Saint Etienne

After Switzerland we took a train to Saint Etienne which is a city a little smaller than Milwaukee near Lyon in France. Guillaume picked us up there and took us to his house in the little town of Fraisses. Me and Eline were so tired and right when we got there we dropped off our bags and Guillaume said we were going to a secret swimming spot. What he didn't say was that we would have to practically go rock climbing to get there in flip flops!

This is me and Eline crossing the damn on the river.

This was the place where we went swimming in the river. It was apparently a secret spot but there were a bunch of people there. It was on the Semene river. It was so cold!! I couldn't go in, I just sat in the sun and slept. We went with Guillaume's friends that I had met in Budapest in April.
Here is Guillaume jumping in before the current took him really far down the river. We don't know those people behind him in the picture, I guess this spot wasn't too secret!
This was taken on the walk back. Obviously I was not very happy to make the climb back to the car.
That night Guillaume's brother Arnaud had a party at his school to celebrate exams being over. It was called the Gala of Enise. In France, if you are studying Architecture or Engineering you have to go to 2 years of school in between high school and college. It is where you take all your core classes and it is a lot of work. I went to the party with Arnaud, his girlfriend Aurelie, Guillaume, and Eline. We met Mary there, another person we met in Budapest, she lives in a town near Saint Etienne too.
The dance was really cool, there were all these different rooms in the school decorated with a different theme. The school was on the top of a hill that overlooked downtown Saint Etienne. It was beautiful.

This is Mary, Eline, and I having drinks in the white room.
Guillaume, Mary, and Eline in the white room.

After that we went outside where we could see the view of the city and really nice fireworks. They lasted a really long time and they were pretty big. I was impressed that such a small school would be able to have such an impressive party.

We stayed really late because it was Arnaud's special night and by the time we left Eline and I were ready to fall over. I'm pretty sure we came close to staying up for 24 hours straight on 2 hours of sleep.

We woke up the next day late and had our first real French meal. Apparently lunch is more important to them than dinner. First his mom came out with a salad, carrots tomatoes and mushrooms. So me and Eline ate as much as everyone else and had some bread. I was pretty content and ready to stop eating and then we had 3 more courses!!! I was not prepared to stuff my face that much. Ratatouille, chicken, cheese, yogurt, and fruit. I honestly have no idea how all those French people stay so skinny.
Every meal was really interesting because half the time Eline and I could not understand them speaking French (Guillaume's mom did not speak English) and she could not understand when we were speaking English, we still were laughing together like we did understand.

Then we went to Mary's house to go swimming. She lives in a town called Villards. They had a really nice swimming pool, and we just relaxed in the pool and then we played "president". It is a card game that we play in the United States but call it something different (a bad word) so I will use the French name.
Guillaume was the president the whole time of course, and I just wanted to beat him so badly but I couldn't.
We went back to Guillaume's and watched the European Cup, it was boring, Spain scored 1 goal and nothing else happened the entire game.

The next day Eline and I woke up and tried to get a baguette for lunch before Guillaume and his dad came back for lunch. We accidentally walked to the neighboring town instead of turning the corner into his little town....oops.
We had lunch with Guillaume and his dad when they came back from work. Then I passed out for an hour.
Arnaud and Aurelie took us to see the castle of Essalois in Chambles with the view on the Loire (the river) and the Grangent damn. It was beautiful. When they set up the damn, they flooded over a town.

Me, Arnaud, and Aurelie.View from inside the castle.


View of the island from the top of the castle.


Front of the castle.
That night we went home, played some pool, ate another huge dinner (barbecue), and then Guillaume's friend Nicolas came over and we all played monopoly. Nicolas had come to visit in Budapest so it was nice to see him again. It was different than our monopoly because all the streets were form Paris.
Guillaume won of course....

The next day Eline and I walked into their town, Fraisses, and walked around. It took all of about 5 minutes to see the town. Then we walked over to Firminy so we could tour all the places that famous architect Le Corbusier built.
Here is the church he built. Apparently this guy influence on arkitcture is comparable to Frank Loid Wright's influence. He tried to set up a new society in Firminy. He built this church a track and field, community center, and a very strange apartment building.

This is the inside of the church. It was beautiful, and really the only building that I thought was interesting, the rest of them looked like big cement blocks instead of buildings. Eline is an arkitecture student, so she had learned a lot about Le Corbusier.

Here is Eline running on the trace, she was so excited! She said we have to run on the track that Le Corbusier built. I said it is way too hot to run but I will take your picture running.

Here is me in front of the apartment building. I don't really understand what makes it famous. He said that it is supposed to be a community within itself. He made the hallways really wide like streets instead of hallways and there used to be a preschool on the top level.
We made sure that we took long enough seeing the buildings that we missed Guillaume and his dad coming back for lunch so we wouldn't have to eat so much. We come back and Arnaud points at a pot on the stove and starts getting out all the stuff they ate for lunch but we finally stood our ground and said no it is not necessary.
Then I slept on the couch for two hours, I don't know why I kept taking naps. I guess it was really hot and we were walking a lot.
When Guillaume got home we went to the Loire river with his friend, she was supposed to take us sailing but even though it was windy all day, it was completely still when we left. So we went canoeing instead. We went close to the castle we saw the previous day, with the gaurd tower on the island and we went swimming. Eline, Guillaume and I were in one canoe and Eline was steering in the back. We kept veering to the right so Guillaume kept shouting "EEEEElllllllliiiiiinnnnneeee." But then he was in the back on the way back and the canoe spun around at least 3 times. We were laughing at him so much.


Here are Eline and Guillaume on the Loire eating the cookies that Guillaume's friend made for us.
Then we went to Guillaume's grandparent's house in the mountains, or on the "mount-tane" as Guillaume would say it. They lived in a town called La Versanne in a house that used to be a barn, and then a restaurant, and now a house. We had an amazing meal, I was stuffed which was becoming usual on this trip.

Arnaud, Aurelie, Guillaume, me and Eline sitting in front of the view.


Guillaume's mom on our walk around the town. She is so sweet.

Guillaume's mom, grandma, me, Guillaume, Aurelie, Arnaud, and his dad infront of their house.

The next day Nicolas took Eline and I into Saint Etienne. First we went to a coal mine. Nicolas is a geology major so he was really excited. Saint Etienne used to be a mining town, so this mine was really important to them. It is no longer in use. We took a tour but it was in French so Nicolas had to whisper a lot and translate. He never studied abroad or got much practice in English but he was really good compared to a lot of the other French people we met.

These are the miner's clothes and buckets hanging, when they needed them they would just pull on the specific rope attached to their stuff.

Nicolas and I at the mine.


They took us on this elevator and it looked like it was going really fast deep underground but when we got down there the woman told us we only went down 10 meters. It was a recreation of the mine because it was too dangerous to go down to the actual mine.

After the mine Nicolas took us into the city. We walked around a bit.

This is the oldest building in Saint Etienne.
I forgot to mention that this is the season for sales all over France. I somehow resisted walking around the city all day. We did not go in one store.
The biggest church in Saint Etienne.
We stopped to have a nice cold drink because it was so hot.

Then Nicolas took us to the hill to see the view of the city. Saint Etienne has the longest straight road in France.
After we went to the planetarium and listened to a narrative in French for an hour. They kept shouting "Frank" and "Laya". That is the only thing Eline and I could understand. There was a black hole and I think the space craft must have crashed a couple of times. We met Guillaume for a drink at a place that made some of the best beer I have ever had (other than in Czech Republic).
Guillaume's friend from school met us for a four course real fancy french meal. I had a St Etienne salad with bleu cheese, frog legs, fromage blanc (I did not like it so I gave it to Nicolas and he loved me for it) and a really good dessert that was really buttery and another dessert that was like a mint pudding thing with something melony on the bottom.

Me, Guillaume, Nicolas, Eline, and Guillaume's friend at the little restuarant outside on a little street in Saint Etienne.
Then we met the people we went swimming with the first day for a drink. We had pastis, which is a French liquor that kind of tastes like black licorice and they mix it with water. It was at this bar that was outside in the middle of walking streets and apparently the place to be on a Wednesday night in Saint Etienne because it was packed.

The next day me and Eline went to Lyon, it was cold and rainy all day. When we got there we met our friend Mary for lunch, she had her architecture internship there for the summer so she lived with her parents in Saint Ettienne on the weekends and in an apartment in Lyon during the week.
Here is me walking to lunch in the rain, all it did was rain, all day long!

After lunch we went to the Keith Harring exhbit at the Contemporary Art Museum. It was a really disturbing exhibit. The picture above was at the museum, some form of contemporary art.
Here is me outside the museum, I am pretty creeped out by the exhibit we just saw.