38 hours in Lyon

We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to go see the final game of the Coupe du Monde Féminine de la FIFA - or Women's World Cup for us Americans. I entered the lottery back in December based on the logic of "these are the things we should be doing if we live in England." We were in the process of moving and it didn't really seem like we had that much to lose by throwing our names in.

The way the tickets worked, you enter a lottery and if you win, you buy conditional tickets: if America made it to the finals we had tickets, if not, we didn't. So we really couldn't plan anything too definite until the semi-finals were over, the Tuesday before the weekend of the final.

The one thing we did do was find an AirBnB with a generous cancellation policy, since I figured that would be the hardest last-minute thing to find. The city wasn't quite as taken over with the World Cup as I expected, but I think it was still a smart move.

As soon as the semifinals were over, we looked at train tickets. We looked at plane tickets. We looked at bus tickets. We looked at every conceivable combination of methods to get there and still only take one day off from work. (Yes, the UK does have generous vacation, but when you start work halfway through the year, already have a 10-day trip home planned and must take three days off between Christmas and New Year's per work policy, you end up with only two precious days to spare.)

Do you know how far Lyon is from Paris? It's far. If you were planning with a normal amount of lead time, it would be easier to get to Geneva and take a train to Lyon than to get to Paris and do the same.

We finally found train tickets (the next morning, after much refreshing through the night) - Nottingham to London to Lille to Lyon; on return, Lyon to Paris (change train stations) to London to Nottingham. All in it's about 8-9 hours of travel each way.

First thing we did when we arrived was head to our AirBnb. We called, we texted, we waited outside - nothing from the owner. We called AirBnB and waited on hold for 20 minutes out on the street - did I mention it was sweltering? Finally the guy came out with no help from AirBnB. In addition to not getting our messages, the apartment wasn't ready due to the last renters not returning the key properly. Ugh. He wanted us to come back in an hour so we dropped our stuff and headed to the closest eatery we could find - tacos.

If you're wondering why Lyon isn't known for their tacos, it's because they think tacos are burritos. This wasn't an isolated incident - we saw other "taco" places around town with burritos in the pictures. It was tasty, though, and took up the prescribed amount of time.

By the time we were back at the AirBnB, it was raining and we were tired, so we just stayed in.

The next day we headed to Vieux Lyon, the city's oldest district. We went to the Musée Cinéma & Miniature de Lyon, an interesting little museum filled with movie props and miniatures.

The movie props are legit; they had stuff from the Spiderman movies, Jurassic Park, Alien. The photo above is of one of their workrooms where the restore items. You can see C-3PO and a velocitapor in there. There were also lots of miniature sets used in different films.

The second part was creations by the owner of the museum. They were so detailed and amazing. I can't imagine having the patience to pull them off.

We zipped through the museum in an hour because we had plans to meet friends. We maybe could have stayed another 15-30 minutes just to not go so quickly, but we didn't feel too rushed.

We met said friends, who were from Louisiana and had planned a European trip around the World Cup. Pretty awesome that it worked out to see them, as it's been 5 or 6 years, and Lyle and I haven't hung out with anyone socially since we moved to England. (Well, he has a bit, but I haven't.) It was really, really great to hear Southern accents and catch up.

After lunch with them, we took a peek into the Saint Jean Cathedral.

14th century astronomical clock

Then we headed up to see this cathedral at the top of the city.

Nope, we didn't walk. We took a funicular (which made me think of Bunnicula every time), which is basically a trolley that goes up a hill.

That cathedral is called Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, and is apparently (??) known by the locals as the "upside-down elephant." It was very grand, especially compared to the cathedral down below.

I need to work on my photography angles for giant churches. 

Gilded everything!

I just liked this little door on the side of the church.

We didn't have much time, so we zipped through there and then headed to the Roman ruins.

Yes, yes, very interesting. (It was, we just were in a rush and trying to fit in as much as we could before the game.)

Then we walked down that giant hill and caught the tram to the game.

There were LOTS of steps to get back to the city centre.

Game time! The game was so much fun. Our seats were right behind a goal, and we were in a USA section so lots of cheering and high fives. The woman I sat next to had also been to the last Women's World Cup and was there with her two grown daughters. I loved that.

Rapinoe leaving the field!

Us, sweaty and gross but so excited!
(It looks fake, but I promise we were really excited.)

Not much else to say, except now I want to go to all the Women's World Cups! And I wish I had been a better fan of the Seattle Reign when I had the chance. I'm such a fool! (Maybe if they didn't used to play in the hell that is Seattle Center...)

On the way to the stadium on the tram, we heard multiple announcements that the last tram would run at a certain time. So after we saw the trophy presentation and everyone left the field, we high-tailed it out to get to the station. Or rather, we tried to. The French's version of crowd control was to hold us all captive on the exit ramp as the first part of the crowd got to leave. With no explanations we were all crowded on the ramp wondering what the hell was going on. It started to rain, and I'm truly surprised no one started just shoving the stadium security out of the way.

Finally we were able to leave, and we rushed to the station. We were confused about which tram to take, so we asked an attendant who, it seems, didn't speak English but answered us as though he did. "Yes," he gestured, "get on this tram" as I asked if it went to the city centre. You know where this is going - it was going the wrong way. We got off at the next stop, worried that we had missed the last tram going the right way. But we didn't, and it turned out to be a good thing we got on the wrong way because when we stopped back at the stadium station a huge crowd surged on, pushing each other out of the way for seats. And we were sitting pretty, out of harm's way.

The next day we were off early in the morning, glad to get home after an exciting but exhausting weekend. Huzzah!