Sitting here in Lyon gettng ready for the big trip to Barcelona, Spain tomorrow afternoon. I am really quite excited. I know absolutely no Spanish, nothing about Spanish culture, and even less about Barcelona as a city. I realize that this will be a unique experience in that I will be absolutely 100% out of my element. At least here in France I can get across what I am trying to communicate even if it wasn't in perfect French. Luckily, there are two people in the group of us Americans that are going that took Spanish all through high school so we will be relying heavily on them for help. If not for their help, I'm sure my attempts at communication would be comical. A mix of charades, pointing, and a little French in the hope they might know some.
We are staying in a hostel which will be my first stay in a hostel and from the sounds of it I am glad I never saw the movie Hostel. The reviews on the website make it sounds like not such a bad place. Just a stripped down hotel from the sounds of it. Barcelona, however, is known for their pickpockets so we will have to be prepared for that. I am attempting to pack everything into a carry on bag so I don't have to hassle with the whole check-in process. If you know me you know I like to overpack so this goal may pose a bit of a problem since I have to bring my own towel and flipflops for the showers. I am excited for the food and obviously to see some of the sights of the city even though I will not know what they are or what they symbolize. I just hope I can kick this little headcold before tomorrow morning. It would have helped if I could have bought some cold medicine at the grocery store tonight but O that's right, they don't sell any medicine at the grocery store, its all at the pharmacy which closes at approximately 5. But that is a whole seperate blog entry. Instead of medicine I just packed in the oranges and apples today. We'll see how that turns out and hopefully everything will cure itself.
I'm sure I will return will all kinds of stories to blog about and to do my usual complaining about, but if I didn't complain, this whole writing thing would be no fun. Here's to what I hope to be another weekend filled with new experiences that I will not soon forget. Goodbye for a while and hope for the best!!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
The Great Awakening
The title sounds a lot more literary than the story really is. So I have 8 AM classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays which is a problem since I am not exactly a morning person. So Monday night I was up way too late since I slept until about noon that day. It was about 2 AM by the time I actually got into bed. I tossed and turned and tossed some more. Point being I didn't fall asleep. I figured it was too late to try and take a Tylenol PM to help so I just tried my best to fall asleep but apparently my best was not good enough. 3 AM came and went with no sleep. Then around 4 AM I hear a bunch of men in the stairwell. One must understand that there are mostly all college students in this building from one university or another so I just figured some other guys were coming back from a bar awfully late. However the noise and loud French speaking persisted.
Then, out of nowhere, came quite hard pounding on the door over and over. Again, I just figured it was some drunk kids being typical drunk kids so I did not bother to get up. While in college you tend to learn a sense of whether the type of knocking is important or not. My judgment was to obviously stay in bed even though I wasn't sleeping. Then I began to hear some new voices which I thought was weird but I figured the drunk kids went to another door and somebody opened it. It was not until I started to hear English being spoken that my interest in the situation suddenly rose. I listened as best I could from my bed but I could not make out what was being said but it sounded like some of the other American students who were talking. So I put my clothes on and went to the door to see what was going on. I opened the door to see a flashlight greeting me in the face and somebody saying the police are here and something about checking the rooms and something about water on the floor. I was understandably a bit confused and a bit annoyed there was a flashlight in my face.
Turns out some room one floor below mine had water on the floor or damp walls. The person obviously couldn't wait until the morning so they called the fire department to come check it out at 4 AM. Also turns out that those crazy drunk kids were actually firefighters who wanted to check my room for water; and that whoever told me the police were here mistranslated the word "pompier" on the back of the jackets of the firefighters. They must have been confused with the French translation of police, being "la police." I could see where somebody might get thrown off by the "la." The French firefighters who did not speak a word of English left at 4:45 AM and concluded in fine French fashion that they didn't know where the water was coming from so they were leaving. It must have been the end of their shift.
If I could just interject some of my plumbing expertise here. The room on the 2nd floor had wet walls or wet ceiling or something. So the firefighters came to the 3rd floor to see where the water was coming from. No problem there except for the time of day. One of the rooms on my floor had water on the floor of their closet and their closet walls were also wet. Common sense would say, well go up one more floor and maybe you can find what caused it because the last time I checked water doesn't exactly flow up a wall. I guess common sense wasn't so common as they say because the firefighters were content with saying "well we tried, can't find anthing wrong, lets go."
I ended up not going to sleep that night since I had to get up at 6:30 for my 8:00 AM class. I also had 7.5 hours of class the next day. Not really a good combination but I managed to make it through the day. One thing I did end up learning, my judgment of the importance of who is knocking, is bit off.
Then, out of nowhere, came quite hard pounding on the door over and over. Again, I just figured it was some drunk kids being typical drunk kids so I did not bother to get up. While in college you tend to learn a sense of whether the type of knocking is important or not. My judgment was to obviously stay in bed even though I wasn't sleeping. Then I began to hear some new voices which I thought was weird but I figured the drunk kids went to another door and somebody opened it. It was not until I started to hear English being spoken that my interest in the situation suddenly rose. I listened as best I could from my bed but I could not make out what was being said but it sounded like some of the other American students who were talking. So I put my clothes on and went to the door to see what was going on. I opened the door to see a flashlight greeting me in the face and somebody saying the police are here and something about checking the rooms and something about water on the floor. I was understandably a bit confused and a bit annoyed there was a flashlight in my face.
Turns out some room one floor below mine had water on the floor or damp walls. The person obviously couldn't wait until the morning so they called the fire department to come check it out at 4 AM. Also turns out that those crazy drunk kids were actually firefighters who wanted to check my room for water; and that whoever told me the police were here mistranslated the word "pompier" on the back of the jackets of the firefighters. They must have been confused with the French translation of police, being "la police." I could see where somebody might get thrown off by the "la." The French firefighters who did not speak a word of English left at 4:45 AM and concluded in fine French fashion that they didn't know where the water was coming from so they were leaving. It must have been the end of their shift.
If I could just interject some of my plumbing expertise here. The room on the 2nd floor had wet walls or wet ceiling or something. So the firefighters came to the 3rd floor to see where the water was coming from. No problem there except for the time of day. One of the rooms on my floor had water on the floor of their closet and their closet walls were also wet. Common sense would say, well go up one more floor and maybe you can find what caused it because the last time I checked water doesn't exactly flow up a wall. I guess common sense wasn't so common as they say because the firefighters were content with saying "well we tried, can't find anthing wrong, lets go."
I ended up not going to sleep that night since I had to get up at 6:30 for my 8:00 AM class. I also had 7.5 hours of class the next day. Not really a good combination but I managed to make it through the day. One thing I did end up learning, my judgment of the importance of who is knocking, is bit off.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Olympique Lyonnais
Here in Lyon there is a football club, "soccer team," that plays in the French League 1. Prior to 2002 they had never won the title in the French league but have won the title the past 6 years and are well on their way to their seventh straight invitation to the Champions Cup. The Champions Cup is basically a tournament that is made up of the winners of the various national leagues that many countries have and is often considered the most prestigious trophy in all of football. This year OL, which is the shorter name for the team here, is doing quite well and are in first place in French League 1. If I was back in the US and had the chance to go see an MLS game, I might go if I had the opportunity. However, I went to the OL game this past Wednesday when they played a team from northwest France named FC Lorient and it was incredible.
Football in Europe puts any soccer to absolute shame back stateside. First of all, the stadium, which is a soccer only stadium, holds about 43,000 people and it usually sells out at every game. This creates a much different atmosphere than any soccer game could. Secondly, when you think of passionate fans in America you usually picture somebody with face paint who goes to every game. A fan of the OL football club is somebody that belongs to a brotherhood. They live and die by their football club and are more passionate than any fan I've ever seen. They have flags, and songs, and jerseys, and seasons tickets because that is what their life is about.
Stade de Gerland is where the team plays all of their home games which is located on the outskirts of the city. Just walking up to the stadium you know that its something that is going to be unlike any other professional sports game in America. The entire stadium is decorated for the team and there are vendors and people drinking their beers for blocks outside of the stadium before the game. I left my apartment an hour before the game was supposed to start and the metro was packed with fans even then. These fans are just another breed.
The game itself was also very different from an American sports game. There was no large fanfare about the starting lineup or pretty much anything other than the actual game itself. There was no music on the PA system during halftime, no sponsor announcements (at least not that I could hear or understand), no bombardement with various marketing campaigns. No blaring music during starting lineups, no national anthem, nothing that would take away from the actual playing of the game. It was purely a gathering to watch le match de football. So 90 minutes of soccer later, Lyon came out on top winning 2-0 in a game where it could have been 5-0 if not for a couple hits off the post. All in all it was a good game to watch if you were an OL fan.
Now for some odd differences. The seats on the ends of the field which is where my seat was, are pretty much general admission. You have a section, row, and seat number but everybody pretty much just sits and stands wherever they want. So for most of the game, everybody on the end was standing and chanting, if you knew the chants, and cheering. However, along the length of the field was a very different group. On either side of the field were the "sophisticated people." Everybody had their own seat and sat in it the entire game until the ball got real close to the goal and then they would all stand up together. As soon as the ball was kicked, they would all sit back down together. It was a clear division between economic classes. More observations, when the fans don't agree with a call, they not only boo, but most of them whistle quite loudly. Also when the ball is lost and most American fans would raise both arms to the sky in disbelief, the OL fans raise only one hand to the sky. Lastly, an observation about the fanatics and their chants. Many of the chants were sung to American tunes such as Yankee Doodle which seemed very odd. Kind of a high schoolish vibe when you can't come up with your own tune so you insert your name into another song.
However at the end of the day I had decided that it was an awesome experience and I will attend most of the home games since the tickets are all under 20€. EXCEPT for one game. Manchester United, a premier team from England, comes into town for the first leg of the Champions Cup. The city here will basically shut down during the game and since everybody cannot go, they will be streaming the live video into the city square for all of us lower class folk. The cheapest ticket to the football game......? Only 300€. Mom, dad maybe a little help with that one?
Football in Europe puts any soccer to absolute shame back stateside. First of all, the stadium, which is a soccer only stadium, holds about 43,000 people and it usually sells out at every game. This creates a much different atmosphere than any soccer game could. Secondly, when you think of passionate fans in America you usually picture somebody with face paint who goes to every game. A fan of the OL football club is somebody that belongs to a brotherhood. They live and die by their football club and are more passionate than any fan I've ever seen. They have flags, and songs, and jerseys, and seasons tickets because that is what their life is about.
Stade de Gerland is where the team plays all of their home games which is located on the outskirts of the city. Just walking up to the stadium you know that its something that is going to be unlike any other professional sports game in America. The entire stadium is decorated for the team and there are vendors and people drinking their beers for blocks outside of the stadium before the game. I left my apartment an hour before the game was supposed to start and the metro was packed with fans even then. These fans are just another breed.
The game itself was also very different from an American sports game. There was no large fanfare about the starting lineup or pretty much anything other than the actual game itself. There was no music on the PA system during halftime, no sponsor announcements (at least not that I could hear or understand), no bombardement with various marketing campaigns. No blaring music during starting lineups, no national anthem, nothing that would take away from the actual playing of the game. It was purely a gathering to watch le match de football. So 90 minutes of soccer later, Lyon came out on top winning 2-0 in a game where it could have been 5-0 if not for a couple hits off the post. All in all it was a good game to watch if you were an OL fan.
Now for some odd differences. The seats on the ends of the field which is where my seat was, are pretty much general admission. You have a section, row, and seat number but everybody pretty much just sits and stands wherever they want. So for most of the game, everybody on the end was standing and chanting, if you knew the chants, and cheering. However, along the length of the field was a very different group. On either side of the field were the "sophisticated people." Everybody had their own seat and sat in it the entire game until the ball got real close to the goal and then they would all stand up together. As soon as the ball was kicked, they would all sit back down together. It was a clear division between economic classes. More observations, when the fans don't agree with a call, they not only boo, but most of them whistle quite loudly. Also when the ball is lost and most American fans would raise both arms to the sky in disbelief, the OL fans raise only one hand to the sky. Lastly, an observation about the fanatics and their chants. Many of the chants were sung to American tunes such as Yankee Doodle which seemed very odd. Kind of a high schoolish vibe when you can't come up with your own tune so you insert your name into another song.
However at the end of the day I had decided that it was an awesome experience and I will attend most of the home games since the tickets are all under 20€. EXCEPT for one game. Manchester United, a premier team from England, comes into town for the first leg of the Champions Cup. The city here will basically shut down during the game and since everybody cannot go, they will be streaming the live video into the city square for all of us lower class folk. The cheapest ticket to the football game......? Only 300€. Mom, dad maybe a little help with that one?
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
The adjustment period
Well it has been two full weeks here in Lyon. All in all the experience has been quite mixed. My initial perceptions of what France would be like were destroyed within the first day and I am still trying to figure out just how I could describe France to anybody. France is not Paris. France is a lot more than just Paris and a lot more complicated at that. When you see something about France on the Travel channel, you always get the Paris experience and then a brief description of the various historical places in France. If you haven't been able to tell already from my other posts, France is a whole different world than Paris and the United States. I have learned a lot already and have much more to learn in the 3 and a half short months that remain.
In the two weeks that I have been here, most of my experiences have been cultural. It has been about learning the major differences between my culture back in the United States and the rich, sometimes stubborn, culture here in France. There is the generalization that the French hate Americans. While I have not been able to prove this completely wrong, I can say that as in any culture, there are very nice, accepting people and then there are the exceptions to the rule. There are the people who you can tell don't know what America is about and do not want to know. They are stuck in their "French ways" and will never deviate. There are also the people, who I mentioned, that are absolutely thrilled to meet an American and express how much they would love to travel or work in America. It is when you meet these people that you can really start to learn the true differences in the cultures.
It has been an eye opening experience in that some things are so different here, I wonder where and when in the course of time two developed countries such as the US and France could end up at opposite ends of the spectrum. My opinion on the solution to most of these "differences"..... get rid of the 35 hour work week and install a 40 hour work week like the rest of the world. Maybe then I could get some service in this country and maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have to put my life on hold when its Sunday since everything is closed. While it may seem almost comical to read, those 5 extra hours per week seem like they would make a ton of difference. Of coarse, this is all part of the cultural experience. I do not hate the French culture, nor do I love it. It is something different, something interesting, and something that I look forward to learning more about.
In the two weeks that I have been here, most of my experiences have been cultural. It has been about learning the major differences between my culture back in the United States and the rich, sometimes stubborn, culture here in France. There is the generalization that the French hate Americans. While I have not been able to prove this completely wrong, I can say that as in any culture, there are very nice, accepting people and then there are the exceptions to the rule. There are the people who you can tell don't know what America is about and do not want to know. They are stuck in their "French ways" and will never deviate. There are also the people, who I mentioned, that are absolutely thrilled to meet an American and express how much they would love to travel or work in America. It is when you meet these people that you can really start to learn the true differences in the cultures.
It has been an eye opening experience in that some things are so different here, I wonder where and when in the course of time two developed countries such as the US and France could end up at opposite ends of the spectrum. My opinion on the solution to most of these "differences"..... get rid of the 35 hour work week and install a 40 hour work week like the rest of the world. Maybe then I could get some service in this country and maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have to put my life on hold when its Sunday since everything is closed. While it may seem almost comical to read, those 5 extra hours per week seem like they would make a ton of difference. Of coarse, this is all part of the cultural experience. I do not hate the French culture, nor do I love it. It is something different, something interesting, and something that I look forward to learning more about.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Le premier jour de classe
One day of classes down, many more to go. Day started off on a bad note. Nothing particularly bad happened but every day that I wake up before 9 is a day that starts off on a bad note. Got up around 6:20 because I figured I would have to reset my hot water heater in order to take a hot shower and heating the water usually takes about 20 minutes. The trip to campus also takes about 30-35 minutes since it was prme rush hour. However, I turned on the hot water right away. I figured since I was up so early, the water just didn't have a chance to cool down from the last time I pushed the button the previous night. Took a shower, made a pbj and I was on my way out the door for my first day of classes in a foreign country.
I had class from 8am straight through to 2pm. That is 4 classes, one and a half hour each, back to back to back to back with about a minute break between them. Good thing they are all on the same floor of the building. After those 6 solid hours of class, I had a much needed hour and a half break only to have another hour and a half class which ended at 5pm. I was the only American in 3 out of the 5 classes today which is a unique experience I will say.
The whole situation was not very good since I felt like I was in high school again. Right when the class is supposed to start, the professor closes the door and nobody after that may enter. If you are early, you are on time. If you are on time, you are late. And if you are late, don't bother coming. If you are a minute late, you miss class that day. There is no going to the bathroom during the classes. There is no leaving the room whatsoever. One of the advisers said that they must structure the school like this because if they didn't, then the French kids would take advantage of the situation and show up when they wanted to. As a result, the American students get punished. One and half hours of imprisonment with forced education.
I understand the bit about the French kids being a bit juvenile. Every time the professor took a breath, the kids would turn around and start talking to eachother. I thought that the days of teachers telling the class to quiet down would have ended somewhere in the high school years. I was sadly mistaken. I don't know if the kids were just overly happy since it was the first day of classes or if they are just that rude and middle schoolish. All I know is that they will have a rude awakening when they go to American universities to study.
The classes are on the small side so that is good. All of the classes are in English which is even better. BUT now I am that strange foreign kid. Most of the classes the professor goes around the room and calls out the attendance sheet, and as soon as you say here, you are automatically an American. That is if they couldn't tell you weren't French already by the way you dress, the fact that you don't smoke, or the fact that the guys aren't wearing girls pants, have Italian leather shoes or a matching briefcase bag.
My international marketing teacher is a Irish-French woman who has normal English with a little Irish twist. My American history teacher (ironic class I know) is a German man who is staunchly pro-American which is to my benefit. My computer science teacher is some flavor of South-Eastern European with good English. My French teacher is French which is good since there is no English in the class. And last but not least, my international business law teacher is AMERICAN. He is pretty much set for life I'm guessing since he has offices in Lyon, London, and New York. His French s is decent but he has no accent which is comforting to hear. All in all the English from the professors is good.
Didn't get to meet most of the French students but a couple that I did talk to were very nice. Some others were still stuck on the whole fact that I was from America and I'm sure they had their own opinions. All in all, the day went well. Very long, some of the classrooms were extremely hot (which caused some body odor problems but that is another issue), and I was pretty close to starvation but I managed to get through the first day. The good news about the whole situation is that since I had 5 out of my 11 classes today, my week is pretty much half done. Stay tuned for my complaning about more of the "French way"
I had class from 8am straight through to 2pm. That is 4 classes, one and a half hour each, back to back to back to back with about a minute break between them. Good thing they are all on the same floor of the building. After those 6 solid hours of class, I had a much needed hour and a half break only to have another hour and a half class which ended at 5pm. I was the only American in 3 out of the 5 classes today which is a unique experience I will say.
The whole situation was not very good since I felt like I was in high school again. Right when the class is supposed to start, the professor closes the door and nobody after that may enter. If you are early, you are on time. If you are on time, you are late. And if you are late, don't bother coming. If you are a minute late, you miss class that day. There is no going to the bathroom during the classes. There is no leaving the room whatsoever. One of the advisers said that they must structure the school like this because if they didn't, then the French kids would take advantage of the situation and show up when they wanted to. As a result, the American students get punished. One and half hours of imprisonment with forced education.
I understand the bit about the French kids being a bit juvenile. Every time the professor took a breath, the kids would turn around and start talking to eachother. I thought that the days of teachers telling the class to quiet down would have ended somewhere in the high school years. I was sadly mistaken. I don't know if the kids were just overly happy since it was the first day of classes or if they are just that rude and middle schoolish. All I know is that they will have a rude awakening when they go to American universities to study.
The classes are on the small side so that is good. All of the classes are in English which is even better. BUT now I am that strange foreign kid. Most of the classes the professor goes around the room and calls out the attendance sheet, and as soon as you say here, you are automatically an American. That is if they couldn't tell you weren't French already by the way you dress, the fact that you don't smoke, or the fact that the guys aren't wearing girls pants, have Italian leather shoes or a matching briefcase bag.
My international marketing teacher is a Irish-French woman who has normal English with a little Irish twist. My American history teacher (ironic class I know) is a German man who is staunchly pro-American which is to my benefit. My computer science teacher is some flavor of South-Eastern European with good English. My French teacher is French which is good since there is no English in the class. And last but not least, my international business law teacher is AMERICAN. He is pretty much set for life I'm guessing since he has offices in Lyon, London, and New York. His French s is decent but he has no accent which is comforting to hear. All in all the English from the professors is good.
Didn't get to meet most of the French students but a couple that I did talk to were very nice. Some others were still stuck on the whole fact that I was from America and I'm sure they had their own opinions. All in all, the day went well. Very long, some of the classrooms were extremely hot (which caused some body odor problems but that is another issue), and I was pretty close to starvation but I managed to get through the first day. The good news about the whole situation is that since I had 5 out of my 11 classes today, my week is pretty much half done. Stay tuned for my complaning about more of the "French way"
Monday, January 14, 2008
Why the French are not fat
It has occurred to me during the first week living here that there are no obese people living in France. A very good change of scenery I may add. You don't really have to worry about getting stuck behind two fat people at the mall partially because there are no fat people and the other part because there are no malls. I have come up with my own theory as to why the French are not fat so follow if you can.
1. The portion size here is incredibly small. Even in the grocery stores, portions are not that big. There are no Sam's Clubs or BJ's around here where you can buy giant tubs of pretzels. For instance, I can fit my fingers around a bottle of beer.
2. You must bag your own groceries at the grocery store. That is also assuming that the grocery store you are in supplies bags. At the checkout lane, there is a cashier who rings everything up just as in America. However, they just sit there and after ringing an item up, they push it aside and keep going on to the next item. At first I thought o so they bag everything at the end. Then the cashier put a bag on top of the groceries and I paid and they continued ringing the next person's groceries. Therefore, there is an incentive for buying less; you have to personally bag less.
3. Most people do not drive to the grocery store. They WALK. So the more you buy, the more you must hike back to where you live however far away it is.
4. When you finally get home, you must then walk up the stairs to your apartment since elevators have not been installed in the buildings.
If you followed, you will understand the predicament that would put a person like me in. I like to eat. I like to eat a lot. And I don't particularly love elevators, but they are a hell of a lot better than 4 floors of stairs. I have thus found 2 ways around the system the French government has put in place to prevent obesity.
1. Go grocery shopping daily or even sometimes twice a day so you never really have too big of a load of food. OR
2. Go grocery shopping every couple of days but stop at every bakery while walking and eat some bread so hold yourself over.
1. The portion size here is incredibly small. Even in the grocery stores, portions are not that big. There are no Sam's Clubs or BJ's around here where you can buy giant tubs of pretzels. For instance, I can fit my fingers around a bottle of beer.
2. You must bag your own groceries at the grocery store. That is also assuming that the grocery store you are in supplies bags. At the checkout lane, there is a cashier who rings everything up just as in America. However, they just sit there and after ringing an item up, they push it aside and keep going on to the next item. At first I thought o so they bag everything at the end. Then the cashier put a bag on top of the groceries and I paid and they continued ringing the next person's groceries. Therefore, there is an incentive for buying less; you have to personally bag less.
3. Most people do not drive to the grocery store. They WALK. So the more you buy, the more you must hike back to where you live however far away it is.
4. When you finally get home, you must then walk up the stairs to your apartment since elevators have not been installed in the buildings.
If you followed, you will understand the predicament that would put a person like me in. I like to eat. I like to eat a lot. And I don't particularly love elevators, but they are a hell of a lot better than 4 floors of stairs. I have thus found 2 ways around the system the French government has put in place to prevent obesity.
1. Go grocery shopping daily or even sometimes twice a day so you never really have too big of a load of food. OR
2. Go grocery shopping every couple of days but stop at every bakery while walking and eat some bread so hold yourself over.
Friday, January 11, 2008
The Long Trip
Left Syracuse Airport at 7:50 am on January 7th and arrived in Lyon, France at 10:20am local time January 8th. With a 6 hour time difference, that means it was roughly a 20 hour travel day. Factor in my inability to sleep on planes and in airports and you get approximately a 37 hour span where there was no sleep. Nothing can start good when your first impression comes after that many hours without sleep. Packing was another issue. One large checked hockey bag weighing 65 pounds is not a good idea. Especially when you have to hike it, your carry-on, and your personal item on and off a bus and through the metro system in Lyon only to find out that you have to now walk it a couple of blocks to the apartment building. Two bags with wheels would have been a lovely thing to have many times through the trek.
Nine hours in JFK is also not a good experience. Nine hours in any airport is not going to be fun but JFK.... no good. I felt like herded cattle after a couple of hours. After the security checkpoint there is only a limited amount of space in which you can go; and I went just about every square inch of it. Added to that was the obvious lack of English being spoken. Little did I know that British Airways would share a terminal with airlines that have mostly non- English speaking customers. There was the Spanish airline Iberian Air, multiple far east airlines, and a good dose of airport workers who of coarse were not fluent in too much. Needless to say by the time I got on my 747 to fly to London I was more than ready to hear some English and a British accent.
Not too fast. I don't know if it was just my seat or my flight or if that is the usual crowd on one of those flights, but there was again a lack of English being spoken. I thankfully had the aisle seat, but the two people next to me were Italian and spoke maybe one word of English that I heard being "wine." In front of me, no English, behind me, no English, and pretty much the rest of my section, no English. Oh and I forgot to mention the nice little Hasidic Jewish family, who also did not speak English, who decided to bring their very small baby on the plane and who sat 2 rows in front of me. Before the plane even took off, this was not a good situation. The flight took off on time and i got settled as best I could in the very tight seats. I got myself all calmed down in order to watch a movie on the screen in the back of the seat in front of me. And then the entertainment system went down and the pilot brought the good news that the system needed to be rebooted and this rebooting would only take 40 minutes. I was getting tired after not sleeping in the airport for 9 hours so I closed my eyes with the hope that I could catch some sleep. When I was finally falling asleep, the pilot again decided to come back on the speaker and announce quite loudly that the entertainment system was back on. So no sleeping for me. The meal cart came around and the meal was quite good which was a nice change of pace for me except for one small detail; the nice lady sitting in front of me had reclined her seat an enormous amount and did not put it up during the meal. My seat was all the way up so I could eat my food and now the headrest of her seat was only inches from my face because she felt the need to eat laying down not to mention her seat was broken so it reclined a ridiculous amount. Of coarse my seat could not recline that much so what little room I did start with was now gone.
The rest of the flight to London Heathrow went without too much drama except for the fact that I obviously got no sleep. When we got to London, the pilot said that we were very early due to the heavy tailwind that we had coming over so I thought that this would be good and I could relax a little more in the airport before my flight to Lyon. O BUT ANOTHER CATCH, it was about ten to 6 in the morning and he said that it was actually against the law for him to land before 6 so he decided to make a couple figure 8's in the sky before deciding to land at quarter after 6. I could not have been happier to land and get off of the plane. But again not so quick. The airport was having trouble with the gate and they had to call some engineers to the gate in order to get it to work and hook up to the plane which took another 15 minutes. I finally get off the plane at about 6:35 and then had to find my way to my next gate for my flight to Lyon. I found the board of what number gate I had to go to and then I looked at the board and it was in the same terminal thankfully but it was the complete opposite side of the terminal and the sign said allow 20 minutes to get to the gate. One 20 minute walk later I was at the correct gate ready to board my last flight.
The flight to Lyon on British Airways was not bad at all. Plane was not crowded and everything went off without a problem. I was about to fall asleep which would have been nice but then we landed and my sleep was prevented again.
Lyon airport is very nice and no problems there. Baggage arrived with me and I collected it and started my hike with 120 pounds of luggage on my shoulder. I met Sharon, the representative from the school at the airport and she was to take me to my apartment with the rest of the kids in the same program. Sharon was very nice and spoke English which was a nice surprise. She turns out to be from the US so there wasn't even a weird accent that came with the English.
We made our way to the apartment building on the mass transportation which was fun with all of my bags without wheels. My shoulder was throbbing by the end of the trek. We got on a bus then off a bus with the bags, then on and off of a metro, then walked up to the street and walked 2 or so blocks to the apartment building. Then the news came about the lack of an elevator in the building. Could it get worse? O yea, I also wouldn't be able to get into my apartment until after 2 pm and it was a little before noon. I would expect something like that to happen. I finally got into my apartment around 2 pm and it was surprisingly nice inside. We had to do some room check with the landlord type lady and that's when I started to think I wanted to go back to the airport and go home. My apartment was temporarily with no heat or hot water.
I unpacked and got on the internet so I could have some contact with the outside world since there was no television and no telephone in the room. The internet was the only thing that was keeping me sane. A large group of other students in the same program got here around 4pm and then the cherry at the very top of the very large cake, the internet went down for a long time.....
Nine hours in JFK is also not a good experience. Nine hours in any airport is not going to be fun but JFK.... no good. I felt like herded cattle after a couple of hours. After the security checkpoint there is only a limited amount of space in which you can go; and I went just about every square inch of it. Added to that was the obvious lack of English being spoken. Little did I know that British Airways would share a terminal with airlines that have mostly non- English speaking customers. There was the Spanish airline Iberian Air, multiple far east airlines, and a good dose of airport workers who of coarse were not fluent in too much. Needless to say by the time I got on my 747 to fly to London I was more than ready to hear some English and a British accent.
Not too fast. I don't know if it was just my seat or my flight or if that is the usual crowd on one of those flights, but there was again a lack of English being spoken. I thankfully had the aisle seat, but the two people next to me were Italian and spoke maybe one word of English that I heard being "wine." In front of me, no English, behind me, no English, and pretty much the rest of my section, no English. Oh and I forgot to mention the nice little Hasidic Jewish family, who also did not speak English, who decided to bring their very small baby on the plane and who sat 2 rows in front of me. Before the plane even took off, this was not a good situation. The flight took off on time and i got settled as best I could in the very tight seats. I got myself all calmed down in order to watch a movie on the screen in the back of the seat in front of me. And then the entertainment system went down and the pilot brought the good news that the system needed to be rebooted and this rebooting would only take 40 minutes. I was getting tired after not sleeping in the airport for 9 hours so I closed my eyes with the hope that I could catch some sleep. When I was finally falling asleep, the pilot again decided to come back on the speaker and announce quite loudly that the entertainment system was back on. So no sleeping for me. The meal cart came around and the meal was quite good which was a nice change of pace for me except for one small detail; the nice lady sitting in front of me had reclined her seat an enormous amount and did not put it up during the meal. My seat was all the way up so I could eat my food and now the headrest of her seat was only inches from my face because she felt the need to eat laying down not to mention her seat was broken so it reclined a ridiculous amount. Of coarse my seat could not recline that much so what little room I did start with was now gone.
The rest of the flight to London Heathrow went without too much drama except for the fact that I obviously got no sleep. When we got to London, the pilot said that we were very early due to the heavy tailwind that we had coming over so I thought that this would be good and I could relax a little more in the airport before my flight to Lyon. O BUT ANOTHER CATCH, it was about ten to 6 in the morning and he said that it was actually against the law for him to land before 6 so he decided to make a couple figure 8's in the sky before deciding to land at quarter after 6. I could not have been happier to land and get off of the plane. But again not so quick. The airport was having trouble with the gate and they had to call some engineers to the gate in order to get it to work and hook up to the plane which took another 15 minutes. I finally get off the plane at about 6:35 and then had to find my way to my next gate for my flight to Lyon. I found the board of what number gate I had to go to and then I looked at the board and it was in the same terminal thankfully but it was the complete opposite side of the terminal and the sign said allow 20 minutes to get to the gate. One 20 minute walk later I was at the correct gate ready to board my last flight.
The flight to Lyon on British Airways was not bad at all. Plane was not crowded and everything went off without a problem. I was about to fall asleep which would have been nice but then we landed and my sleep was prevented again.
Lyon airport is very nice and no problems there. Baggage arrived with me and I collected it and started my hike with 120 pounds of luggage on my shoulder. I met Sharon, the representative from the school at the airport and she was to take me to my apartment with the rest of the kids in the same program. Sharon was very nice and spoke English which was a nice surprise. She turns out to be from the US so there wasn't even a weird accent that came with the English.
We made our way to the apartment building on the mass transportation which was fun with all of my bags without wheels. My shoulder was throbbing by the end of the trek. We got on a bus then off a bus with the bags, then on and off of a metro, then walked up to the street and walked 2 or so blocks to the apartment building. Then the news came about the lack of an elevator in the building. Could it get worse? O yea, I also wouldn't be able to get into my apartment until after 2 pm and it was a little before noon. I would expect something like that to happen. I finally got into my apartment around 2 pm and it was surprisingly nice inside. We had to do some room check with the landlord type lady and that's when I started to think I wanted to go back to the airport and go home. My apartment was temporarily with no heat or hot water.
I unpacked and got on the internet so I could have some contact with the outside world since there was no television and no telephone in the room. The internet was the only thing that was keeping me sane. A large group of other students in the same program got here around 4pm and then the cherry at the very top of the very large cake, the internet went down for a long time.....
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