The Taming of the Shrew...d

I've always thought of myself as very independent, a tiny bit wild, a bit of free spirit, and often unconventional at times (I had a dream this morning that I was Britney Spears and Eminem was trying to kill me...that has nothing to do with any of the above, but I just remembered it).

But I'll tell you a secret. I've lately been becoming a little bit more domesticated. Don't go thinking that someone has roped this pony yet but...

I still hate cleaning and all of that, but ever since I moved into my own apartment (as in it's mine, I own it), I've been cleaning a lot more and lot more thorough than usual. Maybe I am starting to take pride in my humble abode, I don't know. But I do know that living on my own, in the big city has kind of brought a sense of stability and, gasp, responsibilty, to my life (still don't like the R word though).

I even took flowers that Ross had recently given me and made potpourri out of them. Granted, they don't smell like potpourri should but they sure are pretty.

I've also started experimenting with cooking. I'm starting to really like it. And I really like it when I make meals for my man.

Last night, he came over to my place after a hard day's work. I had spent the day doing fuck all and planning our meal for tonight. Usually we go out for eats at a restaurant we've never been to before, like last week when we went to the New India restaurant on Davie St. (which always intrigued me because of the doorman with the Indian hat outside) and Ross had boiling butter chicken spatter out of his dish and go in his eye.

But since buying yet another Rachel Ray cookbook (this one was low-carb and low-sugar for diet conscious people like myself), I was inspired to cook him something special.

Now I often cook for Ross or we cook together. It's a fun thing to do and a nice change from watching TV. Usually we make my special whole-wheat pasta with Vodka sauce but since I've been avoiding pasta as of late, I decided to do something a little more decadent.

Though the picture makes it look like a pile of turds, I can assure this tasted very good...as it should of since it was the most complicated meal I have ever made (probably because I made it all from scratch, including the sauces). How sad is that?

This is proscuitto-wrapped roasted endives with a balsalmic fig reduction, served with almond-crusted chicken and a sweet, caramelized zucchini sauce (sauce not shown in picture because it tasted better than it looked).


I followed the endive and fig thing to a T, while the chicken I kind of went off and did my own thing (I used almonds instead of hazelnuts, made my own zucchini sauce instead of gorganzola dressing).

Then we had this for desert:


The reverse of a chocolate-dipped strawberry, this is a roasted, dark chocolate stuffed strawberry (achieved by hollowing out the berry and filling with dark DARK chocolate). So damn good!

So as you can see, I've slowly warmed up to the idea of being an occasional adult, even though today I will probably bite into a hunk of cheese and eat olives out of the jar and call that dinner.

(and I certainly will not mention the fact that I later hemmed his pants. That would be too embarassing).

Lyon - Scotland: Yet Another Long Day

When you look on the map, the distance between Lyon and Scotland doesn't seem that long. Well, not if you are Canadian and "just down the road" is a three-hour drive, but I digress.

Our journey took a lot longer than it needed to, but that seemed to be the theme of our trip so far.

It started off with waking up at 330 AM. Not an easy task on any day, but especially not after spending a day being hungover from the the night before's shenanigans AND having to ignore the pounding drum and bass of the salsa concert that was taking place in our room.

OK, so it wasn't in our room, but with the old flat's acoustics and lack of sound-proofing, it sure felt like it.

We arrived at the airport after a harrowing taxi ride...the windows had fogged over and yet the driver seemed to not care. Sure, he would occasionally wipe a bit away but it didn't seem to be where his field of vision was...

Thankfully we arrived at the aiport on time and alive (all the while the statistics that more people die on the drive to airport rather than on the plane was running through my head).

Woo-hoo, it's 5 AM!
The flight to Amsterdam was uneventful - although there was a terrifying moment at the Lyon airport when I inserted my memory card into a photo-making machine and it wouldn't come out again! In the end I had to forceably pull it out with all my might, scratching my memory card as I did it. Now you know how finicky those things are.

Panicked, I put it back in my camera only to find that half my pictures of Lyon and Paris were wiped out! I FREAKED! Thankfully I had downloaded some of those pictures onto Cat's computer, so it was only a matter of downloading them to the net when I got back to Lyon. There is nothing worse than losing your photos!

We had a four hour layover in Schipol airport, which was a great airport to have a long layover in. It's like a giant mall with fancy shops, a casino, a hotel, massage zones and tons of restaurants and bars...even a Rembrandt musem!

Of course, we were so bloody tired and feeling ill at our jetlag and lack of sleep that we spent all of our time at McDonalds, which had comfy couches you could sleep on. No sleep came for me as I was busy ravaging Stephen King's "Cell" but Ross had a quick one. Then we went on exploring the rest of the massiveairport for a bit. At one point as we were walking through it, Ross laughed at a security sign and quickly grabbed my camera. I had no idea what he was taking a picture of until he showed me this:


Gotta love Dutch (the language, not the film).

Eventually though we got to board our plane (KLM, no less) and it was just a quick hop to Glasgow, where Ross's father was picking us up and driving us the three hours to their place in Aberdeen.

I slept the entire way there which was just as well since all of Scotland seemed to be enveloped in crazy thick fog (and when I say all of Scotland, I mean it, considering Glasgow is on the West Coast and Aberdeen is on the East Coast).

When we finally arrived in Aberdeen, I was so bloody out of it. The problem was that by waking up so damn early, my body got confused and brought on a delayed set of extreme jetlag. To make matters worse, this was Xmas Eve! This wasn't a night to retire in your bed at 6 PM, but I did so anyway. I said quick hellos to Ross's mum, sister Jo and her partner David (whom I knew when they came on the boat with me while visiting last summer).

Of course I was soon joined by Ross and roused by his dad a few hours later in time for Xmas Eve dinner.


And was soon joined by Cat and Chris who had flown into Aberdeen on a later flight.


The dinner was good and the minute Ross sat down to eat, the phone started ringing off the hook with calls from his friends who wanted to hang out that night. Apparently on Xmas Eve, everybody goes out and gets pissed at the local pub. While that usually sounded like fun to me, I was so out of it I didn't know what to think. Neither did Ross for that matter, who, after going out for a cigarette, came back in and announced that he had just puked in the back garden. We never let him live that one down for the rest of the trip.

Anyway, it was inevitable that we go to the pub, especially since it was literally at the end of his street. The Mariner was a quaint, typical Scottish pub beneath a hotel and done up with a nautical theme. There we were joined by Ross's best mate Jhodi and settled in our seats for an evening of Tennents Beer and Vodka Longs, Bob Hoskins (whom I swear was in the bar) and elderly Scotsmen out in their kilts.

Of course, Ross not only had to cope with jetlag but with the persistant teasing by his sisters. I felt bad for siding with them, but I tend to jump on the bandwagon.


The night ended when Ross had heard enough embarrasing stories about him and I felt like I was going to pass out. Of course it didn't end there since everybody forgot about wrapping the presents for the next morning.



And I fell in love with Ross's cocker spaniel. My own dog is on a road trip somewhere in Texas (long story) so I immediately pounced on this one. Poor thing!


Finally, after all the presents were wrapped and placed under the festive tree, we retired to our beds and slept while visions of sugarplums danced in our heads.

Next up: Xmas Freakin Day...finally!

Money for nothing, Chicks for free

As I was reading through my usual blogs, I came across this most interesting and highly debatable post on The Dog's Name.

While Indy has his own opinions (well-backed up as usual) on the subject and I know that there are many people out there who feel the same way, I disagreed with this so much that I had to blog about it (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Indy):

"Women will give a less than physical perfect man a chance to show he has possibilities...a man won't give you a chance unless he finds you physically perfect (which is different for every guy, but it still holds true)"
and

" A guy will assess you very quickly by looks along, he will "thin-slice" you into either a yes or a no, just as women do. As he gets to know you he will either downgrade you as he finds you have no characteristics he admires beyond looks, or upgrade you if you do. But if you are an initial "no" then chances are he won't even give you the time to show him your "deeper" qualities. Women tend to have a third intitial classification which could be termed "maybe" and it is from the maybe catagory that a man may advance his cause with "deeper" characteristics."

I am obviously not a guy, but I have a hard time believing this. I mean, "if you are an initial "no" then chances are he won't even give you the time to show him your "deeper" qualities," are men really this shallow?

I understand that looks are that important. But I find it hard to believe that there isn't a guy out there who went out a with a woman who wasn't "physically perfect" to him who then later changed his mind. Either by learning more about her or by other means. It may not happen often but I think it's a bit of a stretch to insinuate that most men would never give a girl a second chance if she isn't as perfect as he is used to (I know many guys who've at least slept with women they've called a "bag head"...of course, not the most knoble of men, but still...)

But then again, I may be way off on this (men baffle me).

Of course Indy's point in the blog was that women are that shallow as well. Not so much with looks, but with money: "While you might argue that no-one you knows would go out with a man for money, how many do you know that would go out with a man if he had none?"

Now I'm not one to be called a feminist, far from it, but I had the impression in this day and age that women were kind of done with the whole gold-dogging attitude of generations past. Yes, if you do open gossip magazines you read about trophy wives and rich men with young women, but that's not the general population. I personally don't know many women who would turn down a man because he doesn't make enough money and I certainly don't know any women that are dating men because they have money.

Maybe I don't hang out with shallow enough people, I don't know. But from the way I see it, most women these days are out there in the work world and bringing in the big bucks like the men do. No, there is no equal pay yet for women and yes men do earn a lot more. But women are more independent, more ambitious (look at the number of women who put off childbirth to further their career), I just don't see that it is even neccessary for a woman to depend on a man for money. Yes in the earlier times it was, as women didn't have a real place in the workforce, but that can no longer be used as an excuse.

And just because a man has no money, in no way implies he has no ambition, so that can't be used as an excuse either. Many talented and ambitious writer, artists, social workers all have promising careers and motivation up the ying yang and yet don't make much. It would be silly to insinuate that money is important in a man because it implies he has ambition.

While some might find that women get defensive about this subject because we can not admit how truly shallow we are, I just can't agree.

Yes, I understand that looks and money can and do play major parts in our relationships. But insinuate that men won't settle for anything less than "physical perfection" in a partner and that women wouldn't give a poor man a chance is a bit too risky for me.

(BTW this is not an attack on Indy at all, for I can understand where he is coming from and his opinions are very honest, I just merely found that the comment section on his blog was too enclosed for a debate. I also know that there are people who would agree or disagree with my views, as well as Indy's, and this is why blogging can be such great fodder for argument ).

The Bad Side of Being Good

So I made Nigella Lawson's "Antioxidant Salad" today.



I cut up some yummy mango, tackled my first pomengranate (did you know it's just all seeds?), threw in some blackberries and added a splash of lime juice.

All the bright colors and the delicious taste made me agree with Ms. Lawson's testimony. I could eat this for breakfast, lunch and tea, and yes I did feel great and wholesome while eating it. The pomengranate, berries and mango are just packed with heart-disease fighting, cancer-ceasing antioxidants and I felt them surge throughout my body.

Then I felt a little sick. A bit dizzy and short of breath. And then my stomach screamed in protest. It went through me like a shot.

Fast forward to ten minutes ago. I just made myself a second bowl.

Once again, I can feel something surge through me. Kind of swirling through my veins, making my hands cold, my head float and my vision become just a tiny bit blurry.

So I just have to ask Ms. Lawson...What the Hell is in this salad?

Is it possible that I am allergic to pomengranates? Is it because I'm on a no-sugar health kick and the fruit sugar is surging through my body? Is it because I haven't eaten much today? Are antioxidants really related to marijuana?

Now I'm staring at the half-eaten bowl and too scared to eat the rest. I might just see pink elephants.

***
In related news, my health-kick might be slightly derailed. While traipsing through town today I stumbled upon these:

Yes, that's right, my mission to find Macarons in Vancouver has ended. My mission to eat them, however, has only just begun.

A Long Night in Lyon

An "anonymous" person (not so anonymous really thanks to the magic of site meters) recently commented on the "fact" that I am always drunk, and apparently slutty, therefore must be a trashy bitch. While I've had trouble with similarly "anonymous", albeit different, people in the past (women and men no doubt), I can not disagree with this new person. In fact, it makes a great intro to my next post:

Getting drunk in Lyon!

So after all of our adventures traipsing around Lyon that day, Cat and Chris had made plans for a fun night out. The Wallace...again, plus reservations at a restaurant that they had been craving all day.

The Wallace was our first stop, if only for an apertif or two...or three. The pub was already crowded, but surprisingly it was full of teenagers. The bar was a popular haunt for teens after school, made more popular by the fact that you can be 16 and drink in France. What amazed me was how well-behaved the kids were, sipping their beers and wine and having fairly intellectual conversations. Of course I drank when I was 16 too, but if we had been "allowed" to from such an age, I bet the alcohol abuse would have been a lot lower. By having a lower drinking age, these kids in the bar were taught how to drink responsibly, thus taking out an "illicit thrills" they may have gotten if it was all taboo and illegal.


Back again

The restaurant was located in "New" Lyon, which meant a semi-long trek through the streets of the city. Thanks to my comfy new pirate hooker boots and the amazing sights, the walk didn't seem that long. Oh and I'm sure the "beer" jacket helped as well.

Along the way we passed by a square which houses the Opera House. Posed stoicly in the middle of the square is a statue of a chariot, driven by racing steeds. The statue was beautifully lit and sculpted by the same guy who did the Statue of Liberty.

On closer look though, the horses seemed a bit more, erm, equipped? Glad that all the horses I've ridden don't have those horseshoes (though my old horse would have loved to get her wicked hoofs on a pair).


We finally reached the restaurant, which was perched on top of a hill (many hills in Lyon). It was a nice, "hidden treasure" sort of a place, which had an unassuming cafe/bar on the bottom. But if you looked a little further...and walked through the kitchen and up the steepest, rickitiest stairs you've ever encountered...you'll find the cutest dining room...


...with the nicest view, even in the dark of night, that looks out over the city and the other river in Lyon, the River Rhône (a major shipping artery that runs through Switzerland and France).


We started off the meal with an aperitif (yes...again) of Planter's Punch, followed by a Red Martini. And a bottle of wine. Or two. See, we didn't want to order food yet since a French couple, friends of Cat and Chris, were coming to join us, so we couldn't do much but order more wine and snack on a tasty appetizer of goat cheese. I'm not a fan of goat cheese by any means, but this fresh, gooey, warm melted goat cheese was deliciously mild and incredible spread on chewy, nutty bread. Sigh.

Sooner or later, the couple came and joined us and we dug into our meals of venison, duck and...and...dammnit, I can't remember what I ate! Too much wine at this point.


What I do remember was capping off the night with a delicious Creme Caramel (can't resist) and a generous toast with Chesnut liquer. The French sure love their Marrons (chesnuts), eaten roasted on the street, or blended with vanilla, or crammed into squishy pastries...this liquer, was sweet, heavenly and divine. But like the gorgeous Lemoncello I forgot to bring back from Italy, I forgot to smuggle a bottle of this stuff back from France. Sigh. Now I've gotta find a place in Vancouver that sells macarons AND Chesnut Liquer.


After we were considerably full and slightly soused, we walked back to...The Wallace. Yes, we had already been there twice that day, but by now it was absolutely heaving with hard-partying expats and locals alike. And then there was us, who didn't need to drink much to catch up.


Soon the dancing started, which Cat eagerly jumped into, as she flitted around the pub and talked to absolutely everybody. It seemed that the Wallace was a very small world indeed.


As for me, I did the most inane thing ever, the type of thing that when I explained it to my friend Leanne, she exclaimed, "I thought that kind of thing only happened in movies."

Yes, well sometimes I think my life should be a movie. Case in point:

I went upstairs to use the bathroom since the one downstairs meant you had to walk through the urinal. Yes, the urinal was pretty much in an alcove, wide open to the bar for all to see in wee wee glory, and the door to the stall was on the other side. Not wanting to impose on the peeing individuals, I went up the staircase to the open lounge up top.

Here was a similar set-up but with the sink open to the lounge, instead of urinals. Which meant that while you washed your hands, people in the lounge had a clear view of you. Which is what happened to me. I looked up in the mirror and could see people staring at me from behind. A bunch of guys were sitting on the couches and one or two of them kept looking my way.

As in trying to get my attention. I purposely averted my eyes from meeting theirs and kept washing my hands.

After I was done, I quickly walked past him, nose up, while one guy started to say something to me.

The nerve of these French guys, I thought to myself, so forward.

I was half-way down the stairs when I noticed I felt a little...breezy.

I put my hand to my skirt and realized I had tucked the entire back part of my skirt into my thong. No wonder the guys wanted to talk to me, they wanted to tell me that I was flashing everyone in the bar!

Mortified, I pulled my skirt out, covered my poor, exposed ass and avoided the upstairs for the rest of the night. Ross of course, thought this was all too funny.

Slightly Em-BARE ASSED?

Luckily we all had a few more drinks and I forgot all about it.



Until later as we were leaving and a French guy gestured to my bum with his buddy and laughed. And laughed...and laughed.

Sigh. Talk about making an ass of yourself.

***
Today was an oddly productive day in which I spent money I seriously can not afford to spend...all because I'm on my no-sugar, low-GI health-kick (I refuse to call it a diet), everything is so bloody expensive. Not to mention it was Capers, an organic market that charges you an arm and a leg and a torso. Why does eating well have to cost so much?

I felt pretty adventurous in the store though, especially after watching Nigella Feasts last night in which she made an "antioxidant salad." If eating the healthy stuff can make me looks as radiant and glowing as Nigella, then I am all for it.

Antioxidant Salad: Chop up mangoes, empty out a pomengranate, top with blueberries and a dash of lime juice.

I, of course, forgot to get the blueberries (I was so enraptured by the pomengrantes, I've never had one aside from the juice that's oh-so trendy now...how can fruit be fashionable?), but I'm sure a box of blackberries I got from the market for 99 cents (wooot one bargain) will make a good substitute.

I haven't made it yet but I'll let you know how it turns out. Then continuing my culinary adventure, I bought a Watermelon Radish. It's green with a pink inside and is quite sweet...still a radish though. I wanted to be blown out of this world by a radish/watermelon hybrid but it wasn't to be. I was slightly dissapointed. As I was with my Young Coconut.

Now, I thought I was buying a ready-to-eat coconut but I don't what to do with it. It may not have its shell, but it's hard as a rock and I have no idea how to get into it...is there even anything in there? So until someone kindly tells me how to get to the sweet sweet coconutyness, it's gonna sit in my fridge next to the Organic Valencia Peanut Butter and Organic Spinach Feta Hummus.

In other non-organic news, I have the new Damien Rice CD. I don't know if it's as good as "O" but it's certainly up there. Although there is one song in which he screams "Fuck you!" over and over again...and somehow makes it sound like poetry.

Oh yes, and the Golden Globes are on tonight. In some ways I actually prefer the Golden Globes since the actors and presenters get to drink at their table all night and by the time they get on the stage they are soused.

I bet Judi Dench is gonna get tanked.

Carnage

Is how I would describe last night. And this post.

It was Ross's staff Xmas party (a little too late, or early, in the season for that but no matter). There were free drinks. And free food.

The drinks were sorely needed. It's often daunting to be around people who don't you at all but know your SO very well...it reminded me a lot of being around Ross's friends and family in Scotland.

Especially since the first thing Ross's boss said to me was, "So, when is the Big Day?"

At first I didn't know what he meant by that, so he repeated himself, making a gesture to my ring finger.

Oh brother.

Ross looked like he was suffering awkwardly so I quickly said to his boss, "You mean my birthday? Not for another 11 months."

"Nice save," Ross whispered in my ear and ushered me away from him. I commented on how drunk his boss must be. "No, he's always like that," Ross admitted.

I then met all of Ross's co-workers. They came up to me by saying, "Looove the photos of your trip." I smiled and thanked them and after the 10th time it happened it began to dawn on me: What photos?

"Oh," explained Ross, "I sent a link to our vacation photos around the office." The vacation photos in which I am either wasted, hungover or flashing various body parts in them.

Oh brother.

No wonder they were so nice to me.

Hours later, after we drank and ate our way through a $4000 bar tab, a group of us decided that we hadn't had enough (even though we already tried on each other's shoes and smelled each other's feet...ah, drunken hi-jinks).


We soldiered on to a bar up the street from my house where we proceeded to swoop in just as they were doing last call. We all got two drinks and two shots each. Carnage.


The DJ was soon replaced by a Piano Man. Ross went over to him to put in a request only to be ambushed by some drunk blonde chick (not I). She asked him where he was from and as soon as he said Scotland, her accent went from Canadian to full-tilt Scottish.

"My parents are from there," she cooed, patting his hand.

"But you were born in Canada..."

"That's right," she winked and her accent grew stronger, as did the arm-stroking.

Oh brother.

Ross looked over at me for help.

"That's my girlfriend over there," Karina get over here!,he pleaded with his eyes.

She gave me a distracted look and in the Queen's English combined with a Groundskeeper Willie accent she said, "Ever so pleased to meet you."

Then, as the piano man started to play Ross's request of Great Balls of Fire, she began to drag him towards the dance floor. He broke free of her and took me over to the dance floor instead. Take that, you fake accent charlatan.

The dance floor was empty but that didn't prevent Ross from dancing and spinning me around to Jerry Lee Lewis whilst singing at the top his lungs. My earlier goal of trying to get Ross drunk was complete.


After the song was done, and the other people in the quickly emptying bar grew tired of watching us make fools of ourselves, the Piano Man came over.

Because we were at a gay bar (most bars on my street are), he made a beeline for Ross and started fawning over his accent. Then Ross introduced me with a heavily emphasized "My GIRLFRIEND."

The Piano Man looked at Ross in disbelief, "This is your girlfriend? You are a handsome man but this woman is absolutely gorgeous."

Oh brother. I don't do flattery well.

Ross smiled proudly, "I know, I -"

"No you don't," the Piano Man quickly enjected.

"Of course I do, I tell her all the-"

"But you don't appreciate it."

"Of course I do-"

They continued on like this for several minutes while I contemplated making a dash for the door. The Piano Man turned to me and said, "Men say they know, but they don't know. He doesn't know." He jabbed his finger at Ross.

Ross rolled his eyes. I smiled politely and was about to defend him but the Piano Man continued.

"Sorry, I'm a bit emotional. My boyfriend recently broke up with me...he owns this bar."

"Awww," Ross and I said in unison and were about to offer condolences but he just carried on like before.

"I may be gay, but I should know. I know these things. You are too stunning. TOO stunning. You are going to have trouble in life because of your beauty. People will hate you. You should be a reporter. No, a reporter! On TV. You know you are gorgeous, right? Men don't know anything. Yes, a reporter. Do you watch CTV? What do you mean you don't watch the news? Men don't appreciate their women, I should know. You're going to be a reporter. You want to be on Lonely Planet? Listen, I know Ian Wright. He's an idiot. It's all about good camerawork... editing, yes that's it!Do you know who Tamara Taggert is? I know her. I know these things. You know that Backstreet Boys song 'you are my fire...' I wrote that."

Ross and I exchanged a look. Oh brother.

"Listen, I thank you for your kind words but-" I began.

"How many times a day does he tell you he loves you?"

I could sense in this crazy gay man's voice that he wanted me to say never, that he wanted Ross to fail and prove that he was right, that all men were stupid, unappreciative pigs. But I answered truthfully.

"A dozen times a day," I said, looking the Piano Man straight in the eye.

At that the Piano Man looked like he wanted to cry. He held out his arms and gave us both a group hug.

"You two will make it," he cried out and then disappeared behind the bar.

Absolute carnage.

He wrote "I want it that way?"

A long day in Lyon

Glad you all enjoyed a post about Drunk College Girls, but at this rate of distractedness, I'll never get my trip postings done, so onto Lyon...and yes, it's long (nevermind that I just spent a great deal of time today detailing the history of Scottish castles in another mammoth post here).

The day didn't start out so long. Because Ross and I were so utterly exhausted from our previous longest day in the history of civilization (no exageration), we had a good sleep in until about 2 PM, where we then decided to head downstairs to the comfy living room and continue our vegetation.

After watching most of season two of The Office (BBC version, the slightly more superior one), Cat came home, happy to get off work early and show us two kids around town.


Our first stop on our wacky tour of Lyon led us one block away to their local pub, The Wallace. This was to be the first of many visits. The Wallace is owned by a boy from Glasgow whom Chris and Cat know quite well, thus we seemed to have supreme control of the bar.


The Wallace is quite unique in that it is the only bar in Lyon that is done up in a pub-like setting, albeit a Scottish pub.

And has a wicked collection of Scotch Whiskey which apparently is quite popular among the French, ranging in price from 8 Euros to over thousands of Euros.


After some fine pub-style food, we set out across the bridge towards Cat's work...



The view from here is so divine, that even Cat, who has lived here for many years, stopped to take a picture...


As you can see, the River Soane is most photogenic...


...from all angles.



Making it a dynamic backdrop...



...or urinal.

After a brief visit to Cat's work (where she works as a French to English translator...cool job if you ask me), we strolled back to the busy, narrow streets of Vieux Lyon.


Aside from its cobblestone and quaint stores, the "Old Town" also boasts hidden passageways and courtyards. They are very old and have a rich history behind them, which I will probably get into when I do Lyon properly on my other blog (I laugh in the face of history on this crass blog). This hidden courtyard features an old, winding stone staircase....


We accessed it (as well as many others) by following people who live there into the building. I'm sure we broke a lot of trespassing laws, but we had to do it in the name of curiousity. Besides, we could always play dumb tourist (I am very adept at that role).


Further along our travels we came across a patisserie (or however you spell it).


While Cat and Ross hemmed and hawed over what to get, I knew what I was after right away.


Mmmmm, delicious macarons that I kept reading about on Paris Breakfasts. They were just as good as they looked. My main mission now is to find a similar store in Vancouver...good luck with that.


My tummy filled with sugary, macarony goodness, Cat convinced us to make the journey up to St. Jean's Basilica, which is perched on the edge of a hill overlooking the city.


I wasn't exactly enthusiastic about a long journey since my poor tootsies in my evil boots were acting up and there was a pleasant cathedral right here on ground level...


But Cat insisted, and won me over with tales of a Roman Gladiator ring, so I agreed with images of Russell Crowe in my sick head. Thankfully we didn't have to walk much further since a metro took you up to the site. And when I say up, I mean straight up.


Though I've seen similar Roman amphitheatres in Spain, this one was very well-preserved, and made you feel like you were back in time with those crazy Romans...especially when you could watch a horrific battle taking place inside it.



I wasn't one for participating though (I wasn't about to take my shoe off in that frigid weather) so I just watched.


After the siblings exhausted themselves, we headed over to the basilica which is just as well because my ass was starting to freeze over. Tight jeans in cold weather isn't the best idea, but I gritted my teeth and oohed and awwed at the church as well as the awesome view from the edge.


Or at least it would have been awesome if it wasn't covered in mist and fog. Apparently on a clear day you can see all the way to Switzerland but I wasn't having any of it.


What I cared most about at this point was getting inside so I could warm my poor buns (cross but not hot). I found relief on a radiator inside an overpriced cafe.


After awhile it was time to leave, but Ross came up with a genius (if not awkward) solution to ensure my bum never went cold again...


That, combined with a quick shopping spree to get my coveted brown boots AND a steaming glass of hot wine, seemed to do the trick. I was feeling fine in no time.

As for the hot wine sold on the street, why the hell don't we have that in Canada? Do people not realize how much more enjoyable walking the streets would be if we could just get drunk and toasty at every street corner? The bums and the binners would like it too. Everybody wins!



That wasn't the end of the day in Lyon (oh no, that kept on going) but it is the end of this post.


I'm tired and want some hot wine.