À bientôt beautiful Lyon...

I am leaving Lyon after just 8 months, with one of those months spent in Australia/New Zealand!

The majority of my readers (which aren't many!) know the reason of me leaving Lyon: to run a marathon a day for 100 days in a row, to complete a Tour de France this summer!
If you are interested in this challenge, please like my Facebook page to follow my progress, photos, funny stories, funny videos, and follow me live (gps tracker) here:
https://www.facebook.com/tiagorunsletourdefrance/

I am also doing this to help a very important and known French charity, les "Restos du Coeur" so, if you feel generous, and think what I am doing deserves it, please send any amount of money to them via my secure donations page here:
http://tinyurl.com/tiagorestosducoeur

Although I will still be in France, this was a blog about my adventures in Lyon, and since I will be putting all the info gathered during this challenge into my Facebook page, I think this might be my last blog post!

What else happened in the last few months that is worth writing about?

1. Diana, my wife came over and spent 3 weeks here with me, and she also fell in love with this city! She managed to meet all of my family that lives here, and pretty much all of my friends! We had a great time and it was really sad when she had to leave again!

On top of the "Lyon"

We pretty much went to a boulangerie every day
to buy baguettes/pain au chocolate! 

Annecy

Annecy

Annecy

2. I also finished my french school! I passed the B1 test so I can now say that I have a B1 French level, which is a massive achievement for me, after getting in Lyon with a A1 level! My understanding is really improving as I am starting to feel confortable watching French movies with, and even without, subtitles (french subtitles)! I am also reading french books too!
My speaking and writing are my major weaknesses, but are OK for communicating, and should only get better during these next 3 months running around France and meeting people!

Below, you can see my level of spoken French in a video that the Alliance Française de Lyon, my school, did with me.
There, I talk about Lyon, the school and reasons I came to France/Lyon, and also about the challenge I'm about to start.

3. I had to say goodbye to everyone that I met during my time in Lyon, and since I don't have a house (I lived all this time in a student accomodation), I decided to organize a pic-nic at the Parc de la Tete D'or, as it was going to be sunny! It was a great afternoon and there was lots of food, music, laughing and it was great getting a lot of different friends together in the same place!

I really enjoyed this city, its' not big but not small either, the right size for me at this moment in my life! You can always find things to do, people are friendly and open minded. There are beautiful places to relax, and around Lyon are some beautiful places to visit not too far, like Annecy!
I really recommend this city to anyone thinking about coming to live in France! I prefer it to Paris! Personally, Paris is too busy for me, like London! A lot to offer, yes..but also too much stress at the same time, so not worth it! Lyon gives you a great amount of stuff to do, but with not much stress or noise!

It was a pleasure sharing my experience here with you, and I hope this has inspired anyone out there to also follow their dream of living somehere else, and to learn a new language like I did! It can only happen if you go for it!

I will leave you with some photos taken in the last few months and wish you all the best! Please feel free to contact me for any tips or questions about life in Lyon, and feel free to follow my adventure running around France!

Parc Miribel

Annecy

À bientôt!!

French music - my top 10

I really like French music, and listening to it is a great way to improve my French, so I listen to a few French songs/artists regularly...

It wasn't easy to choose my top 10 favourite french songs (sang in French, not necessarily from French singers)...I could have picked all 10 just from Stromae, Grand Corps Malade or Christine and the Queens, but I tried to pick from 10 different artists instead, so here they are (in no particular order):

Stromae - "Papaoutai"

Fauve - "Blizzard"

Grand Corps Malade - "Les voyages en train"

Jacques Brel - "Dans le Port d'Amsterdam"

Christine and The Queens - "Christine"

Zaz - "Je veux"

Francis Cabrel - "Je T'amais, je t'aime, je t'aimerai"

Vitaa - "Peine & Pitié"

Celine Dion - "On ne change pas"

Raphael - "Caravane"

Anais - "Mon coeur mon amour"

BONUS 

Ben L'Oncle Soul - "Hallelujah (J'ai tant besoin de toi)

It's really been 6 months?

I can't believe it, but it was 6 months ago that I left the UK and arrived in Lyon, France! From those 6 months, one was spent in Australia/New Zealand, so, I have now been in France for 5 months!

It has been one magical experience, and not finished yet! 

So, apart from the Passeurs d'Europe experience, which I talked about in my previous post, what have I been up to?

Soirée Slam

Last month I went to my first Slam evening. Slam consists of french urban poetry, declamed in public places. It can also be declamed to the sound of a rhythm or a beat.

I first got introduced to Slam, by a French teacher who recommended me to listen to the Slam artist "Grand Corps Malade", who is very famous in France. I quickly became a fan and regularly listen to his albums during my runs.

I was very curious to see a live Slam session and I have to say I really liked the vibe.
There was no restriction on who got on stage to declame their own text, the 30 odd Slammers were really heterogenous, from 20yd kids to 60yd mums. Most of them with their words memorized but others reading from a piece of paper or smartphone.

There were of course some better than others, but the community is really supportive of all slammers, as its not easy to go on stage in front of 60 odd people, and read their work, sometimes quite personal pieces of work.

To be honest, I understood only around 30% of what was being said...but I got the vibe and it really inspired me to maybe try and write some sort of slam poem one day and try to slam it on one of these evenings! Really recommend this for people who like poetry and a different sort of evening. They are usually free and at least once a month. The one I went to, took place in the Latino-american bar Macanudo and was organized by La SLAMicale. 

Amigos in Lyon

Last week it was the first time I had friends coming to visit me in Lyon, both Portuguese living in Lisbon at the moment.
After a week of great weather, they were really unlucky as they got some rain and cloudy weather.

They only stayed for a day and a half so, it was hard to see all of Lyon, but we still managed to see the main sites and I think they got a feel for this city too.

We visited the Basilica Notre Dame de Fourvière (took the 250 stairs instead of the funicular, which they hate me for until today!), le Marché de Saint-Antoine, where they got told off by a very annoyed French seller, as they kept feeding themselves from the little cheese/saucisson samples!!
We passed through the Place Bellecour, Place des Jacobins, Place du Terreaux/Opera House and of course Vieux Lyon. We also managed to visit Les Halles Paul Bocuse, which showed us once again how poor we are...

We also had time to have some wine at the bar Café du Rhône (my favourite), and also ended up on a Péniche/Bar (disco boat) at 1am drinking some ponche...

On Saturday evening, we got invited to a house party at Pedro's, and we celebrated there Ana's (Precisoes) birthday with some wine, cheese and chips (a lot of cheese!!).

On Sunday, as we only had half a day and it was sunny, we visited the beautiful Parc de la Téte d'Or and its Zoo.

We had a great time and wished they could have stayed for a bit longer!
Even though Lyon isn't a big city, a minimum of 2 full days is needed to enjoy it properly, 3 days ideally!! 

Ciné-concert

Last week I went to my first Ciné-concert and I really enjoyed it.

I went with Katherine, one of my colleagues from Passeurs d'Europe. We decided to go because another Passeurs d'Europe friend (Théo) invited us all to come, as he was going to be singing, as part of his studies.

This is a free annual event presented by the Masters MaaaV (Musique Appliquée Aux Arts Visuels - Music Applied to Visual Arts). The students showcase their musical work to be played for the short films directed and sent by local schools such as Emile Cohl and Bellecour.

The best students from the class are grouped together, and form l'Orchestra Percussion du CRR de Lyon (directed by Muguette Rimey-Meille), who then played a different piece to each short-movie that was showed...it was just awesome and full of energy,

Fado in Lyon

The day after, I went to a Fado evening with Puri, another Passeur d'Europe friend, who is Spanish but is really into Portuguese music.
This event took place in KoToPo, a very cool multicultural/language exchange bar, which I've mentioned here previously.

The group is called "Eufrasia Grupo" and it consists of a female singer and her husband, who plays classic guitar. The portuguese guitar (essential instrument when playing Fado), wasn't played live but played by their sound mixer (was slightly dissapointed).

The group played around 15 of the most famous Portuguese fados. Some songs better sang than others, but overall, a very enjoyable evening!
It is very interesting to listen to Fado in a different country with the audience not being Portuguese in its majority. The songs were well appreciated and ultimately I felt proud to be Portuguese.

Manon's movie

A few days ago, I was invited by my friend Marie Christine, to watch Manon's movie, a friend in common. I had no idea she had made a movie nor that she was showing it!! I was curious!

The movie showing took place at the Goethe Institut and there were around 40 people there to watch it.

The movie shows her travels in Vietnam et Laos with Stella, her friend and colleague, which they did last year for 7 weeks.

The really interesting thing about this trip, is that they decided (on the plane on the way there), that they would NOT use or look at any type of map...for 7 weeks...without having any idea of how the country is set up and where the major cities or sights were, this was a massive challenge and adventure! I was hooked!!

They decided to ask the locals (and sometimes to other fellow travellers) to draw a map of where they were, on their little notebook, and if possible with some useful places/villages/cities around to visit...

This way, they kept travelling but using the eyes of the locals and not actually knowing where this would lead, or if they would miss any major sights or not!
They were never influenced by any maps, they never made decisions based on what was closer by or any major sights that had to visit!

I loved the movie, and was really impressed by their persistance, their resolve on keeping true to their idea, even though being really hard at times.

It was a really inspiring way to show that there is always a new way of travelling. They kept interacting with the locals, with fellow travellers and they got to know both countries in a very unusual way, not necessarily the best way, but surely a much more interesting way, in my eyes.

If any of you is interested in their story, check out their blog where they talk about their adventure, who they are, and why they did this in the first place!
It is in French, but I guess that's why we have google translate! The little trailer gives you a good idea of this great adventure!
https://pierrefeuilleciseauxsite.wordpress.com/

Passeurs d'Europe - Afrique(s) - Unforgettable experience

This past week, I participated in a theatrical, poetic and musical spectacle, organized by the franco-allemande group Plattform, for the "Printemps des Poetes", an annual event in France that takes place in March, with this year's theme being "Afrique(s)"!  When I volunteered to participate back in January I had no idea on what to expect. I found out about this event through the Alliance Francaise Facebook - they were in need of several languages speakers with Portuguese amongst them. I emailed them offering my availability for the required dates and for the Portuguese reading, mentioning my 0% theatre/poem reading experience. I was told by the enthusiastic Marie-Christine, that it was fine as most people would be 1st timers too and that it was great that I was going to join the project. I really had no idea on what I was getting into. From reading the information available about the event and from past events, I thought it would be a poem reading evening with some accompanying music and a bit of theatre, not sure what I individually would have to do apart from the Portuguese poem reading. We had a week's rehearsal's. Monday to Friday for 3h in the evening and a long rehearsal on the Saturday afternoon, before the final rehearsal and 2 performances the week after. Gaelle, our artistic director (= the boss), warned us that in a week's time we would all be kissing and hugging, she wasn't wrong! To be honest, I thought 3 hours rehearsals every night plus a 5h one on a Saturday was going to get really boring at some point...well, it never did!! This all had to do with Gaelle...she is a force of nature and with a charisma that never lets you take your eyes off of her. I was like a kid, listening to her with all my attention, drinking her words and directions. This is her job of course, but as I've seen through many other fields, being a professional at something doesn't mean you are automatically good at what you do. She truly is! We were 40 people with ages ranging from 10 years old to maybe 60 and from all sorts of backgrounds and all kids of personalities, and everyone was under the spell of Gaelle.

Gaelle in action!

The rehearsals always started with a warm-up which usually involved some sort of passage of energy between us. These passages of energy were done either by touch, eye contact or theatrical movement. These exercises were really great for us to bond, to relax and even laugh, before we got to the poem readings and stage placement rehearsal. We really had fun for the whole week, and day by day, we got more confident with each other and with what we had to do on stage. None of us are professional actors, with only just a few of us having done this Passeurs d'Europe in previous years, so we gave it all so it would be a good show. The week passed really quickly and off came the time to perform to a 200+ audience in a very nice cultural centre, L'Espace Hillel. We were all dressed up accordingly for the theme "Afrique(s)", so we were all colourful, some cool hairdos, some make up (yes me too!), and barefoot of course. We were all very excited but some people nervous, me included!!

Professor Justo Boleka, who wrote and read the Spanish poem  with our Greek goddess Heleni :)

Me with makeup! with Adersa from Cape Verde

The spectacle included 8 poems (German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Portuguese) all read initially in their original written languages followed by an African translation (Swahili, Zulu, Creole, Congolese etc) and then a French translation, followed by several other translations, all accompanied by some poem inspired music (Atelier d'improvisation du Conservatoire de Lyon). I was going to read a paragraph of the German poem (2nd poem of the evening) in Portuguese, and then would be reading the Portuguese Poem (last one) with Mariana, a Brazilian woman. We would finish off the spectacle, which was cool but nerve wracking at the same time! Off we went, and after 1h15 we where all done. It seemed like we did really well, from Gaelle's feedback and from our Passeurs d'Europe and the audience. We also felt as a group that we did better than what we had done on our final rehearsal, so we were all proud and happy!!

I had Luisa Dutra, the representative from the "Instituto Camoes de Lyon" (Portuguese Institute), one of the partners of this project and who provided the poem, come and speak to me. She kindly thanked me and said she really liked it all, specially the Portuguese poem and our romantic take on it between me and Mariana. Afterwards, the Consul of the Portuguese Consulat of Lyon, Maria de Fatima Mendes also congratulated me and thanked me for my participation. I mentioned I was in contact with one of her colleagues about registering my wedding from New Zealand there, and she said when I visit to go and see her, so cool! Then came our 2nd and last performance the following day. I was more nervous for this second performance as I had family and friends coming to see me. Of course I was happy to have them coming to see me and support me, which I knew wasn't easy for them, as they really lead busy lives at the moment! So, we gave it all and in my opinion we really had a good performance which I was really proud and happy! Personally I did some things better than the previous evening but unfortunately messed up nearly at the end, by reading the wrong phrase with Mariana reading the correct one, but it wasn't that big of a deal, so all was fine :)

Me reading the Portuguese translation of the German poem

Myself and Mariana finishing off the Portuguese poem with the phrase "Livres, livres, livres" meaning "Free, free, free!"

At the end, I had Sara my cousin come to congratulate me and give me a kiss, and then my friends Nahil, Barbara and Alexandra! I was really happy to have them all there and was chuffed that they all liked the whole spectacle! I wasn't sure they would as poetry performances are not everyone's cup of tea and read in all sorts of languages, mainly African languages, I was slightly worried they would be bored, but no...they really seemed to have enjoyed it. Whilst I was chatting with them, all the others where dancing behind me on stage to the sound of Buba playing jambe and really happy! :) Afterwards we decided to celebrate our final performance with a trip to an African restaurant/bar. We were around 20-25, and literally took over that little restaurant and danced and drinked for a few hours, still energised by our last performance and by our new friendships. As for me, I couldn't believe my luck in having had the honour to participate in such a great project! I wasn't sure of what to expect when I volunteered to participate in this project, and in 10 days I made 40 new friends and met some amazing and inspiring people. The group energy and connection really made me think I should do something similar like this in the future. I really really enjoyed being part of a group. Those moments, before the curtain opened, where we were all in place just waiting, looking at each other nervously, cheering each one of us with our eyes, passing our energy and courage to each other, those moments are so strong, I love them...and then the feeling of accomplishment at the end of a group performance, where everyone pulls in the same direction is so great, that I really want to re-live it. As for the theme of this year -  Africa, it also inspired me to get to know a lot more about this continent. We had lots of people from all over Africa, talented, great spirits, sweet, happy and inspiring individuals, which made me want to visit and learn more about this fascinating continent!

Settling down

It's been a while since I wrote on here, so here is what I've been up to since I've been back from down under a month ago...

French school
I have restarted the French lessons, my 4th month at Alliance Française now on the A2n3 level, which means I will take the A2 exam next week to see if I can move up to the B1 classes for the next 3 months. Even though I am a bit tired of learning french grammar, which I assure you isn't easy (even though similar to Portuguese grammar), a good thing about going back "to school" each month, is the opportunity to meet new classmates.

Even though I have been sharing my class with a core group of students of around 6, each month we get another 8-10 new students. This really makes shakes up the class as we get to know them and the dynamic of the class naturally changes too. This month's class has really great personalities and the level of French of the class is also quite good.

Picnic at the Parc de la Tête D'Or with the very cool February class!

The majority of the classmates I've met usually only stay in the school or France/Lyon for a month or two maximum, which is sad as some I really wanted to get to know better, some really do stay for a while or actually settle down in Lyon. It is the case with one of our classmates Jacqui, who moved to Lyon with her French husband to a very nice house and so very kindly invited us to her "Pendre la Crémaillère", which is the french word for housewarming party. As she is Philippine, she cooked us some delicious starters and mains from her country. We had a great time eating, drinking, talking and even dancing!

Looking for a job
I have now started to look for jobs. I have registered on the national/local jobs centre, which some of my friends suggested me to do. This is similar to the "job centre" in England or "Centro de Desemprego" in Portugal, where you register to say you are unemployed and they try and find you a job depending what you are willing to do and on your skills.

http://www.pole-emploi.fr/accueil/

I have applied for a few, maybe 10, jobs related to what I have been doing in the UK, but with no success. I believe this is due to my CV and cover letters in French not being yet written to the standard I need them to be, and also the fact that it is probably obvious to the employer that French is not my first language, and usually these types of jobs, even though they all require good spoken/written English, they are for people who speak/write fluent French, something I am far from doing...
I might have to change my job priorities fairly quickly and go for bar/cafes/store jobs where the level of French doesn't have to be as high as some of those office jobs. Let's see how this goes in the next few weeks!

Social life
As my money is running out, I am not going out drinking and eating as much as I was for the first 3 months. I have been quiet on that front, which is a shame because I keep meeting new people and I would love to keep my social life as active as before, but can't afford it, so I have started to say No a lot, which pretty much never happened before. However, I have been fortunate to have been to some free events which were really great.

- I went to a free Saxophone and Piano concert at the Opera National de Lyon to watch Emile Parisien (Saxophone) and Roberto Negro (Piano) perform a few of their songs. It was a great show and something I had never seen before so, really enjoyed it and felt I should watch more of these types of music concerts.

 


- Then last week my cousin very kindly took me to watch "Carmen" by the Compañia Nacional de Danza de España at the Maison de la Danse. I really had a great experience watching this very famous opera being modernised into a modern dance story. I love dance and this really made me once again think about somehow get involved in dancing!

   


- I also went to a "Soirée International" at the KoToPo Bar in the city centre. This is a international language bar which organises and offers free language exchange get togethers most nights. I went to the international one, which was directed to French wanting to speak any desired language and international people wanting to learn French. I met maybe 6 people and talked with them for a couple of hours, which was really great.

Other nights include Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Chinese, Scandinavian, Catalan, Esperanto etc for people wanting to learn french in exchange of those languages whilst socialising and meeting new people.

This bar also has free concerts at least one night a week and has lots of board games and books for all of its members. For you to access the bar and the language exchange evenings, you just need to become an associate member, which is just €4 for the whole year, really a bargain for what they have to offer.

 

- Raclette and board game soiree at Pedro's
If you remember, Pedro was one of the hosts of the house party I wrote about a few months ago. A few weeks ago he invited me again to his house to join him and another couple to an evening of raclette and board games.

It was my first raclette ever and it was great. For those who don't know what this is, its an originally Swiss dish which has been widely adopted by France and usually involves an electric grill with small pans used to melt slices of raclette cheese. The cheese is then melted and mixed with the potatoes and charcuterie or just poured over the food on the plate. Pedro provided the cheese, charcuterie, potatoes and mushrooms (his original touch) and we had a great time at the table "racletting" and chatting before we then went to play some strategic board game, which I came last...per usual! Another great evening at Pedro's.

Red wine of course..

Delicious!

- I also managed to go to Geneva for a couple of days to visit B. the cousin I still hadn't yet seen since I got to Lyon. I took the very very cheap bus to Geneva that cost me just €18 return!! The trip only takes 2h and I got to see some snow on the way there.

Here is the website for those wanting to use this company for cheap bus trips around France and also to Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium and UK: http://fr.ouibus.com/fr

Random thoughts & what's next
What I have noticed lately, and I guess its normal after 4 months, is that I have created some routines and feel like I now am getting quite comfortable here.
Of course now I am getting more serious with trying to get a job, plus without much money to spend recklessly in drinks and food, so I am really picking wisely what I do or do not.

Running wise, as most of you know Diana and I managed to reach 3 years of running every day a few days ago,which we were very happy and proud to have achieved. Today was my day 1,111 in a row, which for someone like me that loves numbers is really cool :)

I finally had the pleasure of running with my number 1 blog fan, Mathieu! Mama mia!

Next month I have 2 friends from Portugal visiting me for a couple of days, which will be awesome!
I hope they get to feel Lyon the way I feel.

Diana will also come to visit for two weeks in May...just 74 days until then...but who is counting right??!!

Before that, I am participating in a thing called "Printemps des Poets" with the theme "Afrique(s)"...it seems like a mixture between poetry, theatre and music.
I came across this flyer on Facebook, which mentioned all the language speakers still needed, including Portuguese, no experience needed, just curiosity in participating in an artistic intercultural adventure..so I was straight in! We will perform 2 nights in March, so let's hope I don't mess it up and get to meet some cool people in the process and learn something too!