1st, someone planned a get together for that night.
The common meeting place for the Lyonnais (the Lyon natives) is under the horse’s tail (statue in the center) at Place Bellecour. And, since it’s pretty easy to locate, the group decided to meet there. By the time I arrived to the statue, there was already a group of about 20-25 people! Besides the size of the group, it was also easy to recognize that I had found the group because of all the English that I could hear coming from it.
I met a lot of the assistants but only remember a few names. I knew I was bad with names, but for some reason, it was worse! I do recall some people: Megan, from Canada, Maggie, from California, Zara, also from California and friends with a friend from high school (SMALL WORLD), Dan, facebook acquaintance from Illinois, Sam, from England, Albert, from England and studying at Oxford, Jack from England, Fiona and Catherine from New Zealand….and the list could have gone on, but I forgot. But, you can see how diverse the group is – crazy!
After waiting for some stragglers, we walked from Bellecour towards Vieux Lyon (the Old quarter of Lyon – known for being one of the most preserved Renaissance areas in Europe). We all sat down at a bar right next to the Cathedral St. Jean. It was an ideal spot, despite the cold, because we had St. Jean looming over us, and the Basilique de Fourvière above us overlooking the square.
After being there for about an hour, the bartender decided to put Lesley, another assistant, in charge of collecting the money from everyone that was there. She was a little annoyed and upset because the bartender was being so difficult so I decided to help her by holding the coins and helping her with change. At one point I had about 50 euros in 1, 2, .50, and .20 euro coins. After collecting the money (we ended up with more that we needed instead of being short) one of the Australian assistants suggested we go to an Australian bar/club.
He led us all to Ayers Rock about a 15/20 minute walk from where we were. At this time, I thought that I was pretty close to Guillaume’s, so I wasn’t worried about being home late.
The club was packed! We eventually were able to get in and have a drink. All of us (Dan, Jack, Matt, Megan, Maggie and I) just stood in a small circle since we couldn’t really move, but enjoyed ourselves by listening to the music (which consisted of Black Eyed Peas, Pitbull, Nirvana…etc) and the French people singing along to the songs without knowing what they were saying (probably). I’m guilty of doing the same since I don’t always understand what is being said when I listen to Italian or French music. Plus, I now know that I need to know what it is that I am listening to or what I am told to say because it can get me into to trouble, or can be embarrassing – 2 weeks ago at the soirée Guillaume’s friend, Maxime, told me to start singing “Bois tes regles” which I later found out meant, “drink your periods”…Opps!
Since the transportation strike was still going on, most of the group had to leave early. But, as we were saying goodbye, Jack bought another beer because he didn’t think that everyone was leaving. I wanted to go home, but I would have felt bad for leaving him there alone. So, I bought another beer and drank it with him. Once we finished, we started our journey back – which ended up taking me almost an hour!
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