LIfe in Lyon 2

Well its about 4 days since my last post and things are looking better...i guess i am getting used to things and i have made a lot of aquaintances....we went for a trip around the city on saturday...they split up all the exchange students (about 20) into 2 groups of 10 and we were supposed to visit some places in the city and get some trophies ( e.g. a napkin from a specific cafe to indicate we have been there)....well..i was watching a movie in another guys room till 1 in the morning and ended up getting up at 11...so to cut a long story short I had a splitting headache and didnt really feel like it but this was better than staying in the room ALONE and reading...it actually turned ok..the small problem was that all the foreign students were supposed to practice their french and as you know I cant speak french...so I spoke in broken french and English and they spoke in french.....my group had 5 five girls, a brazilian guy and 3 french student 'guides' and me and of them only the girls (barring one of them) knew any english...anyway they were friendly enough.....my friend amit was in the other group...the other group had some nice people...there was a belgian girl..Evi something...apparently she plays rugby!....and Navin of course...an indian guy from singapore.....he is the only one around us who has a computer..so we hang out in his room and watch movies/friends....but he gets on our nerves sometimes...moves his hand in a flowery way, effiminate one can say hoping he does not read this post.....and tries to talk to all the girls...but he is nice and doesnt harm anyone so i guess there is nothing wrong...i just reread whatever I have written till now and I realize that I have use the word 'nice' a lot but what the hell!...in the evening both the groups had dinner together in a french restaurant..the soup was good otherwise i found it tasteless (and waaayyy too much meat but others liked it )....and after the movie some of us warched a movie in navins room...'Love Actually' it was called..a feel good movie..where all nice (again?? ) things (mostly love)happens at christmas..but more than all this i am getting to know some people here...and that makes me more confident and I finally called up Bruno, a french business associate of my father when he used to work in malaysia, he lives in lyon and is my guardian here. He said he will call me for dinner sometime ( my father tells me he is ex noblesse = nice house + decent money, maybe ), that would be nice but I am a bit anxious for the following reasons
a) the french are very polite, if i were to have dinner (set dinner with fork spoons and other such terrible implements) then i would have to be in their house for 2+ hours, I should not do something stupid
b) what can i talk about for 2+ hours?????
okay thats all for now..next post in a couple of days..

Life in Lyon 1

Well..this is my first post..I am a student from indian institute of technology madras (iitm for short) currently on an exchange program to insa-lyon, france...this afternoon i was feeling a little jobless and felt i should do something interesting..and a journal about myself is interesting ( to me at the least! but i hope you like it)..

At this moment i am sitting in the lab in the Infomatique department..thats what computer science is called here....just finished my intensive french course..5 hours..horriblement....they teach french in french..so..you can imagine..I am usually lost in class..but I do know how to say..Je n'ai pas compris..i have not understood :)....half the time i feel stupid and inadequate ....especially when the teacher looks at me and says..Compris? Understood?.....but hopefully i will get over it....other than that..over the next few days i have to decide my project.....might be in image processing...i dont know

There are about a dozen indians here...6 from indian institute of technology delhi.. J Amit (my friend from iitm, we came together) and a few other french born indians i have not met...but we are getting quite friendly with the iitd guys...

A couple of days back Amit and I went to the cathedral fouvier..its on the top of a hill and quite amazing...it was originally built in the 16th century..it has all these really ornate mosaics and statues...its the most beautiful church i have seen....we met a french priest there...who looked just like in the movies so to speak...he took some interest in us...these people are so friendly...when we told him we were hindu..he asked us if we want any material on christianity etc...but obviously..we didnt..

Okay..thats all for now..till the next post..bye