Last Weekend of Total Freedom

Classes start tomorrow. Whoa, crazy! So this will be my last weekend without university-related things to do.

Yesterday I thought I would venture over to La Saone. Bad idea. It is nowhere near as pretty to look at or walk by as La Rhone. I spent about twenty minutes walking before I decided to head back to Bellecour. I did get a nice picture of people using the public bicycles though.

There are bike racks in various places throughout Lyon. You essentially pay to take the bike from one rack to another. It seems like a pretty good way to get around if you're going long distances, have a destination, or just like bike riding through the city. I haven't had the chance to use the service yet, but maybe sometime in the spring I can be persuaded.

Later in the evening I saw a post on the "SELF and DEUF Lyon Spring 2011" facebook group asking if anyone was interested in a more quiet social gathering, instead of just going somewhere to get wasted and party. It sounded like my kind of night, so I went. I met up with two Finnish and three Italian women in between one of the Bellecour metro stations and McDonald's. The original plan was to head to a pub and if anyone wanted to go to the crazy party later they could do that or go home. Unfortunately, the pub they had in mind was something of a sports bar and a game was going on at the time. So we decided to head to one of the party boats on La Rhone river.

We ended up on one called "Q Boat" which turned into a nightclub around the time we left. We were pretty much the only people there from 10-11, and all of the other women ordered a single drink. As a side note, it's a very small world out there. One of Julia's friends that I met when I went out with her also knew the Italian women, so I got the chance to talk to him again. Better this time, since I've become more comfortable speaking in French for more than five minutes. It was certainly interesting to talk to people from different parts of the world. I learned that in Finland, you can pass out drunk on the street and wake up with all your money still in hand, but in Italy women feel uncomfortable walking around sober at night. My take? As long as you look like you know what's going on around you, the chances are high that you'll stay safe.

Today I walked all the way to the Hotel de Ville metro station. It's pretty far away from where I live, but aimlessness has been known to get me great distances. Not only did I find the large movie theatre, I found the hole-in-the-wall artsy type cinema, a game workshop, and a Chinese restaurant. One of these days, I'm going to find the courage to go into these places. Until then, I'm content with observation.