I forgot to post some new pastries! Their names were too long to remember, but basically one was a vanilla cookie with a texture similar to a macaron with sweet cream inside and powdered sugar on the outside. It sounds just like a macaron, but it wasn't. The other was basically a tiny chocolate pie without crust. YUM!
Here we have some Jamaican fellows advocating for the legalization of weed, among other cartoon characters like Betty Boop, Hello Kitty, and some fluffy pink and blue stuffed animals. That's what our Jamaican friends are good for, though.
Once again, we have Bart Simpson, mushroom man, soccer balls, and then some Jamaican women with huge grins, big lips, and crazy figures. They're probably also smoking weed.
The little girl in the pink go-cart was killing everyone else in the race. Below she's about to overtake this boy, then above she's in the lead.
I don't know how fairs work in other regions of the U.S., but in Lafayette the "Cajun Heartland State Fair" comes through every year. The carnies set up shop for one or two weekends, and then hit the road again. Well we live right under the Croix-Rousse, the northern edge of Lyon, and there has been a fair installed here for over one month. During the day it's ugly, dirty, and looks garish set against the background of historic buildings and city greenery. In fact, during the day, it looks almost deserted. People just walk around it on the way to other things, but the carnies, or whoever is in charge of it, has crammed the little booths and rides into every little niche of the big boulevard, so it's totally invasive. You can't escape it when you're within the boundaries, it's at the beginning of every side street.
One sort of humorous element of the fair is that most of the booths have wierd American themes. For example, there's a Rock and Roll ride with American flags, Elvis, a soda shop waitress, then the phrase "love machine" (hippy culture? ok, kind of a stretch...), break dance signs (90s? what?), and then Brazilian flags (not the US anymore!). There's another booth selling I don't know what called The King, another named Al Capone, some Betty Boop, some Looney Tunes, then a tiny train track with small neon green foamy cacti called VEGAS! I'm sorry, did I say Looney Tunes? I meant Planet Toons, the other, sketchier version that doesn't infringe on any copyrights. I will give them, whoever them is, credit for their haunted house. It looks much more elaborate and interesting than what we get in Lafayette. And I have to say, all of the booths are interesting at night. With the crazy lights everywhere, all of the people, and then the sketchy element that comes with the fair, it's a fascinating place to do some people watching. Tom and I haven't figured out how it's still making money because it's been here so long. I would think parents would take their kids once, maybe twice if the kids nag enough, and that's it. But there are almost always crowds at night. I don't know.
the giant tiramisu!
Above are Davide, Chiara, and another girl who I think works at the Italian Chamber of Commerce.
a giant chocolate bear!
This past weekend was the Salon du Chocolat, where some chefs made the biggest tiramisu in the world, officially certified by the Guinness Book. Our friends Chiara and Davide were there representing the Italian Chamber of Commerce, so they gave us free tickets, which was great. We were a little surprised because we thought there would be lots of free samples of chocolate since you have to pay admissions, but it was just a lot of chocolate vendors selling their chocolates. Some were inventive, like the photo above of a man who had bouquets of flowers made of candy and chocolate. They also had a demonstration going on of a man making paintings out of chocolate, but we were not so impressed by it. His paintings just looked like abstract art. The giant tiramasu was worth seeing and tasting, though. Hooray for chocolate!
We finally took a walk through some of the traboules in our area by Croix-Paquet and the Croix-Rousse, which is the northern limit of Lyon. Traboules are pedestrian passages that go through buildings and across streets through different parts of the city. They're highlighted in the tourist guides because they look like regular doors to buildings, but if you know which doors to open, they turn into long walkways through courtyards, apartment buildings, and commercial buildings to different parts of the city. Today they're often marked with a little symbol, I think a lion face, but not all are still open to the public. In our area they were originally built for silkworkers so that they could get down to the Presqu'ile, central Lyon, in a straight line without winding down the roads. They were also used in the resistance against the German occupation in World War II. There's a picture above of a giant concrete staircase that's one of the more famous traboules in our area. 
Here is their regional dish, galette, which is different from the galette in Brittany. From a distance it just looks like a pizza, but we ordered it for lunch and it's a big piece of sweet crispy bread with sugar sprinkled on top. That's it! It tastes like a sugar cookie. So our lunch was a pastry and cider. But when in Rome...
This past weekend we finally got out of the less than 10 square miles in which we've been living our lives since August. We headed out to Perouges, a well-preserved medieval town about 15 minutes outside of Lyon by train. It was our first glimpse of the French countryside since we've been here and it felt great to remember that there is a countryside. Here is a basic idea of the town layout: there's one road that runs in a circle with a fortification wall around it, then all other roads lead into the center of the circle. This central circle has two restaurants, one tourist shop, and a tree that was planted during the Revolution of 1792 to commemorate it. The fact that the tree is still there makes it pretty unique to see, also because its branches are being supported by poles that look like candy canes. Even though the town is extremely small and can be seen within 2 hours or less, it's well worth the trip out. I should also note that because we went on a Monday and this is France, it was totally dead. All of the shops were closed and there were no tourists, which is why there are hardly any people in the photos.
