The past few days have been really eventful! After my last post on Saturday, I went to dinner with some of the other girls from Elon. We went to a pizza place where I got a really good pasta dish with chicken and mushrooms and vegetables and a little side salad. It was the first pasta I had since arriving in Lyon so it satisfied my pasta withdrawal! While we were eating, One Direction started playing over the patio speakers at one point which made me happy!

The next day, I went out to lunch with the other Elon girls and my friend from Vancouver. We went to a sandwich shop where I got a sandwich and double chocolate cookie. Yum! Then we tried walking around to look in some stores, but weirdly everything along the main street near the school was closed. We knew that some things closed on Sundays but we didn't think it would be that many. We found out there was going to be a parade and dance festival later that day, so maybe that was why more places were closed than usual. I tried going to a market that we had walked by before lunch with two of the other girls, but of course it was closed by the time we got there! So instead we decided to buy a couple bottles of wine and just hang out until the dance festival. We ended up losing track of time and when we got back to the dance festival it had already ended and they were cleaning up! I guess it just wasn't our day! Then the three of us decided to go to dinner and found a pizza place that was open. We got an authentic Italian chicken pizza to split and got even more wine! (After all the wine we had drank that day, we were acting pretty crazy and people in the restaurant probably thought we were obnoxious haha.) It ended up being a really fun night!

The next day, I met up with some girls to go to the big Part Dieu mall to get some things we needed. We went to Carrefour which is like the French version of Walmart. I got some school supplies and tea and finally found a towel that cost less than €25! Something that I just don't think I'll get used to here is that you are supposed to bring your own shopping bags with you or else they charge you for each one you use. After Carrefour, we got lunch (sandwiches that came with dessert. I got a Parisien sandwich with a chocolate tartlet.) Then we headed back to the school where we had orientation. They took a big group photo of everyone in the program (there are 169 of us total!) and then they told us basic things we needed to know about the program, the school, and Lyon. After the orientation there was a little reception where they had appetizers and desserts that were all so delicious! I met a ton of other people in the program and got my class schedule that was luckily less crazy than I thought it would be since I'm in seven classes. After that, I went with a group of people to these big steps on the Rhône river where teens and college students go to hang out pretty much every night of the week. We brought some wine and had fun getting to know everyone better!

Today was the first day of classes but I was lucky enough to not have any classes today. The schedule changes every week, so I will have a class most Tuesdays. In the morning, I took advantage of the free time to organize my room more and get all my pictures put onto my wall. In the afternoon I met up with my friend Virginia who's from Vancouver to explore a little since she didn't have class either. We went up to the ancient Roman ruins in Vieux Lyon that look like miniature colosseums. They were so cool and it was interesting learning a little history about the city. Then we went to the nearby Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourvière. It looks just like a Disney princess castle and is at the top of a hill that you can see from the whole city, so I've been really wanting to check it out! It looked so cool up close and inside was really pretty too. Since the castle is up on such a huge hill, we could see the whole city from there! As we were walking back down the hill to go home, it started downpouring. We ran for a while until we found a little restaurant where we stopped to get out of the rain and have some hot chocolate. It was probably the best hot chocolate I've ever had! When the rain eventually let up, we went back to our dorms. I had a hall meeting so I met some of the other students from my hall and learned more about the dorm rules, etc.

Tomorrow is my first day of classes. I have Integrated Marketing Communications in the morning and French in the afternoon. I'm excited to start classes and meet more people in my program! Au revoir for now!