Tiago follows a stranger in Lyon...

A friend of mine (N) and I, started playing a game here in Lyon that is called "cap ou pa cap?" which translated into English means "are you game or not?" -  basically a dare game.

It was my time to complete my cap/dare, which was:
"Follow a complete stranger for a day, and do everything that that person does and go where they go - and then write a blog about it" - challenge accepted!!

Seems very odd (being a stalker basically!) following someone for a day, but it doesn't seem that hard to do right?
I just had to pick someone random, and follow that person, without them noticing me, or it would end pretty quickly and in jail...!

I felt that if the person was having an interesting and busy day, or did random things, it could really be an interesting experience.
It could also go the other way, I could pick someone that would go straight home and not leave until the next day.

I went to the Parc de la Tete D'Or, and after some people went by, a young (25-30 maybe) guy caught my eye and he seemed as good as anyone to be followed, so I decided to follow him.

Barely did I know that this guy really, really but really....loved to walk...and fast!!

Start: Parc de la Tete D'or - Porte des Enfants du Rhone

By the River Rhone on the way out...I was fresh here! He is far ahead, I always kept a long distance between us. 

1st stop: Public toilet

Then he walked...and walked...by the river Rhone, and into town. Just him and his backpack...and me!

He stopped to look at these plants

2nd stop: Cash machine

3rd stop: Terre des Livres - Bookstore (3 min)

4th stop: Librarie Rive Gauche - Bookstore (10 min)

Librarie Rive Gauche

After the book store he came back to where I was standing so I had to quickly improvise and get into a little Carrefour to hide..here he is.

- At 14h45 I changed sweatshirt as I believed he had seen me a couple of times, so I went from a grey sweatshirt to a blue one, and I also took my glasses off, felt so Clark Kent!

5th stop: He entered a store called Biocoop - a store that sells biologic and ecologic food products. He bought some fruit here and ate a very big fruit, not sure what it was.

- He saw me across the street at some point after this store, so I thought that was it, I couldn't continue following him. I decided to continue by increasing even more the distance to him, and became even more careful.

6th stop: After another long walk, we ended up in the Confluence Commercial Centre, where he went to the supermarket Carrefour and stayed there for 15 minutes. I did not go inside as I was worried about him noticing me once again.

After that he never stopped again. He just walked and walked, slight pauses just to decide which street to take but just relentless walking.





Finish: His home I assume.
Ironically it actually ended up right next to where I live!

The end. His home?

The first picture is from Strava and shows the distance and time done.
I walked 13.3 miles (21.4 Km) with him - WHAT?? Are you serious?
This guy walked even more than me, as I cycled to the Parc!!
The second one shows in detail the route we took.

I shared 4h of my life with this complete stranger, we walked around Lyon to the same places and he took all the decisions. It was very odd at times, but I went to places and streets I didn't know, and found it interesting and refreshing that someone else was deciding my next moves, without them knowing.

It wasn't always easy. I nearly lost him maybe 5 times, as I wanted to keep a big distance between me and him. Somehow I managed to keep up with him with some running, patience and my CIA skills.

I also managed to take some pictures along the way as it was a beautiful day.

River Rhone

Lyon "Eye" at Place Bellecour

A mural of the Major Claude Martin, a Lyonnais

Rhone

Conclusion: It was an odd experience and quite hard to do, as the guy really liked to walk and seemed to walk forever, but interesting nonetheless.

Who is he?
I believe he is a student as he lives next to the university, and maybe interested in ecology. He stopped one time to look closely at some plants (1st pic) and he seemed to look at some threes for a little while. He also entered a couple of biological stores.
He also entered a couple of book stores, so maybe a book lover. That's all I could take from what I saw.

House party in Lyon - how did I end up there?

Last Saturday I went to an awesome house party here in Lyon!
The theme of this party was Masquerade Ball - I wasn't able to buy a mask, so I brought a fancy hat I had from Halloween, and made my own mask from a cereal box...it was a poor attempt but I had a mask!
I met some really interesting and special people at this party, I spoke in French, Portuguese and English, drank a few glasses of red wine, ate quite a lot of food and also danced a lot.
The party started at 20.30 and the atmosphere was so awesome throughout the whole evening that it lasted until 6am!
C'etait super!

 

Afterwards, when I was cycling home at 6.30am, I started thinking about how random it was that I was invited to this party...and also how lucky I was because I really liked all the people I met there and realised that if it wasn't for certain situations and connections that happened since my arrival in Lyon, I wouldn't have been there, and wouldn't have met those people.
So, I decided I was going to write down the pathway that led me to be invited and to attend this party, and here I am doing this...

Before though, I'll make a few points just in case you are wondering:

- I am not religious
- I don't believe in reincarnation
- I don't believe in destiny
- I believe we make our own destiny (maybe I am slightly existentialist like Jean-Paul Sartre)
- I believe we can influence our own luck and randomness

The three important moments that happened, which resulted in me being at this house party were the following:

1. As most of you know, I moved to Lyon at the end of September and started learning French at Alliance Francaise in October. I could have picked any french school in Lyon and I could have started any month, but I decided to start in October...
In my class I met B, who became a close friend of mine. B, was only studying at Alliance for one month - October so, I think the odds of us being put together in the same class (morning class + A1N2 level) were low, but then made it possible for other connections and situations to happen afterwards.
Probability of meeting B: Medium to Low 5-10%

2. B and I then started to go to every possible party or soiree for students in Lyon and we met some great people in the process.
One evening we decided to go to a bar - the awesome Livestation DIY -  close to where B lives with other friends of ours. We tried to get into this bar before but it was always packed, the first time we managed to get a table there was this specific Thursday!
After some food and a few drinks, B spotted a gorgeous man (her own words) sat behind me.
We chatted with him for maybe 10 minutes but he had to leave...When he was just about to leave the bar, B asked me if I could go and get his phone number...so I did that...to his surprise! (he thought I was interested in him!).
B got in touch with him by text afterwards so that's how we randomly connected with D.
Probability of meeting D and staying in touch with him: Very low 0.25%

At Livestation with the gang! D was just behind me...

Jam Session at Livestation

3. For B's birthday later that month, we went to Livestation, for drinks and cake. She invited D, and he invited his housemate P.
We had one drink at the bar and then D and P very kindly asked us if we wanted to continue the birthday celebration at their place, which was just around the corner - we said "of course", so off we went.
Their house was really cool, spacious, high ceilings, nicely decorated, a really great place to live and to have friends over.
There we met the 3rd housemate Ce there, who joined us for the birthday celebration and some Brazilian singing, dancing and chatting.
We all really enjoyed the evening and I believe we got on really well with each other.
I then asked P to add me on Facebook just before I left and a few days after he invited me to this his house party with the theme Masquerade Ball. I accepted immediately and there I went...et voila!
Probability of meeting D again and P and being invited to their party: Medium: 15%

Probability of me being invited to this house party when I landed in Lyon: 0.001%

I do believe that we make our own luck and random moments. By this, I don't mean we do this conscientiously, however we can improve the probability of our own luck or randomness.
For example, if we keep doing the same things everyday and keep following the same routine, the probability of meeting someone knew or learning something new is very low.
Getting out of a routine, experiencing something new and getting out of our comfort zone even just once in a while, allows us to experience very random events which lead to often special moments and special people, enriching one's life.
Yes, cheesy but true, non?

Even though I don't believe in destiny, sometimes I find it weird and spooky - but truly fantastic, that I connect so strongly with some people. It sometimes feels like meeting certain people was always inevitable - even though often the events that allowed us to meet might have been the most random ever.

But the real moral of this story is: if your friend asks you to get a phone number from a random person, just do it no matter what - you might end up in an awesome house party a few weeks afterwards!!

PS: The above probabilities were calculated with a very robust software found on a poker website combined with my amazing maths skills learned from watching "Good will hunting".

The amazing Murals of Lyon

Lyon keeps surprising me - apart from the great gastronomy, nice people and beautiful city overall, it seems that Lyon is also one of the cities in the world with the most number of mural paintings (frescos)!

I had already come across a couple of these during my walks and bike rides around the city, however, I didn't have a clue that there were so many!!

Today was a bank holiday and it was sunny, so I decided to track some of the most famous ones and took a few pictures...

"Mur des Canuts"
The most famous mural in Lyon, and the the largest fresco in Europe covering 1200 m2!!
It's called a "trompe l'oeil" (= optical illusion) as everything you see on the wall is an illusion.
The first edition of this painting was done in 1987, and was updated in 1997 and 2013.

"Mur des Canuts"
Can you find Tiago?

"La Fresque des Lyonnais"
This one isn't as large (800 m2) as the Mur des Canuts. but it is as famous!
This mural represents 30 historical people from Lyon!

Where is Tiago again? Or should I say "Wally"?

The side of the mural with a few more historical characters from Lyon.

Le Musee Urbain Tony Garnier

I was then made aware of an outside museum made of 20 + murals/frescos in just one neighbourhood, called "Le Musee Urbain Tony Garnier". Tony Garnier was an urbanist avant garde and central figure in the architectural and social history of Lyon. These are truly incredible, I will post some of them in here, but better seen in person!