Lyon - The stop before Spain

Our group managed to make it out of Zurich with our bank accounts(though injured), still intact. A few cool things that you should see/do in Zurich or Geneva:

• Cops arrest two naked men(this is definitely a must see, if only for the awkward looks on the officers faces as they try and escort the men off the premises and I'd do my best to make sure that naked person is not you I hear that foreign prisons aren't as nice.)
• Get lost - Just get off your tram at a random stop, it's a great experience trying to find your way around the city
• Pay 18 franks(about $21) for a piece of bread and coke
• See the worlds largest clock face(note: clock FACE not the world's largest clock)
• Travel 30 minutes outside of the city to see the Cern LHC(Large Hydrogen Collider)

That just about summed up the rest of our time in Switzerland. We did have the opportunity to go the the UN headquarters in Geneva which was actually really great. Only issue was we couldn't afford to go on a guided tour because it was the same price as lunch. Unfortunately, eating is a priority for me so we skipped the tour.

Now for the good stuff. We arrived in Lyon and you could immediately feel the change in attitude. Where the Swiss were cold and unwelcoming the French were warm and jovial. It was like a weird episode of the twilight zone(then again they are all weird so maybe just a regular episode). It took us a total of forty five minutes to meet up with our couch surfing hosts, which was very frustrating. Our host knew relatively little English and I knew absolutely no French so you could imagine how the phone conversation went...not well. We managed to find our host in the subway and she and her friend escorted us to her flat where we would be spending the next few days.

I would like to point out there is a significant difference between couch surfing with a 33 year old school teacher and three 21 year old students, I leave the details up to the imagination for now. The next day we decided to explore Lyon's park and let me say it was friggin awesome. The park is about 150 acres, making it the largest in France, and contains all sorts of wonderful nature related activities. There is a massive zoo in the middle, which is free, two sprawling rose gardens and a lake that would make lake Erie blush(ok maybe I'm exaggerating but it was pretty big). In total it took about three hours to explore its entirety. The whole time I was thinking why is there nothing like this in Florida, something like this brings some serious value to a community. But, I'm not a mayor so I'm probably not qualified to say that.

Tonight we stay again in Lyon and we will explore the old town tomorrow. Our train for Barcelona leaves at 4:30 and we will finally be in Spain at around 11:30. As of my writing this, we do not have a couch to rest our heads on. We'll see if we get lucky between now and 11:30.

-Also Michael left our company today he decided to head to Milan early. Our party is now down to four(Eilis, Matt, Lee, Myself)

Au Revoir,

Billy