Ohhhh, ok, okay, I know, I know... it's been two months since I first arrived in France, and I haven't written a word!! Ha ha, call me lazy~ Well, after the first 3 weeks of hardship, I've been travelling (and busy getting sick) the following 5 weekends.. so... anyway, let me just more or less share them with you:

I've been to the lovely Avignon and Arles where I filmed an exciting game of ducky watersport(end of September). This was the first time I ever went out of Lyon here, and I went with this "NI-HAO squad" which consists of 10 international students with more or less Chinese background, which was quite interesting, we had to communicate in English afterall. (Why wasn't it French? Eh? Are you kidding?) Ahhhh, the memory of this trip is too far away now, I did visit a very special museum there but... I'll have to write more if I recall anything..><


...Sunny Nice, Monaca and Cannes where I got to learn about Mexico?! (first weekend of October). The famous Côté d'Azur area is just as fancy and ummmm.. expensive..... as it should be.. Well, I went there with this Mexican guy in my French class whose last name happens to be Villalobos! (for those who don't play classical guitar, which I know must be the majority.. SORRY! but it's just that there was a composer named Villalobos anyway.. end of story!) and I learned not only about the meaning of his name(which is the village of wolves) but also more about Mexico. The thing is that the more this guy asked about my own country and about China, the more I realized I know little about it myself and I need to learn lots lots more... in fact, I really should! I may come from a small island which has barely any influence on earth, I can't despise and indulge myself and keep on missing out the world.. I do hope that someday I can be as proud as my friend was when he talked about his homeland. (passionate, passionate!!) Well, it took us 4 days to go (the first time I left Lyon for so long) and Julian was sick back then, so.. even though we had fun and enjoyed the sunshine, we both ended up missing Lyon very much, and for the same idea that we have to learn more about our own countries, I decided to visit the tourist office in Lyon!!

(the facility I appreciate: protect our environment!!!)

Then I visit Sophie somewhere near St. Etienne where it turned really cold for me that I got another cold besides the latino one...;x (Oct. 13-15) Sophies' grandparents have their haircuts with a hairdresser driving and delivering service at residences because they live in this small village far away from central town, surprisingly, this is actually cheaper than going to a hair salon! (Well, I was told that in a hair salon you'll have to pay for the existing equipments, electricity, lights and water and so on, but if you call the hairdresser, you will only have to pay for the service and a small amount of transportation fee.) Visiting Sophie was the very first first time I ever stayed with a French family, her family was very friendly and interesting, among all, I really admired Sophie's aunt, who actually picked me up at the airport when I arrived Lyon two months back, she is really interesting and she makes me feel really comfortable and warm.. :) At Spohie's, I tried frogs!!! and snails!!! within a short weekend!! (French people will eat them at restaurant, say, once every month, so it's quite rare.) Well, frog as a dish to me is between fish and crab, I don't really like it, but when nicely cooked, it's cool.. On the other hand, I LOVE SNAILS!!! They taste WONDERFUL!!! I guess it's because we do have some seafood like this back home, and it may suit most Taiwanese people~ don't know, but if you ever have the chance, TRY them both! You've got nothing to lose!! (okay.. unless you don't have a strong stomach....) Other than above, well, I kind of suffered on the last night in her house because of my poor French level in catching all the common usages among teenagers, which was good still...., at least I really am motivated to learn and try to master this language now. Hey, I do have to look on the bright sides, don't I? Wish me luck!



The following week... oh là là an unexpected trip to Beaune and Dijon where I tried wine-tasting!!(Oct. 20-22). It was really very very unexpected because I didn't plan to travel, I wanted to stay at home in Lyon and to take care of my sickness... but then, my friends made me go somehow... That was a rather stupid yet amusing day, regardless of the fact that I only promised to go because my friends missed their train (as far as I can remember, it was Jamie who...... ;x) and had to wait for another train at noon so I would have enough time to prepare and enough sunshine, WE MISTOOK STILL ANOTHER TRAIN WHEN THE TIME CAME ANYWAY!! and ended up in this town we would normally never ever had visited in our lives! Funny, isn't it? And we decided that "c'est la vie" and "it's also a part of travelling, moreover, it could make it an extraordinary journey in life when we have absolutely no idea where we will end up going!" so we had lunch on the platform in the train station of Montluel while enjoying the scenery that we definitely will never ever see again!

Wine-tasting in Beaune was a lot of fun. We paid about 12euros for a short introductory lecture on wines, and another 10euros for a winery where we tasted 15 different kinds of wines. When we pretended as if we knew about wine and went like "oh, it may be the best wine in this area, I don't like it anyway!(I truly admired Evelyn when she said so with an air of prentended royalty, ha ha ha~ joking)" trying to mock those sophisticated and picky people.. sorry but it was fun!! In Dijon, we visited the town by tracking all the "chouettes"(little owls) marked on the map. The town itself has no much charm(maybe it was for nothing was open on Sundays), but they made the effort for tourism, and I appreciated it somehow. Another thing is that I became kind of sentimental in Dijon when I got the phone call from one of my best guy friends back home, he was about to join the army, and I truly missed him.. well, you may say that it was unnecessary, but weren't all the sentiments together also a key element that made it an unique journey?

Last weekend I went to St. Clair and Vienne with Jenny to celebrate her 22nd birthday!!:)(Oct. 27-29) I loved it at Jenny's!! (oh by the way, it was the weekend when I received "the supplies" from Taipei, I LOVE YOU all even though you made me depressed a bit when I was in Lyon again where I showed off your gifts and cards to my friends here and thought of you too much when I ate the candies... Thank you so much, though you're at the same time so evil to have made the effort to make me miss you!!! Haha~) I brought 豆乾 and 鳳梨酥 along for Jenny's family and friends there to have a taste, everyone but Jenny loved 豆乾, ha ha!! Jenny has to work on Saturdays, so Mickaël(her best friend) had to show me around in Vienne, though we had problems communicating early in the morning(because I couldn't make it to speak French clearly shortly after I got out of bed?!), it was rather nice when we searched for gifts and cards for Jenny in Vienne, this was the second weekend I had to speak French all the time, but I felt I did a lot better and understood more than I did last time... which made me happy. :) In the evening, we visited Jenny at the bakery she works at and gave her the birthday card I wrote in Chinese and French by the temple d'Auguste. I made Mickaël translate for her even though he doesn't speak Chinese at all, it was sweet, hey? ;p Later that night, after dinner with her family, we went to play pull at a bar, I was a bit worried because it has been AGES since I last played pull!! but it turned out really cool, we enjoyed the night.. Happy birthday, sweetie!:)

Good, for the first post, I guess it's enough(the fact is I either can't remember everything I wanted to write or I get lazy again...)........... let's just hope I can make it to keep a blog from now on! Remind me, remind me please!!!!