New Friends, New Spiders Too.

Arachnids. I'm not really sure why I hate them. They never did anything to me. They just look absolutely disgusting. I mean they have EIGHT legs. Out of all of the things that scare me the most, spiders must be number one on my list. Unfortunately, France is full of spiders. I am not talking about any old regular spider you find back home in the states. I'm talking about massive ones that look like they eat birds for lunch. I literally could not bring myself close to one of the spiders I have seen in fear that it will rip my feet off. Yes, they are that big. And I have a picture to prove it. 

I mean look at that thing!! Use the crushed can next to it as a comparison. I took this picture from a pretty far lengths away. My heart was racing as I did it too.

Moving on to a happier topic, this weekend was absolutely amazing. Elliot (dude from Davis also studying abroad in Lyon) and I went to see our first football (aka soccer) match in Lyon. Football in Lyon is no joke. Apparently our soccer team is the best in France and very highly ranked compared to other teams. The support for these guys is insane. Its nothing like a 49ers game or a Giants game back home. Literally half of Lyon shows up for these things. The stadium holds 40,000 people and the attendance was about 39,500. It was literally a struggle just to get to the game, pick up our tickets, and find our seats. Crazyness. Elliot and I also felt compelled to buy scarfs and show our support. 18 euros bye bye. The game ended up as a tie, but it was very fun and the atmosphere was great. They were singing lyonnaise songs and throwing thousands of pounds of homemade confetti everywhere. 

Afterwards, we went to grab some dinner and met up with our friends Kirsten and Patrick. We then decided that we were going to go and hang out until the metro reopened at 6am. At first we hit a couple of bars and had a few drinks (I spilled my 6.50 euro sex on the quai after drinking about half). It was a little boring and I even fell asleep for ten minutes at one bar (it was like 3 am by this time). Eventually we walked in a big circle and went back to where we started because most of the bars had closed. We sat on a stair case near the opera house and decided to take some pictures:

We were just talking and having a good time when a few other international students started talking to us. They were from Toronto, Manchester, and Romania. They were fantastic company and we ended up hanging out with them until the metro reopened. There were a few other people who tried to talk to us but were extremely drunk and awkward. I was straight up kissed on the cheek by one guy and was really pissed for a good 5 minutes. It wasn't a small peck bisou french greeting kiss. It was a straight up full lipped sloppy one. Well afterwards, we walked around and tried to get into some clubs but were denied because there were far too many boys in our group (the amount of ladies usually have to equal the number of guys). One of the clubs turned out to be a gay club so we gave up on the club scene after that. But what to do with 3 hours left? Obviously, the majority wanted to get some alcohol. We went on a tiny search party for a shop that would still be open that could get us some of the goods. They boys ended up getting about 6 large cans of 11.7% alcohol BEER. Yeah, thats a crazy strong beer. And surprisingly, they all finished it. All in all, I had a very fun night. My first bar hopping experience and also my first full night out in the town. 

I also went to a parade in downtown Lyon on Sunday. I'm not sure what the parade is for but each participating group is supposed to represent something and this parade happens once every two years. The big theme colors of this parade were pink and white. There were instruments, dancing, and singing. Some pictures for you :)

Oh, and look what I got!! I know you be jealous.

My landlord also sneakily bought a rice pot for me to use! He is the epitome of awesomeness.