We are staying in an apartment on top of a hill that is sort of the artist district… called Croix Russe (Russian Cross). Navigating down to the opera house is on a series of very narrow cobblestone streets and staircases. Everything is ridiculously beautiful and old.

We mostly wandered along the river Saune and foodsy/shopsy/outdoor marketsy areas in the vicinity. At this point I am just taking it in and taking pictures of crazy things, or familiar things in another language. At some point we stopped for a box of french strawberries called Garriguettes from the local whole foods type place… then after that made me really hungry we split a thing that was sort of like a sweet bread with praline goo on top. Yums.

Lyon is well known for it’s cuisine… and well loved if you like organs. Lots and lots of organs. I had a Salad Lyonnaise which was your basic salad with bacon and a hot poached egg on top. While eating at a cafe on the street I saw the biggest dog I have ever seen in my life.

We also headed up the hill to see Fourviere - a church on top of the largest hill in the city, which we got to by funicular. It reminded me very much of the Manitou Incline in Colorado Springs, where I lived till about 3rd grade. The inside of the church was fantastic. Every square inch of the place was covered with mosaics.

On the way back to the apartment we ran right into a… something. Someone handed us a pamphlet that about “Le Mouvement Free Tekno”, and cute boys told us that it had something to do with a peaceful protest blah blah party. They were cute so it must be true. It looked more or less like an Afterburner party or Haight Street Fair… but with cuter boys. I have some movies of this action which I’ll post sometime later.

Next up was a random brass band for I don’t know what reason. Roy mentioned something about American’s treating Europe like Disneyland… and the way things are going I have no trouble understanding why. I didn’t bother to photograph a preposterous merrygosomethingorother with spinning teacups. It reeked of SF’s pier 39.

We stopped for a quick coffee and watched them prep one of the city squares for what will be some sort of football celebration. I can’t possibly get annoyed at Raider’s or Niners fans anymore, after seeing the way these folks celebrate their favorite sport. No pictures. Had a quick coffee and rest before heading back up the hill for a real rest before dinner.

…

Roy’s friend’s Michael and Ellen arrived early evening. We are staying with them in Entrecasteaux at the house they are remodeling. Lovely, entertaining people. He’s a retired Opera producer and she is a piano player. I am told that there will be a recital at their home.

They are also foodies, so Michael picked a restaurant from the Michelin Guide: L’Alexandrin. We took a subway there, then got really lost. It took about 20 minutes to get to the place after going in several wrong directions, so I was famished when we arrived.

It was fixed price, fabulous. I was worried at first given the size of the portions… tiny but delicious mouthfuls of nearly everything… but it kept coming and coming and coming. My dinner was something like:

• An amusement of 4 things of totally unknown but tasty origin. 2 solid and 2 liquid. Yums.
• An amazing little tart of something and something else that was unidentifiable and couldn’t decide if it was fruit or meat gravy gel, but who cares. Yums.
• Mousseline with a crawfish (I think) in a super rich crawfish butter broth thing. Mousseline = a dumpling made of egg and pike that ended up putting the mouse in mousseline. Yums.
• Fennel sorbet with Chartreuse on top. Shut. Up. Really weird and really yums.
• Chicken leg in a sauce that was wonderfully tart. Yums.
• A warm goat cheese and bread course.
• A pre-dessert that was little tiny chocolate wafers and feather thin sweet things and stuff.
• A chocolate real dessert: 2 chocolate madeleines with hot goo center on one side, and a chocolate ice with a vanilla (and some weird spice like coriander?) sauce. Woof.

Dinner conversation was amusing. Michael asked what I did and I explained it to him. He sort of boggled that I get paid to do it. I sort of agreed with the statement that I canonize common sense… which is something few people have or can do.

We took a cab home. Time for bed now… it’s 1am. I am hoping to get to a wireless tomorrow morning to post some pics and these blog entries, then we have the opening of Alcina at 4pm. Evening will be repacking, then we head to Entrecasteaux the following day.