Weekend in Lyon!

Time for a little backtracking! I am back in Toulouse from my week of science. Where I last left you, I was in Lyon for the weekend. I was there until Sunday, then left for Nantes on Monday, and stayed there until Friday.

So, what happened in Lyon? Quite a lot! Friday was our big Merial day. I may have mentioned last time (I've forgotten) that France is now the world HQ of the entire company, and it also has a huge R&D center, which we spent Friday visiting.  We got to meet an American DVM/PhD who now works here in France, which means it is possible! He took us on a great visit of the center, and he and another DVM/PhD gave us some really informative talks on careers with Merial and in research and industry in general. For those who are scared of the job prospects in the direct animal care aspect, research is actually a pretty lucrative career field with many interesting possibilities for travel. Generally you need a Ph.D, which is a downside if you are sick of school, but once you do, job opportunities are really out there. In simplification, research can be divided into two large groups - academia, and industry. In academia the advantage is that you have more academic freedom to research whatever you want, but on the downsides, you're constantly writing grants asking for money (which gets very frustrating, as there isn't enough to go around) and consequently earn less. In industry, you'll often do things like help towards developing new animal health products, which pays a lot more, but you also sacrifice academic freedom. So it all depends on what you want. The important thing here is that I'm glad I got to be exposed to this different side of the veterinary field - one that we don't hear much about in vet school. In short, it was an awesome visit and I'm definitely keeping this option in mind. We also got some awesome Merial swag: a canine dermatology texbook (in French, but lucky for me I can now read it ;) ), a jacket, cap, bag, and so on. Yay, free stuff! Getting the textbook home should be fun, but I'll find a way!

Friday night through Sunday we had on our own, which was fabulous because I got to visit Lyon mostly on foot from my awesome location smack-dab in the center of town. Friday night was France's national Fête de la musique, which is when every city across France puts on music acts all over town, day and night, and no matter where you turn, once you're out of earshot of one act, another one starts to come in. Not just planned acts by the city, but street performers with their guitars, restaurants hosting classy live jazz bands, DJ's on the roof of quick-stop eateries by the river, and even big salsa bands in an open square for people to listen and dance. I didn't stay out super late, but had a great time walking around and enjoying all the above-mentioned acts, even on my own. Now, some pictures:

My hotel room! With a small kitchen and very nice bath too. I enjoyed watching some French tv (which isn't typically very good, but fun nonetheless!)

Up on the 8th floor! Nice little view over the city.

 

Lyon by night. Random bunch of swans swimming around (sorry, my camera isn't great for night shots!)

 

Rooftop DJ!

Nicely lit up town square on the way back to the hotel.

All in all, a night well spent. As for Saturday and Sunday? Playing tourist was fun. Breakfast was provided every morning in the hotel, basically the delicious French equivalent of the continental breakfast. I discovered a huge outdoor food market along the river no more than two minutes from my hotel alongside the river, so lunch + dinner for both days was bought there. Cheap, delicious, and healthy! It could get a bit chaotic at times, though. But since I did so much and could be here forever writing, how about a photo highlight reel of the weekend instead? :)

Statue of Louis XIV, everyone's favorite French king!

Pickin' cheese at the market.

Who wants chicken?! :D

Not just food, but carpets too! Little hard to carry home in the suitcase, though...

A lion in Lyon...get it? Found walking through Old Lyon.

View over central Lyon from Notre Dame de Fourvière, Lyon's most famous hilltop chapel.

Fourvière. Just as beautiful inside...better be, as I had to walk up over 400 steps to get there! (and I stopped counting)

Statue of Pope John Paul II, who blessed this chapel.

On my way back down, the old Roman amphitheatre and ruins. Still used today for concerts!

Lunch among the ruins! Fresh strawberries, cherries, bread, and cheese. The next day I added sausage with goat cheese inside :)

Inside Lyon's museum of fabric and decorative arts. So luxurious!

Lyon is historically famous for its silk. I can see why.

The detail was crazy!!

Pretty silk dresses! There was so much more to the museum, including the decorative arts portion - but no pictures allowed. Essentially rooms upon rooms of how the richest French people lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. Simply mindblowing...life was good for the rich back then!

Walking back around town. Lyon sits on two rivers, the Rhone and the Saone.

 

The massive rose garden at Lyon's Parc de la Tête d'Or, the largest urban park in Europe! It was huge. Spent almost all day here.

The impressive old greenhouse, dating back to the 19th century!

This park also has a zoo! Here is there turtle rehabilitation center, where they accept pet turtles people don't want anymore so they're not dumped into the wild (where they are pretty destructive)

So many deer! There were tons of other animals; this is just one exhibit.

Back to the rose garden - over 100 varieties, and every year a contest is held for new varieties that gardeners produce. Apparently it's quite prestigious to create beautiful new varieties of rose.

Back to the park around the lake. I had lunch not too far from here!

Last but not least, baby ducks :) The park also had a pretty good zoo, with lots of baby animals!

So, that's Lyon! Lots of pictures, and I definitely took a good bit more. Thanks for reading!

Science has its perks!

Hi, friends! So the Pyrenees photos are going to have to wait for a bit; I have been super busy this week preparing for...la semaine scientifique! (The week, of science!)

What is that, exactly? Well, this is the first year Merial (the company sponsoring my internship here) has brought American students to France, and so they decided to sponsor a week and a couple days of scientific enrichment, cultural visits, good food and conviviality for the three of us who are here (and it's all FREE! Like, everything!.) I am the only student in Toulouse. the other two are in Lyon, so I took a flight there today, where we'll pass the weekend, and the coming week we'll go to Nantes. There are vet schools in both of these cities, as well as a strong research presence, but one particularly awesome thing?

Lyon is THE international headquarters for the entire Merial company! I know, right? How cool is that? We're going to visit tomorrow, so I'll let you know how that and the rest of the weekend goes. To start...I was out like a light during the plane flight due to having stayed up late the previous two nights. We're presenting the projects we're working on this coming Tuesday, entirely in French, and both myself (and my professor) have somewhat high expectations - so I worked really hard to make it as good as possible. But even then I still have a bit to work on.

I got to Lyon late afternoon, got picked up by a German lady who works for Merial in Lyon, who was returning from Belgium on a flight not long after mine (cool, eh?). We then drove into town, and I checked into my hotel before dinner. And seriously, you know I don't expect much in life when a basic hotel room to me is extremely exciting and the height of luxury. I mean, there's a tv! With cable! And a real bathtub! And a kitchenette! And a double bed! Not to mention the hotel and breakfast each day are already paid for, and I have a seventh-floor view out my window smack dab into central Lyon below. I feel like I'm living large here.

But the highlight of the night? Of course, dinner! They told us that the country director for Merial France wanted to meet us (neat!), so they took us out to a nice Lyonnais restaurant for dinner. Aside from Paris, Lyon is the gastronomy capital of France, and their food is no joke. Seriously, a four-course dinner for more than I could ever feasibly pay, plus wine, and every dish impeccably delicious. We were in heaven. Lyonnaise cuisine is known for being pretty heavy (I actually liked the foie gras I tried, which I normally detest - that's a testament of itself), and also for using plenty of parts of animals that one doesn't "normally" eat. As examples, people took dishes including various components such as pork cheek, intestine, liver, and even thymus - yes, I said thymus. And there was even fried pork fat (whaaa?) as a little appetizer. I gamely tried everything, and concluded that besides the fried fat, which was acceptable, everything was extremely tasty. You know these people know how to cook if they can make the stuff nobody wants taste good.

In true French fashion, we forecasted to arrive at 8 pm, actually got everyone there closer to 8:30, and didn't leave the restaurant until 11:30 pm, pleasantly stuffed. Excellent conversation was had, and my dishes included a salade lyonnais (with seafood and pâté), a seafood quenelle, which is a soft egg-and-breadcrumb patty thing (hard to explain...) that can be made many ways, but mine was based of crawfish (yummy!) and had a delicious creamy seafood sauce that seemed to infuse into it. Sounds weird, but is stinkin' amazing. On the side for the table to share was fried potatoes and pasta gratinois (gratinois = cheesy), with more bread and wine.

Une quenelle!

Another funny thing, we actually had three glasses per person, which as it turned out we needed. One for red wine, one for white, and one for water. Add the apéritif in there for before dinner, and much alcohol was had! Desserts, which we ordered but everyone gave each other tastes, included baba au rhum (rum cake), crème brulée (the best I've ever tried), cheeses, and an awesome cassis sorbet (a small french berry known bizarrely in English as a blackcurrant). It was a great atmosphere, and it was awesome how friendly and welcoming the Merial people were. And the other two students are very nice, and considerably braver than me for both coming to conquer France and the language barrier (both scientific and everyday language) for the first time!

That's all for the night! I've been to Lyon once before in December for the festival of lights (which may be found in an old blog post somewhere), but it'll be nice to visit during the summer. And Saturday and Sunday are completely free! So, who knows what kind of adventures are to be had? Until next time!

Busy busy!

Hi, everyone! Sorry I've been so scarce this past week or two. In general, you can safely bet that if I post a blog, I'm having a good time. If I don't post for a while, it means that I'm having an awesome time! Since my last post so many fun things have gone on. I've been busy in the lab, but also busy out and around town. I couldn't possibly recount everything in large amounts of detail without writing a book, but I'll give a little highlight reel, with little photos and a brief description. So what have I been up to?

1. Visited the Natural History Museum of Toulouse. I got asked to go by another student in my lab; there was an event going on that day where various agricultural research groups came and set up kiosks for the general public to come enjoy and ask questions at. He (the student) told me I could go around and enjoy the museum, that I was here as a guest today. So I did! The museum was amazing. An astounding, incredibly detailed wing dedicated to the tree of life, from the smallest insects to the largest animals. Also lots of cool things involving geology (minerals and volcanoes! Yay!), the environment, and ancient cultures.

Lots of pretty butterflies!

More pretty colors. This time, seashells!

Having all these owls stare at you is a touch unsettling...

A human skeleton riding a horse skeleton. Creepy, or cool? I dunno.

2. The botanical gardens of Toulouse, just outdoors next to the museum. Like the incredible catalog of the animals kingdom in the museum, this garden also houses a massive number of plant species - from Lebanese cedars to American cacti and tons of flowers. There were also peacocks (and peahens!) wandering around, and in the adjoining public park there was also a city-sponsored "martial arts day" where all the different city martial arts associations had their kiosks and demonstrations. It was quite cool. I also had a gaufre (Belgian waffle) with nutella as a snack. It was delicious. I'll cut back on the dessert once I go home.

Flowers, with the museum in the background.

 

Pretty Mr. Peacock.

Peahen!

 

I love water lilies!

Nothing too special, just a walkway :)

 

Cute kids doing a kung-fu demonstration.

Yummy!

3. Walked along the Garonne River, which was incredibly flooded due to all the recent rain. It was actually quite impressive how high the water level was, and unsurprisingly there weren't any people sitting at its edge...since on one side, the walkways along its banks were completely underwater!

The Garonne.

 

Those benches aren't normally like that...

 

Look! A black swan!

Rapids - water dumping into the river.

There was a walkway here, at one point...those signs aren't supposed to be underwater either!

4. Went to the Galeries Lafayette, the French department store...except 90% of the clothes are designer. Like, seriously designer, as in 500-euro shirts and stuff. Stuff that makes me wonder what kind of job people have that gives them this sort of insane disposable income. Of course, I resigned myself to the fact that this stuff will always be out of reach, and I bought myself a very cute, reasonably priced, store-brand scarf...with cats on it! This store also has the best view over the center of town from its top-level rooftop balcony, so I got to go up there for awhile and listen to the sounds of the city below. It was quite nice! Also, when I was hungry later that day, I sampled some Vietnamese food in a little hole in the wall restaurant downtown...had the tastiest egg rolls imaginable, too.

Hello, Toulouse!

 

Gah..so...good.

Shrimp noodle sauté! Yummy!

This one's hard to explain - street entertainer who plays the flute and sings opera. Super fun!

4. Went to the Musée des Augustins, the museum of fine arts of Toulouse. It is housed in an old abbey and was a great way to spend a Wednesday evening. It also had a cool courtyard in the center with an impressive fruit and herb garden, that made me wish I had more motivation to practice my green thumb. Seriously, all the edible plants were astounding - when in season, this garden will provide plum, cherries, grapes, figs, carrots, lettuces, artichokes, radishes, all kinds of berries, multiple species of mint, parsley, rosemary, lavender, basil...well, I couldn't possibly name them all, but I had a blast walking and examining every single plant. They were helpfully labelled, for my convenience!

The courtyard of the museum.

 

Artichoke plant! Do you know that they make blue flowers?

Part of the herb garden. Yummy!

In one of the rooms of the museum.

5. That same night, went to my first (of two) night of the Rio Loco festival. Basically, it's a big music festival in Toulouse featuring music from the Antilles (Caribbean islands) - anywhere from Haiti to Cuba, Puerto Rico to Jamaica! Incidentally, the major concert that night to kick off the festival was a very famous Jamaican reggae musician, Jimmy Cliff. If you haven't heard of him, go look up some Youtube videos or Wikipedia and enjoy! You may recognize him from the songs "I Can See Clearly Now" or "Reggae Night." Really though, reggae concerts are a ball. People are fun, relaxed, and listening to a crowd sing an English song with a French accent was quite cute. Jimmy Cliff, in addition to his band and singers, also had his two kids on stage dancing with him the entire time. It was precious! No photos - I just decided to enjoy the night!

6. Hiking in the Pyrénées! A great day hike that probably merits its own post very soon. I'll get to this one ASAP!

So as you can see, in addition to work, I'm keeping myself pretty busy lately. Until next time, thanks for reading!