Lyon: Hannah Clause is Coming to Town!

Decided to take this one back a notch and bring it back to my normal level of inappropriateness...

I went straight from class to Parrache. No, not to pick up a hooker as you may suspect, but to pick up a friend that I had known since High School. She was studying in Vichy, a small town and headquarters of the French government during Nazi occupation (which may have cooperated with the Nazi forces and encouraged its citizens to stab their neighbors backs and pinpoint the location of Jewish hideouts, but that is another story) about an hour away by train. She came to get a taste of the French city life and Scotty all in one bite, how lovely. As I mentioned, Hannah had been a friend of mine since high school. I had been attracted to her on occasion but it was never serious and those days had long since passed me by. It was simply enjoyable to see her. However, as intentions are often not a predictor of results, I did step into a shower... haha. (I behaved myself!)

Anyways, Hannah also brought a friend who I was more than happy to host or or hand off to Cory. Her name was Sarah and she was definitely from Southern Virginia, or at least an hour south from where I grew up because the cute southern draw and honest personality was evident. I brought the girls back to my room immediately (to let them unpack, clothes stayed on...you sick minded readers!) and then went to my last class of the week to give a presentation. On a side note, I did kick ass on that presentation. Our group fell short slightly on that front, but the paper that I wrote on behalf of the group received an A keeping our overall grade to an A-. Thank you, me. Prior to class, I had told the girls how to get to Vieux Lyon. If you haven't figured out from the previous journal entries, this is the old part of town that has charming cobblestone streets (not so charming after a night at the bar) and fascinating medieval architecture (still quite fascinating while its spinning). Now, anticipating that the three turn journey may prove to be too much for the pair, I wrote the directions down. As I have grown to expect, they did in fact fail to make the last turn and ended up across the river, downtown. Once this information was revealed and I realized I was walking around trying to find them on the other side of town, we met up and I started the grand tour. We went to the ruins (lovely picture of Hannah and me), the basilica, yata yata yata, coffee, back to the apartment. I made dinner, but the only thing I remember was that it fed us all. Most likely due to the fact that I am actually writing this in December... the whole two months ago aspect tends to blur such fine detail. Moving on...having had a full day and the desire to show them the true flavor of the city the way we see it (nearly every weekend), we went to Cosmo. Oh, Cosmo... On the way out I ran into my neighbor Elissa (very french, pretty, limited communication) who I was still relatively fond of so she got the invite as well.

The bar was an interesting turn of events. Cory of course started putting the moves on Hannah's blonde friend as I requested just in case I needed a room to myself. True to wingman form, he got her in the bag, or I guess I should say on the couch, fairly early in the night. I, still fascinated with the possibility of French women screaming in a language I don't understand, continued to chat up the neighbor the best I could. Didn't quite get the progress I wanted, but whatever. I let Hannah do her own thing and make friends with all the people that we came out with because that seemed to make her happiest, and she was trying to join team GOFO herself. She took a fancy to a few here and there, and it was reciprocated in some instances, but her greatest achievement was talking to Tatiana (hot latina bartender!) outside while they smoked a cigarette. Her friendship with her lead to my friendship with her which lead to free drinks and kisses on arrival for the remaining two months in Lyon! SMILES! All of these are good, actually great, things that I mainly owe to that crazy woman from Vichy. We continued to drink, make more friends, and discuss whatever it was we had to... after heading home and getting ready for bed, I realized Sarah was MIA, but presumably in Cory's room. Nobody seemed too worried about the situation so I wasn't going to raise questions and ruin my own time.

Rise and shine! Ugh... guess I did drink a fair amount after all. That or I got into a fight that I don't remember (which puts me at drinking a fair amount anyways). The only positive note of me getting out of bed was the lack of morning wood. Seeing as I was sharing a single bed with someone, such a showing of strength would not have gone unnoticed, and would have likely gone unappreciated despite how it works in the movies.

I make breakfast; eggs, sausage, toast, the closest thing to "the works" as I can get with my budget, and then take the girls to the train station to sort out their tickets. Turns out they have a lot more work to do and they need to change their ticket for that evening rather than the following morning. That, or I have forgotten an entire Saturday of activity. Anyways, I decided to take them to the park for a relaxing day and another perspective on Lyon. The Parc De T'or (I know I have butchered the spelling but I have no google access to investigate) is actually the third largest municipal park in Europe. Quite a feat, I think. We went to sit by the water, I lit a cigar, we had a few snacks, listened to some music... lovely little Saturday indeed. Before leaving for good, we rented a boat for half an hour and rowed around the lake. Neither of the girls could really handle the concept of rowing with both hands in sync with each other, so I did most of the work there. We did manage to get ourselves stuck under a bridge in our efforts to become more adventurous. Note to self, narrow canals are not good for row boats or the health of the oars.

All of a sudden, it was about that time. I took the girls back to my apartment for one last gang bang... sorry... I took them back to get their things and then saw them off to the train station. It was a great weekend and good to see a familiar face. A rejuvenating jolt, if you will (and I will!).

Peace and Love of Parenthesis (apparently) from Lyon,
Scott Stephen Smith