Yesterday morning I was in a rush to catch the bus, said goodbye to my host mom, and whipped open the door and said "neige!", my host mom was kinda like, "well, yeah." I had been so wrapped up in getting ready to go that I had failed to look out a window and notice that snow had fallen last night, not a lot, but enough to cover the grass and the trees. It was really exciting, because its the first I've seen thats stuck down here by the lake. Also, snow here means lots of snow up in the mountains. Everyone has been worried because the snow is really late this year, and the mountains aren't ready for us to go skiing.

After a very short school day (English and then PE, which I got let out of an hour early) I kissed my friends goodbye and and bid them "bon vacances" and got in the car with my host family to Lyon. After a little more than an hour we got to Lyon, parked in the biggest parking garage I've ever seen and hit the streets. It was great to go to Lyon, I've missed big cities, and Lyon is the second biggest in France (I think). Also, going there gave me a little of the metropolitan France of my dreams- images of big, old, ornate buildings, cathedrals, bridges, billions of cafés, and the best shopping ever. And I forgot my camera, again. For the first three and a half hours we went shopping. We went into some extremely expensive stores that you need to get buzzed into, or have the door opened by a doorman. Once you are inside, there are about three employees to every customer. And my host family actually bought things at these shops. I myself ended up with two very nice postcards. I'll be coming back when my family comes to visit me so I can get my parents to buy me things.

After shopping we went to a hotel/restaurant management school that Marion is going to apply to to take a tour and learn about it. I found it kinda interesting. Even though what Marion would eventually do would be the business side, if she goes here she'll have to learn all the menial positions so she isn't hypocritical when she is bossing them around later on in life. She'll have to learn to serve people, work the front counter, and work in the kitchen- which is something she'll struggle with, she's not a great cook. The school part we went into was set up to look like a hotel, with a front desk, restaurant, etc.

After touring the school we came home, my oldest host sister and her boyfriend are in town for Christmas. We ate raclette, a specialty of Haute-Savoie, for dinner.