Lyon (Or, Addie Jo and Janie's Adventure Into Lyon's City Hall)

It's amazing how being in Europe pulls people out of the woodwork that you hadn't expected to see. And for all the negative hype and I've passed along about Facebook and the internet in general, it does create some pretty awesome happenstance meetings.

Take seeing Janie in Lyon for example.

I had Lyon on my list just to give me a place to be for a few days during a longer stay in Avignon, kind of a minor scene in front of a new landscape before heading on to the explosion of epicness that would be Paris. Janie, who I think I rode the bus with when she was a freshman and I was a sophomore at Carolina, but who had transferred to State the year after, had seen my note with my itinerary on Facebook and proposed meeting up. Delighted again to see someone new and familiar, I agreed.

Janie met me at the McDonald's near my hotel that had become like a second home to me, due to the free wi-fi. (As an aside, I feel absolutely ridiculous asking about wi-fi in English. How do you think I fared asking about it in continental Europe, where they pronounce it wee-fee? Answer- I never asked about it. Oh embarassment. How you infiltrate my life with difficulty.) It was here, you may recall, that I laid out my resolve to catch the blog up to present times. I'm still a country and several churches behind, but the gap is closing.

Anyway, Janie and I met at McDonald's and from there we took the metro and then the tram up to Notre Dame de Fourviere, another church on a hill.

 We made our way back down the hill to the cathedral in Lyon, with its astrological clock.

 Finally, we went over to the opera, taking pictures of the muses standing over the entrance.

Leaving off Urania, of course, because the muse of astronomy has an unfortunate name and little to do with opera.

Janie had been in the town hall on a visit with her study abroad program but didn't know if we should step inside this time without a guide. A female guard stood outside the gate. After a few moments of debate, we were encouraged to enter by the exit of a woman with shopping bags. We ducked into the gate while the guard was distracted, just for good measure.

After taking a few pictures of a rather remarkable fountain,

we made the braver decision to walk inside the hall. The worst that could happen is that they tell us to leave, we reasoned. All the same, we peered around corners before entering rooms and ran lightly across creaking wooden floors when we heard anyone approach. Losing our resolve and having seen all we wanted to see, we escaped unscathed, the only evidence of our incursion a few pictures on my camera.

Quite exciting pictures, of course.

The next day we met for lunch over by the university, a conglomeration of buildings that would form the perfect setting for a post-apocalyptic drama, as Janie pointed out. We sat outside a pizza place and talked about being physics students, a strangely comforting topic for me. We walked over to a gas station after lunch to get some wonderful lemon tart and then I headed back to my section of town, garnering a parting gift- a lanyard from CERN that I am beyond excited about. Leave it to two American science majors to meet in France and exchange gifts from a particle accelerator in Switzerland.

Another rainy day and delayed train later and I left Lyon behind me, scrolling fondly through my pictures of flower trees

 and lions before arriving at the city of lights, Paris.