Oh la la: La Lumière

If I was near death (run over by the pedestrian hating French drivers most probably), it would be this video, not my life, flashing before my eyes. In other words: Je l'aime.

So not last weekend but the weekend before (sign I'm getting behind?) was the Festival of Lights for you ignorant English speakers or Fête des Lumières for those of us who don't flinch at the though of eating escargots (amazing by the way but more on that later). It's only held in Lyon for a reason that involves the Virgin Mary and floods, not too clear on the details, and goes for four nights. Basically, there are a lot of lights. Put it this way, if I was in any way cynical I'd probably make a global warming comment. The 'a lot' deserves captial letters. A few exclamation marks wouldn't be over doing it either.

All those colours: lights.

Information guys on bicyles: ingenious or the highest form of stupidity?

I'm sorry Suzie, but I couldn't resist.

On the last night of the festival, 8 December, 'everyone' puts candles on their balconies. Again, Mary, Floods, not sure. It's become quite touristy so everyone is more like those with little kids/Australians (not synonymous thank you), which I find a little sad, the whole idea is very cute.

Those rows of lights are the candles on other people's balconies.

So they had a light show on one of the buildings and if your mind is even briefly flickering to that laser show they used to have at Darling Harbour, not even close. I'm out of adjectives so am going to have to say amazing and hope that the video is adequate. It really isn't but hey. Keep in mind: all done with lights.

Some sort of ethnic group I think...doing something. I'm not entirely sure what was going on but hey it was loud and looked like fun, so why not film!

And just for fun they decided to stick a huge ferris wheel in the middle of the city. Though this stays for two months, but trust me, with the amount of lights on it, it might as well be for the festival.

The view of it from my window. Jealous?

Proof it's the view from my window. More jealous?

And apparently, they put it up just for me. Seriously, how jealous are you?

Je presente...

Here are some people lucky enough to get their fifteen minutes at the (oh god I hate this pun but I'm going to do it anyway) raddest blog in cyberspace, all for your viewing pleasure. Starts of in English and then goes into French, but I think you'll manage. The last guy is the infamous German exchange who I blogged about last time. There's also a German girl who I haven't filmed (yet) who has the biggest American accent when she speaks English, hopefully coming soon. Also you'll be seeing (albeit briefly) a lot more people sometime this week, but for the meantime, say 'salut'!



'Voilà.' That word is probably the greatest achievement of the French language. It's basically an eloquent way of saying, 'and yeah, I've finished talking/whatever it was that I was doing...'. I totally understand any sense of superiority that the French posess, it all comes down to 'Voilà'.

I'm a tourist at heart. Sure I know my way around Lyon fairly well (well enough to be allowed out of the house without a French guide, though still equipped with a phone) and sure I've discovered the best hot chocolate in Lyon (cheers Suzie). But I do horribly touristy things. Such as: running around Place Bellecour at nine in the morning, I'm assured that no one does this, buying a balloon for €4 (that's about $8), insisting on taking photos at every available opportunity and filming street performers.

These guys really deserved my €1, they started playing at the camera.



And my personal favourite. Could he be any more French?



Clearly, by 'horribly touristy' I meant awesome.