Saturday in Lyon

remember steve, the korean college dropout turned physicist? well, he and 2 of his cohorts, vanessa and roberto (PhD students in FL), were going to Lyon, France on saturday and invited me with. had a lot of fun w/these folks, but didn't get to see as much as i would have liked to.

europe is like NYC. you have to walk it, and if you can't, you have to take public transport. the folks i went with opted to drive, and while it was nice to get a free ride to lyon (about an hour away), they wanted to drive EVERYWHERE. that meant driving across the river, driving down the street, etc. and anyone who's been here before knows you can't drive cuz people are crazy drivers here and parking costs an arm and a leg (assuming you find any at all). still, i wasn't in a position to complain so that's why i'm doing it here!

the other reason why driving sucked was they didn't want to get a map so i know i missed a bunch of sights and have no idea what i actually saw. so here goes!

a fountain near where we parked.

this is the theater. think i was noshing on something so the photo is a little crooked...

this is a plaza in a very busy shopping area.

this is the coolest 2-tier merry-go-round i've seen yet!

vanessa, me, and roberto walking down a street, probably laughing at someone (can't remember). successfully avoided getting my pic taken earlier in the day, but steve was sneaky. jerk. hee-hee, j/k! posting here for family in korea and cuz he already has it on his website and i think it's staying up for a while out of spite...

it's really nice by the river (think this is the Rhone, but it could be the Saone).

this is one of the anchors for one of the bridges. it's huge.

more of the river. really pretty down here.
from the bank of the river you can see the Fourviere Norte Dame Basilica. after spotting that we decided to head over. took about 40 mins in the car after getting lost and trying to park (could have easily hiked it in half the time!).

you get amazing views of the city from the Basilica. sadly, corporate america has marred the landscape of Lyon. the big tower in the middle is a Radisson hotel. what the hell?!

from here you can see the Cathedrale Saint-Jean.

the Basilica is massive. there's no other way to describe it.
inside the church it's beautiful. this place houses amazing stained glass, marble, and mozaic art.
after spending a little more time there we went back to geneva.

upon return home, i was invited out to CERN, the world's largest particle physics lab since Bush shut down the hole in TX. apparently there's a couple of restaurants w/cheap food and beer so they often just hang out there. seeing that this was likely my only chance to take a look at this place, i went. sorry no photos. just picture a gigantic fenced-in compound that stretches into france (the border runs right down the middle) with a lot of run down industrial trailers. if it weren't for the security at the gate, i would have assumed i was driving thru a bunch of abandoned warehouses. and that's just what's on top - underground is a whole other place. anyhoo, after touring the place we went to one of the restaurants for a couple of drinks. we were there maybe 10 mins, and suddenly the 4 people i was w/broke out their laptops. i got to check my email, but otherwise just sat on the patio (filled w/about 70 other ridiculously smart people who have nothing better to do on a saturday night) and tried to keep up w/their conversation (failed miserably). realized i was in the wrong place when they were talking about the "beam" coming online the following wk. star trek suddenly popped into my head so i started laughing out loud and asked "a laser beam?" to which they started laughing at ME and my apparent naivety cuz they replied very seriously, "no, a PROTON beam". then then told me that whenever a project goes online, CERN uses the same amount of energy as the entire city of geneva. if the middle of europe ever blows up, you'll know why.

excused myself shortly afterwards and took the bus back to geneva (~20 mins), and called my friend jackie. told him about my day and how i didn't want to end it w/a proton beam as the high note, so he took me to a boat party. much more my type of scene!

will post more next wk. taking off tnite to italy to run around for a bit. hopefully i make my train!