Trilingual Day in Bourg-en-Bresse (with 2 versions of English)

Today, Lindsey, Hannah, Caroline, and I went to visit Helen who lives in Bourg-en-Bresse. Bourg, as Helen calls it, is about an hour north-east of Lyon by train. Helen lives and teaches in the Bourg area high school, but comes to visit Lyon most weekends. So we thought it would be nice to go and visit her! And for only 11 euros round-trip, it was a perfect little day trip for our long weekend:)

Once we arrived, we started off by going to see her high school (or lycee), which houses students and language assistants. The students are usually only there during the week (as they may live farther out of town), but Helen and the Spanish language assistant reside there full time in dorm rooms. The high school itself is pretty cool because it's old and has a beautiful courtyard with "whomping willow" like trees (Harry Potter reference-fyi). It also has a ton of plaques to commemorate professors and students who were involved in the French Resistance movement during WWII. Cool, non?

Then, we walked around the very cute old town area (with more wood-framed houses and trompe l'oeil paintings...can you tell which is real and which is a painting?) and went to the huge Saturday market. It was such a pleasant experience in comparison to the hussle and bussle of the large markets around Lyon or Paris. This was much less fast pace, even though it still had tons of vendors, and there were lots of stands giving free samples (which of course we tried). After a good 15-20 minutes of walking around the yummy fruits, cheeses, vegetables, meats, nuts, and flowers, we decided it was lunch time.

We went to a darling (well it was) creperie, probably owned by the man and woman serving us. The restaurant was modern on the inside, but also quaint and very clean, with a moderately priced creperie menu. We had some delicious cider and crepes sales (or real food crepes, as opposed to sugar crepes). These are made with a different type of pancake batter and filled with anything from ham and cheese to chicken and potatoes. I just had the regular old ham and cheese crepe, but it was an excellent choice:) Then for desert, I felt like I couldn't possibly continue eating, so Caroline and I split a caramel crepe. It was basically a crepe with a delicious, buttery caramel puddle on top. I kind of wish I had eaten it with a spoon. It was SO good.

And then, we just talked and talked and sat in this quaint little restaurant for 2 hours. It is amazing how long we can go just talking about the differences between American English and British English. I actually learned quite a lot about different phrases they say... for example, in American English we say to rob or bugglarize, the British say to burgle. In America, we go to the bathroom to pee, in England, they go to the loo to have a wee. In America we have fanny-packs, in England, they have bum-packs (and their fanny is not the same fanny!). In England, to say someone is speaking with a "posh" accent means that they are speaking proper English (and it isn't usually meant in a good way... as in they are Snooty and speak the Queen's English). In American English, you might hear someone say they had a wicked awesome night (well at least maybe my friends up in New England say this) or an amazing time. In British English, you might hear, "I had a dead (or right) proper night." The list goes on and on and that's why we sat and talked for 2 hours... it was a dead hilarious time ;)

We eventually left in search for the main attraction in Bourg- the 16th century monastery. On our way, we met up with the Spanish language assistant, and Helen's friend, Racine (I think that's how it's spelled) who is from Mexico. She obviously speaks Spanish and French, but not so much English (although she seemed to understand a good bit). So we mostly spoke in French from then on out (and I attempted to recall the very little Spanish I once knew... which was super hard to do with French in my head). Anyway, the monastery has a beautiful patterned roof (similar to the ones I saw in Dijon) and more wood framed work in the courtyard of the monastery. There were several modern and classical art exhibits up in the Church and the monastery (we enjoyed interpreting the modern art especially).

On our way back, we had a quick look at the Cathedral Notre-Dame in Bourg, continued comparing languages (now Spain-Spanish to Hispanic-Spanish, French, American English-British English), stopped for a quick drink (I had mango juice, yumz) and got back on the train. Our brains certainly got a work out today!

Enjoy the pictures:)

Reste cool!