The weekend Braden came to France

I did a little Extreme Blog Makeover. What do you think? The other format was boring and I didn't really have anything else to do (besides homework)....

Anyway, I had an EPIC weekend and I am going to attempt to explain it..."wait for it"...Now:

After reading this blog you will recognize "wait for it" as a joke from the weekend. Now when I say weekend, I mean since Wednesday. I read my facebook wall on Tuesday night and I had received a post from Braden saying:

"attention attention. i am on my way to lyon now. i will be there at 9:01 in the morning. i get in from geneve. love you and cant wait to see you. write back i can check later"

-followed by-

"thats 901 am on wednesday. please get me for god sake. love you. by the way its a 14 hour trip for me! i will need caffine"

I was thrilled. Not only to see Braden but his arrival at 9am meant that I got to skip my 8am torture session taught by J.P. Bonnivard (aka the most boring teacher on the crust of the planet). So I picked Braden up from the train station and it turns out that he had a...less than favorable 5 hour layover in Bern, Switzerland. As he spent a good 25 minutes telling me about it and we spent a good 25 minutes walking in the wrong direction. Basically, he got a knife pulled on him, offered cocaine twice, saw three hookers fighting, saw an old man pass out off of a bar stool, spilling beer everywhere and hitting his head on the bar only to have nobody even glance in the old man's direction, he got turned away by security guards, and almost charged 50 Euros for one beer. He was happy to be in France.

We spent the morning walking around Vieux Lyon eating sandwiches and catching up before we headed over to my friend Kim's house. Braden showered the Bern filth off of him and then we went and got him some new shoes. Then I ate mussels. The mussels were AMAZING but made me miss seafood from Florida.

Thursday rolled around. After Six-and-a-half straight hours of class...(8am-2:30pm with a 15min break every 1.5 hours. Three hours spent with Mr. Bonnivard. Thursday is the day from hell.)...I met up with Braden at a cafe to drink unnecessarily small coffees. We all went out that night to the boat discotheque and had a BLAST. We danced and talked until the bakeries opened and the first busses started running again. We slept till 3PM on friday.

After wasting the whole day sleeping and reading Tucker Max stories online (which is the best thing to do when you should be doing something else) we ventured out into the Monde. Meg was showered and ready to go, Braden went back to Kim's house and showered and by the time we got to my house, it was 9:30pm and I hadn't showered since Wednesday morning. I was a little irritable. I got ready in a flash and we went out again. Of course we did! My boyfriend was in town. What else was I going to do, lay around, watch movies and do homework? We met some french kids in a park and I made friends with two girls who....LISTEN TO THIS....are studying Product Design at a school IN LYON. We talked for about 25 minutes and I got both of their phone numbers. They said that they would show me the school. They also live really close to where I am going to live in the Croix Rousse. I invited them over for dinner when I move in. I don't know when I am supposed to call them. I hate talking on the phone in French because its harder to comprehend and I dont know if it would be awkward. I'd like to get coffee or something, just to get to know them and break the ice. I feel like it would be a really good opportunity to make some new friends, french ones, and learn about this product design school.

Well, the night continued on and we met up with these french guys that Meg and I met last weekend. They want me to teach them the rules of American Football so that they can play it on their XBOX. Anyway, Braden, Meg, Molly and I kicked it will all of these guys who actually remind me a lot of my guy friends back in the states. Its cool to have FRENCH friends because I really just want to speak the language. It is so much fun hanging out with them because I learn a bunch of French slang and we teach them a bunch of English. One guy named Nicolas was FULL of quotes. His favorite English word? "AWESOME" Favorite saying? "Legend...wait for it....dary" we taught him "That's whatsup!" and he LOVED that one although he couldn't quite get the intonation or pronunciation right. It was funny.

Also that night, we saw a major fight on the Metro. It started right there on the platform and the guys almost ran into Braden and I. Luckily, they ended up in the Metro car right behind us. We watched from our side and it looked like every bystander in that car got hit or bumped into by these 4 dudes and chicks. It was scary and I am now going to buy some Mace and sign up for Boxing.

Saturday (yes I am just now getting to Saturday) we slept in till 1:00pm, read some more Tucker Max stories, and then ventured into town to eat. This was a challenge because we got there at an odd hour and went on a bit of a search for food. Everyone was cranky. Braden would have probably punched me in the face if it got him a sandwich. I'm glad we ate.

That night, in Place Terreaux, the city of Lyon decided to broadcast the France/New Zealand Rugby World Cup game on a big screen. It was weird watching a sporting event on a screen mounted on an 18th century building. Anyway, it was packed and after France won, it was a MAD house in Lyon and every other city all over France. France beating New Zealand is like how the Ducks beat Michigan. NZ is the best Rugby team in the world and France beat them by 2 points. It was incredible.

The rest of the night involved wandering the streets, taking the metro to a northwest style brewery, and a very eventful trip to Mcdonald's. That is another story in itself but in short, they were closing and were not making anymore food so we ordered almost everything they had left. To be fair, there were 5 of us. I ate something called a Big Tasty which is now my new nickname.

Braden had a train to catch at 12:39pm the next afternoon. You would think that would be plenty of time but naturally, things go slow on Sunday's, people and Metro's included. We had to run but he made his train by 3 minutes. It was the most rushed goodbye I've ever had in my life but he made the train which was the important part.

All in all, the weekend was one of the best of my life. Today is the start of another week and everything seems to be just a little bit glum because the weekend was just that great. But school isn't that hard and my french is getting ALOT better. My english is getting worse. I have to check these blogs through a few times before I post them. The weeks will go fast and I have a fall break at the end of October. I think I am planning to visit Heidelberg for 5 days. Then I move into my apartment on the first. Then, I'd like to go camping. I need to see some nature.

Okay, that blog was really long. If you made it this long, you get 100 points.
~Ruby

PS: I'll have pictures up soon