Orientation/Weekend

The orientation that we went to was organised by a girl named Julie who had been part of ORA last year (she had attended UofW). It was good. There were many different things that we did, we went to the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) a beautiful old building with gold trimming. We wandered the city of Lyon and just discovered some of the hidden wonders of the old cities.

There was the free park - La Parc de la Tete d'Or - that had a zoo. The park was huge - a forest that had walking paths through it, a big blue lake, and many different places to take beautiful wedding photos - which we saw, there were brides and grooms all over the place. We prettty much hung out all day enjoying the nature.

At dinner time, 20h00, we went to a little abandoned looking place, called Le Tire Bouchon (the Cork Screw). We were lead up this little spiral staircase that caused a serious case of claustrophobia. The meal was huge. The entree (appetizer) was a salad that filled a dinner plate and stood 4" high and covered in lardettes (ham chunks). Only two people out of the group of 23 actually finished it. Then there was the normal sized meal of meat, vegetables and potatoes, followed by a plate with 3 pieces of cake! The menu had said it was a "dessert variete" so the thought was that there was a choice, no we got three pieces - a fondant (big brownie), a cherry thing and a caramel pudding like thing. Soooo good.

We stayed the weekend in the CISL - Centre International de Sejour de Lyon - very ugly, institutionalized building in the middle of the french bronks. horrible. On sunday morning, we slept till the free breakfast, ate, registered for the night, and then went straight back to sleep. the day was half over before we were conscience or alert enough to realize. I think that night we caught up on all the jetlag, so that was good. We just chilled for the rest of the afternoon, read my Bible in the backyard like area, updated the journal, etc. Melissa and I went for a walk around dinner time with the purpose of some exercise and to find food. France is still very much 'thou shalt rest on the Sabbath' and therefore there was nothing open within a 30 minute walk that we found. Then we found in the distance a sign from home. We had journeyed long and far, down the tracks, to find a McDonalds. It was great. Believe it or not, french mcdonald's salad is pretty good (by this time we were really sick of the carbs and were in search of produce - anything that qualified).

We took the bus back to CISL where continued to chill for the rest of the night.